SOME REFLECTIONS ON HOW EMPIRE CAME TO US. 



49 



would henceforward bless our country. Our prosperity just then 

 depended on combating Napoleon. 1807 was the year of the 

 Battle of Friedland, which is generally reckoned the summit of 

 Napoleon's power. From that year it began to decline. 



The following year saw the beginning of those victories in the 

 Peninsula which contributed so much to his downfall. Thus 

 Wilberforce's prophecy came true. 



The Bishop spoke about the work of the great Missionary, Living- 

 stone, extending our empire. Before the war I was much struck 

 by the fact that the great district of N.E. Rhodesia, West of Lake 

 Nyassa, came into our possession with scarcely any fighting. It was 

 the district which Livingstone spent years in exploring, and where 

 he died. The nations seemed to say, Your Livingstone explored 

 it, and therefore it is yours. As a result of the Great War almost the 

 whole of the vast areas explored by Livingstone have become 

 British, the exceptions being Portuguese West and East Africa, 

 and Manuema, west of Tanganika. 



I understood the main purport of the Bishop to be, to trace the 

 hand of God working through us. 



I have also been asked to propose a vote of thanks to Mr. Oke, 

 our Chairman, who has also just presided at the Council meeting, 

 where he is a most constant attendant ; so the service he has just 

 rendered is one of the least he does for this Institution. 



Dr. A T. ScHOFiELD sends the following remarks : " An Imperial 

 Paper — a copy of which should be sent to each of our politicians. 



" A brave Paper in daring to assert in 1921 that the Bible, not only 

 in sentiment but in history, is the corner-stone of England's greatness. 

 A Paper to be deeply thankful for in these latitudinarian days. 

 Very remarkably it echoes much of the spirit that is flooding 

 American churches to-day : that the source of their greatness is 

 from Above, and that those who honour God will be honoured 

 and blessed by Him." 



Mr. C. Fox writes : " There are two kinds of empire, though 

 both alike sadly of this fallen world (whose Lapse the daily news- 

 paper tells U9 as plainly as the Bible). Most, if not all, have 

 crumbled, like their remains, and dissolved, leaving vestigia nulla 

 retrorsum, save interred — as Nineveh — in a grave. It was but a matter 

 of time. An enduring one is, necessarily, founded upon Principles, 



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