If one islet only of the Southern Ocean had cast away its idols and its horrific customs, if one hamlet only of the Negro or Hottentot race had become Christian, there would have been no more place left on which the objector against missions could rest his cavils; for the problem of the conversion of the heathen would have been satisfactorily solved. But in truth, these happy and amazing revolutions have taken place with such frequency, and under so great a diversity of circumstance, and in front of so many obstacles, that instead of asking whether barbarous nations may be persuaded to forsake their cruel delusions, it may with more propriety be asked—if anything can prevent the progress of such reforms universally, where Christian zeal and wisdom perseveringly perform their part.
The relative political and commercial condition of nations at the present moment, affords several special grounds of reasoning, on which the extention of Christianity may be anticipated as a probable event. Among topics of this class may be named that of the diffusion of the English language—the language which beyond comparison with any other is spreading and running through all the earth, and which, by the commerce and enterprise of two independent and powerful states, is colonizing the shores of every sea; this language, now pouring itself over all the waste places of the earth, is the principal medium of Christian truth and feeling, and is rich in every means of Christian instruction, and is fraught with religious sentiment, in all kinds, adapted to the taste of the philosopher, the cottager, and the infant. Almost apart, therefore, from missionary labor, the spread of this language insures the spread of the religion of the Bible. The doctrine is entwined with the language, and can hardly be disjoined. If the two expansive principles of colonization and commercial enterprise, once diffused the language and religion of Greece completely around every sea known to ancient navigation, it is now much more probable that the same principles of diffusion will carry English institutions, and English opinions, into every climate.
But in calculations or speculations of this sort, merely secular as they are, much less is included than truly belongs to the question at issue. Not to assume the truth of Christianity, and not to argue on the ground of its divine excellence, and not to confide in those prospective declarations, the certainty of which has been attested beyond possibility of doubt, is not only to grope in the dark when we might walk in the light of noon, but to exclude from the working of our problem the very facts of most significance in its determination. To estimate fairly the probability of the universal triumph of true religion, a second method must be pursued, in which the existing condition of the Christian church is to be contemplated with a Christian feeling. When thus viewed it will appear that a promise of a new kind is now bursting from the bud; and the inference may confidently be drawn that "summer is nigh."