Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/141

 that the sins of a nation are no more effaced by the mere lapse of time, than those of an individual; that as the sins of youth often find out the sinner, even here, in his age, and will find out every unrepenting sinner in the world to come; so too whatever nation sins against God, their sin remains written against them, until wiped out by a national repentance.

It is no idle speculation then, whether our national sin has been repented of: and surely, we cannot but answer that as restitution is in this instance possible, without restitution there can be no true repentance. The very nature of