Page:The Responsibilities of the American Youth.pdf/8

8 exist, rise, decay and fall for itself alone. Its existence, its rise and fall may determine the character and destiny of nations unborn; so intimately blended and interwoven are all beings and events in this world by the order and wisdom of Him who creates and sets in motion the vast and complicated machinery of the universe, and guides and controls the whole until all his plans and purposes for which all things were created, are wound up in their fulfilment.

It is declared in the holy oracles of truth, that the Most High God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and appointeth over it whomsoever he will; and history confirms the declaration. The Bible is not the only medium through which God reveals his mind and purposes to man. He has another mode by which he does this; and this is his administrative revelations; emanating from his moral government, which he exercises over this world and its destinies. And this kind of revelation, which the Bible clearly intimates, God is still communicating to the world, in a manner neither to be questioned nor mistaken. And I know of no wiser or better employment for rulers, statesmen, and all who have the interests and welfare of humanity at heart, and likewise for you, my young friends, than to examine well and peruse carefully those providential revelations of God furnished by history, that you may understand your responsibilities, and become the honored co-workers with Him for good to man, glory to God, and honor, fame and immortality to yourselves.

And now, that you may perceive the wisdom and goodness of God to all nations in general, and to us in particular—that you may perceive his wise and benevolent arrangement of all things, and how truly as well as wisely he rules over the nations of the earth—and that you may see and feel the weight and importance of your responsibility—we will propound a few questions to you, and make a few statements of a historical nature, the force and importance of which are derived from the signs of the times and the circumstances of the age in which our lot is cast.

What would now be, and what would have been the condition of millions of the human family, if America was not, or was yet, unknown to the rest of the world! But we have more questions to ask, to which is the opening and leading one. Why did