Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/409

Rh absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon stock immigrants from probably almost all the tribes of Northern Europe. As the newer and greater Anglo-Saxon stock in Britain, America, and the British colonies is at the present time constantly absorbing into itself people of all European races, so during the centuries of its growth tribal elements were constantly becoming blended and assimilated in the old English nation.

As it was in the Old English time, so it has been more or less continuously throughout the course of our national life; streams of immigrants, now many, now few, have found in England a refuge from oppression, or homes when driven from their own lands. They have been absorbed among the people of England. Streams of colonists for more than three hundred years have gone out from our shores, and have formed new nations in the Westen and Southern hemispheres, and these, repeating the old story, have absorbed and are absorbing into the newer and greater Anglo-Saxon race immigrants from all European countries.