the field upon which the ultimate destinies of our country are to be developed? Who has failed to feel, that, much as we may boast ourselves of the growth and grandeur of these old Atlantic cities and Atlantic States, they are but specks upon the surface, --but "small seminal principles, rather than formed bodies," compared with those mighty commonwealths which are about to spring into existence beyond the mountains?

Thither are seen flocking "multitudes such as the populous North poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw." There are seen gathering men of every nation, and kindred, and language, and tribe, under the sun, to meet and mingle, and make up one mighty people. As we behold them thronging and swarming along our land-courses and watercourses, to their common destination, and as we look forward a few years to the result, we seem almost to hear again the words of the prophet of old: "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision." For, sir, that great valley of the West is to be, and now is, the valley of decision for our American future. There is to be the great struggle between the powers of Light and of Darkness. There the contest is to be waged and to be decided, whether our land shall be a land of infidelity, or of Christianity; of superstition, or of pure religion; of licentiousness, and lawlessness, and sensualism, and sin, or of morality and virtue, based, as they can alone be based, upon the truths and teachings of the Bible.

And what question is there within the whole range of human controversy which compares for a moment with this question in its importance? How do all the strifes and contentions of parties, and of nations, sink into insignificance beside it! Look at either hemisphere, and behold the mighty matters which are rocking them to their foundation! The people of Europe are setting themselves in battle array, mustering fleets and armies such as the world never witnessed, and preparing to pour out their blood and treasure like water. For what, sir? To maintain what they call the balance of power, and to arrest what they consider the aggressive strides of a colossal empire aiming at universal dominion. And our American eyes and ears are strained to the utmost to catch the first signs and sounds of

success on either side. I would not underrate the interest or importance of the issue. But what to us or what to the world, what in its ultimate influence upon human welfare, is a question as to the material, commercial, or territorial preponderance of Eastern or of Western Empires, in the other hemisphere, compared with the question, what power is to predominate, what dominion is to prevail, what moral and spiritual Empire is to be established on this wide-spread American Continent, and whether the States which are to grow up in that great valley of decision, are, or are not, hereafter to be ranked among the "Kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ"?

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Our own hemisphere, too, has at this instant its deplorable and fearful subjects of controversy and strife. But even the great issue which is again agitating our country so intensely, and which has just rendered our own city so tumultuous and full of stirs, deeply important and exciting as it is, how does it dwindle and shrink when contrasted with a question like this! Ah, Mr. President, if some North-western Ordinance, or some Missouri Compromise, or some Wilmot Proviso, could have been, or could now be, seasonably contrived and adopted, by which infidelity and immorality and the worse than African bondage of sin and Satan could be effectually excluded from the vast Territories of our Union, by which those Territories might be secured for ever for the sole occupation and possession of those freemen whom the truth makes free, and as the exclusive abode of that liberty which the great Apostle had in his mind when he declared" that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; - could such a measure be contrived and enforced, how little there would be left for us to vex and disquiet ourselves about in the schemes of ambitious and unprincipled politicians for their own selfish and sectional ends! For, sir, in the spread of a true Christianity, and in the prevalence of a pure Gospel light and Gospel love, we should have an ample guaranty, and the only one which we ever seem likely to obtain, that, in the fulness of God's own time, every bond shall be broken, every yoke loosed, and that all men shall be as free and equal in each other's eyes, as they are now in the eyes of their common Father.

And now, Mr. President, this, as I understand it, is the precise

work in which this Society, and others of a kindred character, are doing their respective and proportionate parts. To plant a Sunday school wherever there is a population, that is the object of a noble institution whose Anniversary is to be celebrated to-morrow. To place a Bible in the hands of every one who has an eye to read or a heart to understand it, that is the function of another and not less noble institution, whose Anniversary has been already commemorated. Your own province is a wider and more varied one. It is yours to supply that unspeakable want of our reading millions, a cheap, popular, attractive, purified, Christian literature. It is yours to filter, if I may so speak, the streams of that great fountain of bitter waters, as well as sweet, - the Press,· - and then to pour them out in neverceasing fulness and freshness over the land, bidding every one that thirsteth, come and drink, without money and without price. And nobly has your Society, in connection with the Parent Institution at New York, which has been so ably represented here this evening, nobly has it fulfilled the work which it has undertaken, with its Pictorial Primers, its beautiful Almanacs, its exquisite Child's Paper, its charming "Songs for the Little Ones," its Monthly Messengers, and its stories and memoirs and biographies of the Christian men, and of the Christian women too, of other days; bringing the highest attractions of genius and of art to the embellishment of a class of publications which have been too long rendered repulsive by the very coarseness and meanness of their mechanical execution; and then placing them in the hands of faithful and persevering carriers and colporteurs, who penetrate into every corner of the land, press forward on the track of the most adventurous emigration, seek out the solitary and remote, and leave no place or family or person unvisited, in their unwearied round of devoted service.

Sir, it is in this way, and in this way alone, in my humble judgment, that the moral and spiritual necessities of this vast country of ours are to be seasonably provided for and permanently supplied. It is in this way alone, in my humble judgment, that the corrupting influences of a cheap licentious literature are to be checked and counteracted. It is only from such instrumentalities and such agencies as yours that we may

hope for that general diffusion and that permanent prevalence of morality, of virtue, of religious faith, and of the fear of God in our land, which may render it possible that our free republican institutions can be maintained. I say possible, for if there be any thing written, as with a sunbeam, on the page of our manifest destiny, a manifest destiny, which, to this extent, I fully and firmly believe, it is this: that, without the influences of religion, there can be no reliance for morality or virtue; and that, without morality and virtue, there can be no reliance for Republican Liberty.

I rejoice, then, Mr. President, in all the evidences of your prosperity and success, as exhibited in the report which has been read by my reverend friend, Dr. Kirk. I rejoice to learn that your resources for the present year are larger than ever before, and that there is every reason to hope that your labors will be more abundant and your successes more signal; and I could not easily have forgiven myself, either as a Christian or a patriot, if I may pretend to either title, had I declined to accede to the request of your committee, and to offer you my humble but hearty God-speed in all your efforts for the future.

BOSTON MECHANICS AND BOSTON

PATRIOTS.

A SPEECH MADE AT THE TRIENNIAL FESTIVAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION, OCTOBER 11, 1854.

I THANK you sincerely, Mr. President, for the privilege of being present on this occasion, and for the pleasure of sitting down with the mechanics of Boston, and with their wives and daughters, at this most agreeable entertainment. I thank you, too, for the opportunity of listening to your own instructive and excellent address; and I thank you still more for the kind and complimentary manner in which my name has just been presented to the company. Sir, I am always proud to be recognized and designated as an honorary member of this Association, and the more so when I recall the circumstances under which that distinction was conferred upon me. It was in no hour of political triumph, or of personal success. On the contrary, it happened to be just after a protracted and memorable contest for a second term of the Speakership at Washington had resulted in my defeat,-it was then, that your certificate of honorary membership reached me. And, certainly, if I had needed any consolation for a most welcome escape from the confinement of that arduous and laborious post, it was abundantly administered. I would not be thought to depreciate other honors, of which I have had more than my share:

I would by no means disparage the title of an M.C., which the unmerited favor of my fellow-citizens allowed me to enjoy for a period of ten or eleven years, and in which so many others, worthier than myself, are still rejoicing. Still less would I underrate the dignity of an M.A., which it was once my good fortune to receive from a neighboring University, under the hand and seal of