Protestant and Romish Nations.
About eight years ago, Roussell, a French pastor, put forth a work for the especial purpose of showing by facts the contrast as to advancement between Romish and Protestant countries. He compares, for example, Protestant Prussia with Romish Austria; Romish Flanders with Protestant Holland; the Romish with the Protestant cantons of Switzerland; and Romish South America with Protestant North America. Well, my friends, to compare Protestant with Romish lands, is only, in other words, comparing nations which have the Bible with those which are without the Bible; for the Bible, in lands under the dominion of the papal power, is to all intents and purposes a closed and unknown book. Now, this writer shows, and that, too, on the testimony of Romish witnesses, that those lands which possess the Scriptures are immeasurably beyond those which are deprived of the Scriptures, in regard to all that makes a nation, and in regard to all that makes a nation grow; in the bone, and muscle, and sinew of character, enterprise, and energy. And Rev. Baptist Noel, who has written a preface to this remarkable work, there makes this striking observation: The two nations, he says, which in knowledge, morality, and prosperity, stand at the head of the nations, are by universal acknowledgment, Great Britain and the United States. Well, then, may we thank God this day, my Christian friends, for the gift of the Bible. Well may we band ourselves together for its extension to the ends of the earth. For to man collectively, as well as to man individually, the possession of this precious book is life, liberty, and glory.—Bishop Eastburn's speech at the anniversary of the Bible society, N. Y.