Page:The future of Africa.djvu/69

Rh ligion, of intellect, and power; they have vanished and departed. But still their spirit remains; for that spirit forms the elements of our faith, of our culture, and of our national rule and State polity. The religion which we profess, the modes of reasoning we adopt, the intellectual methods we employ, the elements of our youthful instruction, our modes of government, the authority and the forms of law, the simplest types of architecture, and some of the commonest modes of manners and refinement, all link the present with the past, and clearly show the unity of the race. The race, in the aggregate, is to go forward and upward. This is the destiny which God has incorporated in the very elements of our moral being. The failure of this type, or the destruction of that form, is no prevention of nature's upward reaching. They are as the falling of the leaves in a foreign autumn, in consequence of which, in spring-time, the forest appears, apparelled in beauty, and gorgeously laden with masses of foliage. And to this advancement all the sections of the race are to add their contributions, and to send in their quota of gift and influence. And thus we see that all the preceding generations of mankind, and all the various nations, have lived for every successive generation, and all have been the workers for, and the benefactors of, this age in which we live, and of this land which we call our country and our home. And so there is no isolation; no absolute disseverance of individual nations; for blood and lineage, and ancient manners, and religion, and letters, all tend to combine nation-