THE DESCENT OF BAD TRAITS AND GOOD. 249 



the hour has come for the American scholars at 

 Beirut, and in Robert College on the Bosphorus, to 

 arise and shine ? I know how Russia drove all mis- 

 sionaries from her borders in 1846. If the slightest 

 peril of extinction by Russia is to encompass Robert 

 College at Constantinople, and the great American 

 institutions at Beirut, there is no American scholar, 

 to say nothing of American divines, there is no 

 American patriot, that will not feel himself wounded 

 in a cause greater than any American, English, or 

 Russian interest. The time seems to have come for 

 serious thought on this side of the Atlantic to ex- 

 press itself vigorously against any repetition of the 

 precedent of 1846, by which Russia drove all teach- 

 ers of a faith other than her own outside of her bor- 

 ders. [Applause.] 1878 is not 1846 ; and that fact 

 must be recognized in the Russian calendar, as it is 

 in the English and American. [Applause.] 



One thousand years ago, when, according to the 

 testimony of Brj-ant, the Norse shallops were sailing 

 up Massachusetts Bay, the Russians occupied only 

 an insignificant province near the head-waters of the 

 Dnieper. To-day they govern one-seventh part of 

 The continental portion of the globe. What are the 

 causes which have produced the expansion of Russia? 

 A very difficult question ; and yet recent information 

 given us by Wallace, and by our own statesman mis- 

 sionary Hamlin, and by many official documents, 

 may enable us to guess why Russia has expanded so 

 rapidly. One of the causes accounting for her growth 

 is agricultural necessity. Her peasants are not farm- 



