The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

GRANDEUR OF BRITAIN. 493US in wealth. In all points we were inferior to the greatpowers on the Continent, save in one, our Protestantism.Since that period Britain has pursued a career unexampledin the history of nations. Canada has become ours. TheMogul empire has fallen under our sway. We have calledhitherto unknown continents and islands from out the Pacific,and are peopling them with our race and our language,ruling them with our institutions and our laws, and enrichingthem with our commerce, our science, and our faith.Thus the chain of our power encircles the globe. We havebecome the mother of nations. During the same period wehave made rapid progress in scientific discovery, and intheimprovement of the arts, perfecting those already known,and summoning to our service new and extraordinary elementsof power. Our commercial enterprise and monetarypower have also experienced prodigious expansion. Thus,in the short space of a single century, from being but a second-ratestate, whose language, laws, and influence scarcelyextended beyond theshores of our island, overshadowed bythe great continental kingdoms of Europe, we have risen, inpoint of population, extent of territory, and real power, to apitch of gi'eatness which is threefold that of imperial R-orae.And, we must add likewise, that, though not blind to ourshortcomings and sins as a nation, no candid and well-informedman will deny, that during the past century we havemade great advances in the theory of liberty, and in theprinciples and practice of vital godliness ; while abroad, wehave been making, not so great efforts as we ought to havemade, but greater than any nation ever before made, todiffuse the Bible and the gospel throughout the habitableglobe. " Happy people the English !" was the exclamationof M. E. de Girardin, at a peace-meeting lately held inLondon. " Happy people the English ! ever advancing intheir onward course, while so many other nations progressonly to retrograde." There never was seen on earth sosublime a spectacle as Britain at this moment presents.