itants wander on the face of the land.

Is it "chance" that has worked this change? Where is the forest-covered
country and its savage race, its skin-clad warriors and their frail
coracles?

There, where the forest stood, from north to south and from east to
west, spreads a wide field of rich fertility. There, on those rivers
where the basket-boats once sailed, rise the taut spars of England's
navy. Where the rude hamlet rested on its banks in rural solitude, the
never-weary din of commerce rolls through the city of the world. The
locomotive rushes like a thunder-clap upon the rail; the steamer
ploughs against the adverse wind, and, rapid as the lightning, the
telegraph cripples time. The once savage land is the nucleus of the
arts and civilization. The nation that from time to time was
oppressed, invaded, conquered, but never subjected, still pressed
against the weight of adversity, and, as age after age rolled on, and
mightier woes and civil strife gathered upon her, still the germ of her
destiny, as it expanded, threw off her load, until she at length became
a nation envied and feared.

It was then that the powers of the world were armed against her, and
all Europe joined to tear the laurels from her crown, and fleets and
armies thronged from all points against the devoted land, and her old
enemy, the Gaul, hovered like his own eagle over the expected prey.

The thunder of the cannon shook the world, and blood tinged the waves
around the land, and war and tumult shrieked like a tempest over the
fair face of Nature; the din of battle smothered all sounds of peace,
and years passed on and thicker grew the gloom. It was then the innate
might of the old Briton roused itself to action and strained those
giant nerves which brought us victory. The struggle was past, and as
the smoke of battle cleared from the surface of the world, the flag of
England waved in triumph on the ocean, her fleets sat swan-like on the
waves, her standard floated on the strongholds of the universe, and far
and wide stretched the vast boundaries of her conquests.

Again I ask, is this the effect of "chance?" or is it the mighty will
of Omnipotence, which, choosing his instruments from the humbler ranks,
has snatched England from her lowly state, and has exalted her to be
the apostle of Christianity throughout the world?

Here lies her responsibility. The conquered nations are in her hands;
they have been subject to her for half a centur