The Methodist Quarterly Review

ALL the progressive stages of creation were but preparatory to its last and crowning act, the creation of man. To make ready his habitation for him, and adapt it to his physical, his intellectual, and his moral development, God patiently labored through countless ages in the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdoms-in the sea and on the land; and has left, written on the pages of the great "stone-book" of nature, the hieroglyphic records of the magnitude of his labors. All the phenomena of matter, as well as the higher wonders of life, have their only significance as they contribute to man's advancement, and are subservient to his immortal destiny. On him all nature waits; for him the winds blow and the sun shines; for him the rain falls, and the grass grows, the flowers bloom, and the birds sing. It is but natural, then, to suppose that in the laws which guide the movements of these subordinate forms of creation, we might look for indications of the uniform course and higher tendencies of humanity, that the grand choral harmony of the spheres should be attuned in unison with the grander and more harmonious movement of human progress. Science is rapidly confirming these suggestions of intuition, and conclusively demonstrating the complete harmony between *It will be seen by several allusions it contains that the present article was written while the late rebellion was in full vigor. The lamented young author did not live to witness how well his predictions of the result would be verified.-ED. FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVIII.—1

There is

the course of nature and the course of history. nothing which it reveals more plainly than the uniform tendency of all the great movements of nature westward. For example, the electric forces generated in the crust of the earth by the rays of the sun in its daily course, flow in constant streams around it from east to west, making it a vast magnet, clothing it with vegetation, sustaining its animal life, and directing the course of human activity. The very winds of heaven, also, and the waves of the ocean, that seem to sport in such wild confusion about us, obedient to the omnipotence of law, unite in one steady, ever-flowing current, both of the air and of the ocean, that swells the sails of commerce, and carries civilization to the West.

Reason would teach us that man was destined to follow this great highway, so distinctly marked out for him by the majestic movements of nature; and experience confirms the impressive lesson. History, from its first dawning in the East, has steadily held its course on toward its culmination in the West: the shadow has never gone back on that dial! When one nation after another has played out its part in the great drama-when it has personated the idea it was intended to represent in the scheme of Providence, and is no longer needed-its departing spirit ever finds its revival toward the West. Every people that has at any time represented the highest idea, that has embodied the last and best expression of humanity, has ever been found on the western border of advancing civilization. It was not, then, by the dictate of a wild fancy, but of a true inspiration, that the poet-philosopher, a century and a half ago, uttered that oft-repeated prophecy, which time has so amply fulfilled, "Westward the star of empire takes its way!"

It is easy, then, to infer that the colonization that is to be successful in planting new principles and building new empires must go forward, not backward-toward the setting, not the rising, sun. So, too, we may see that Christianity, the reanimating spirit that is to breathe new life into the dead nations of the East, and make the dry bones live again, must come to them in the course of nature and on the track of commerce and civilization; and that, therefore, the missionary effort that will yet be most effective in revivifying the vast

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The Methodist Quarterly Review, 第 26 卷；第 48 卷