We live in a period of changes. Vast revolutions amongst the leading nations, and upon a scale of perilous magnitude, have been passing for two generations; revolutions not less portentous advancing from the rear. Some are silently shaping themselves, some are steadily unrolling. Christendom has even conveyed this contagion of change to Asia, and life is stirring there among the dead bones of long-fixed custom and tradition. Prospects unknown to our fathers are for us governing speculations and occupy our daily thoughts. Other thoughts than they ever entertained rule and unconsciously direct and impel new hopes, new fears; for rich and poor alike other views prevail; a new age has succeeded; other struggles are commencing; other prizes appear in view—‘other palms are won’.

All political change, though in the result it should prove a blessing, is in the process an evil. Amid such storms and conflicts some inevitable dislocation is certain, convulsions and revolutions are possible. And for the * * * what is the appropriate preparation which will arm us against the worst—which will (prevent?) them? I waive, as not properly belonging to my theme, the redoubled influence of religious knowledge and religious graces. From that armoury of truth, we may be assured that in all emergencies alike the aids must be sought forever in a spirit of conviction that such knowledge is the paramount knowledge— that which most interests us for all contests—that which most prepares us for the issue of such contests. And this I pass, and presume as not belonging to the particular province I have chosen. What is the human preparation, I ask, for a season of change and turbulent strife? Beyond all doubt a spirit of thoughtfulness and meditation. This is that temper which best fits a generation to contend with change; and there is no absolute despair except a spirit of indifference to it.

Let us look back at the great career of revolution which has swept over us for the last fifty-six years. In 1775 began the great trans-Atlantic strife; and in direct succession from that, and indeed much accelerated by that tumult, though in no part caused, that which rushed over our heads—the unparalleled storm of the French Revolution.