Page:The Jubilee, or what I heard and saw in London.djvu/10

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THE JUBILEE; OR,

nexion with Christian principles? "God hath made of one blood all nations for to dwell upon the face of the whole earth." At the period of the Nativity of the Divine Author of Christianity, angelic hosts exclaimed, "Peace on earth: good will to men." Nor is there any good reason to believe that peace can be firmly and permanently established among nations, excepting on the safe foundation of Christian truth.

For my own part, if I was attracted to London by the Great Exhibition of 1851, I was much more powerfully drawn to the metropolis by the expected services in "Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's at the close of the Jubilee Tear in 1852. I had acted for many years as a missionary in the western world, while the American Church was in a state of great feebleness compared with its present attitude. I knew that, during the ten years which had elapsed since I left America, that Church had nearly doubled its bishops, its clergy, and its laity; and I was particularly desirous of seeing the blessed spectacle of English, American, Scottish, and Colonial Bishops uniting in worship and in the expression of a common faith within the time-honoured walls of the glorious Abbey Church of Westminster.

Away then from the Wiltshire Downs: away from the shepherds and the flocks, and from old Stonehenge, that monument of primæval adoration and superstition. A few short hours, and, thanks to the mighty power of steam, I am in the midst of London, and hear on every side the ceaseless din of the metropolis of the world.

But, amidst the multiplicity of surrounding objects,