15 



And ye men of piety and devotion — ye who minister 

 as well as ye who worship at the altar of our commoQ 

 faith — come, and lend your aid to that pursuit that was 

 imposed on man in his innocence, and which he never 

 abandoned until the earth was filled with violence. Do 

 not your visions of the future destinies of our nation min- 

 gle themselves with the glories of the whole earth, at the 

 latter days, when the moral renovation of the human 

 character shall be accompanied by a like improvement in 

 the physical creation ? That glorious period, " foretold 

 by prophets, and by poets sung," we believe must be per- 

 fected by the more general prevalence of Christianity, and 

 by permitting it to influence men in their social relations 

 as well as in their individual capacities. But may it not 

 be induced by cultivating those domestic virtues and em- 

 ployments whose tendency is to soften the asperities of 

 men, and unite them in brotherly love — those occupa- 

 tions that will cause the weapons of human destruction to 

 be converted into implements of husbandry, that nations 

 may learn war no more ? Who can contemplate without 

 emotions the period, when the great human family shall 

 be scattered over the whole earth, dwelling in quiet rest- 

 ing-places, sitting each under his own vine and Jig-tree, 

 without any to moltst ? " Every valley shall he exalted, 

 and every mountain brought low,^'^ " The wilderness and 

 the solitary place shall be glad^ and the. desert shall rejoice 

 and blossom as the rose^^^ 



