ed him in notes of rapture, as they rolled
along the Atlantic, and echoed through the valley of the Mississippi. No
military procession would have heralded his way through crowded streets,
thickset with the banner and the plume, the glittering saber and the
polished bayonet. No cities would have called forth beauty and fashion,
wealth and rank, to honor him in the ballroom and theater. No states would
have escorted him from boundary to boundary, nor have sent their chief
magistrate to do him homage. No national liberality would have allotted to
him a nobleman's domain and princely treasure. No national gratitude would
have hailed him in the capitol itself, the nation's guest, because the
nation's benefactor; and have consecrated a battle ship, in memory of his
wounds and his gallantry.

Not such would have been the reception of Robert Raikes, in the land of
the Pilgrims and of Penn, of the Catholic, the Cavalier, and the Huguenot.
And who does not rejoice that it would be impossible thus to welcome this
primitive Christian, the founder of Sunday schools? His heralds would be
the preachers of the Gospel, and the eminent in piety, benevolence, and
zeal. His procession would number in its ranks the messengers of the Cross
and the disciples of the Savior, Sunday-school teachers and white-robed
scholars. The temples of the Most High would be the scenes of his triumph.
Homage and gratitude to him, would be anthems of praise and thanksgiving
to God.

Parents would honor him as more than a brother; children would reverence
him as more than a father. The faltering words of age, the firm and sober
voice of manhood, the silvery notes of youth, would bless him as a
Christian patron. The wise and the good would acknowledge him everywhere
as a national benefactor, as a patriot even to a land of strangers. He
would have come a messenger of peace to a land of peace. No images of
camps, and sieges, and battles; no agonies of the dying and the wounded;
no shouts of victory, or processions of triumph, would mingle with the
recollections of the multitude who welcomed him. They would mourn over no
common dangers, trials, and calamities; for the road of duty has been to
them the path of pleasantness, the way of peace. Their memory of the past
would be rich in gratitude to God, and love to man; their enjoyment of the
present would be a prelude to heavenly bliss; their prospects of the
future, bright and glorious as faith and hope. * * *

Su