Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE III. " There is A River, The Streams Whereof Shall Make Glad The CITY OF GOD, THE HOLY PLACE OF THE TABERNACLES OF THE MOST High." — Psalm xlvi. 4. " riHE two things in history which preserve the reign JL of James from contempt are the translation of the Bible and the settlement of America. And I can give no better illustration of the way in which history has been written in the past, than by saying that in the two great English histories of this reign the translation of the Bible is not so much as mentioned, and that Lingard does not give a word to the planting of America. Hume only squeezes out for it a wretched page." These remarks of a recent writer remind us how easy it is to overlook the grand glories of any time, the great causes which are moving quietly forward to the accomplishment of results which shall compel the notice and admiration of the world. That to ,a mind blinded or prejudiced, the large and small affairs of kings and courts, the changes in material and political interests, are likely to be more attractive, and seem more important, than the deep principles of religion and liberty, the unobtrusive movements which immediately concern the kingdom of God. It is a happy fact in our own national history, that it can never be dissevered from its sources, — from the fear of God, the regard for truth and purity, the determination to have a free church with a free worship. Our history can never be profane,secular. He who writes of the state writes of the church. In idea, in the order of events, the State House is within the meeting-house. Men's motives and deeds are directly related to their religion. " It concerneth New England always to remember," said the venerable Higginson of Salem, " that they are originally a plantation religious, not a plantat...