indication of the
ideas these bring with them, in their own utterances, or in the spirit
of the world at large, which they must needs reflect; or, more
important perhaps still, is there any indication in the conditions of
the outside world itself which they should heed, and the influence of
which they should admit, in modifying and shaping their policies,
before these have become hardened into fixed lines, directive for many
years of the future welfare of their people?

To all these questions the writer, as one of the departing generation,
would answer yes; but it is to the last that his attention, possibly
by constitutional bias, is more naturally directed. It appears to him
that in the ebb and flow of human affairs, under those mysterious
impulses the origin of which is sought by some in a personal
Providence, by some in laws not yet fully understood, we stand at the
opening of a period when the question is to be settled decisively,
though the issue may be long delayed, whether Eastern or Western
civilization is to dominate throughout the earth and to control its
future. The great task now before the world of civilized Christianity,
its great mission, which it must fulfil or perish, is to receive into
its own bosom and raise to its own ideals those ancient and different
civilizations by which it is surrounded and outnumbered,--the
civilizations at the head of which stand China, India, and Japan.
This, to cite the most striking of the many forms in which it is
presented to us, is surely the mission which Great Britain, sword ever
at hand, has been discharging towards India; but that stands not
alone. The history of the present century has been that of a constant
increasing pressure of our own civilization upon these older ones,
till now, as we cast our eyes in any direction, there is everywhere a
stirring, a rousing from sleep, drowsy for the most part, but real,
unorganized as yet, but conscious that that which rudely interrupts
their dream of centuries possesses over them at least two
advantages,--power and material prosperity,--the things which
unspiritual humanity, the world over, most craves.

What the ultimate result will be it would be vain to prophesy,--the
data for a guess even are not at hand; but it is not equally
impossible to note present conditions, and to suggest present
considerations, which may shape proximate action, and tend to favor
the preponderance of that form of civilization which we cannot bu