Page:The Responsibilities of the American Youth.pdf/11

Rh And now we come to the consideration of another most important class of facts, unfolded in the government of God in the world, and which we will lay before you, and for the same reason for which we have placed before you all we have stated, that you may see the extent and character of your responsibilities, and the responsibilities that rest upon every one bearing the American name. The class of facts to which we call your minds is, that since nations and empires began their march on the field of time, the van of that march, for a certain period, has been led by some one nations pre-eminent and distinguished above all others, until it had finished its mission and completed the work assigned it by Him who employs nations as well as men to do his will; then it was overthrown and destroyed, either by external violence or internal corruption, often by both, and its place supplied by another; which, having fulfilled its destiny, was in turn removed, and another succeeded to be the head and front in the grand march of empires. Thus has it ever been; every age or period of ages has had its leading and prominent nation. And though a rivalship has often existed between two distinguished nations, each striving for the supremacy; yet, in the end, the one has had always to yield to the power of the other.

Another fact equally interesting and important to us is, that this march of empires has ever been westward, or rather that supremacy of which we have been speaking, and which has always internalized itself in one particular nation for a period of time, has ever successively tended westward; and what is still worthy of more consideration, its every advancement has been distinguished by an increase of all those things that contribute to man’s improvement, exaltation and happiness—individual, social and natural, intellectual, moral, political and religious. Babylon and Nineveh, having reached the zenith of their power, glory and fame, gave place to Greece, the birth-place of our science and literature. Greece being consolidated under the Macedonian empire by Alexander, and having finished her destiny, gave place to Rome, which for a time led and lorded it over the rest of the world; and under the providence of God, having done the world more good than evil, was at last swept away by the Gothic and Vandalic inundation. And out of the broken and scattered