New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-09-25
rHE CnuRSE nF EMPLRE.


Bishop Berkeley's famous verses were nat
urally quoted by Dean Stanley in the sermon
preached by him in Boston last Sunday.
westward the course of Empire takes its
"way,v was written a century and half ago.
ave must not look eastward, we must not
"look backward now says the Dean, eff we
would know the strength of human progress
cor of Christs religion" Then he said OF
the whole Western World: owe are all, on
" The other side of the ocean and on this, the
common children of mighty nation, which
" formed the centre of the religion and civil
"ization of mankind;' and he concluded:
owe cannot repress the thought that for this
'West, beyond the West. West which even
"beyond itself looks forward to a yet far
" Their West, future vast and wonderful for
" good and evil must be in store for those
descendants Of our race to whom this mighty
Intelligence is given" There was an inn
piled kindness we do not mean TO say COM
pliment, in this selection of topic, and in
Dean SANKEY'S treatment of 1t. IL was
large and generous recognition of the position
occupied by our own country, IN relation TO the
worlds progress and evangelizatOn There Is
another view which might be taken, and was
indeed taken by our American Bishop Cox,
in sermon preached last Summer in West
minister Abbey. 1t was in the main an ample
recognition of what America owed TO England,
and an expression of gratitude and affection.
We do not think that this was overstated.
We do not think that between the English
and American peoples there need be anything
but an honest feeling of fraternity, and an
interconsciousness Of what each owes to the
world. That there has always been this good
understanding, it would be false to assert
but how very petty seems the criticism of
American manners and institutions in which
our English visitors formerly INDUCED, com
pared with the gravely religious and philo-
sophical words of Dean Stanley As we listen TO
this able and conscientious man, we wonder that
our eauanimity could ever have been disturbed
by the libels of book makers.
Dean Stanley's sermon in Boston shows how
much may be gained by n rational recogni-
ton of the relation of nations to each other
and of each to all. His was, it is true,
religious view of history and of the progress
of the human race but it applies TO the arts
of civilization, the amenities of life, and the
greatest happiness of the whole equally well.
IL includes common and universal interests.
1t comprises the happiness of great masses
of the human race. 1t exhibits in
its true light if not the absurdity at
least the unnaturalness of these feuds III
which the Western nations have engaged
and it is a hint of a greater confederation
than any which ever existed, if those who
have really an incOntrOvertible common inter
est can only be made to recognize 1t. Indeed,
these natural relations of different States con-
IL. .,F SI,aH
peace which spectators have sought TO estab
lish and which Christianity enioins
Substantially, we think that peoples are
often wiser than their governments. We do
not know precisely how Wany times, in our
own day, we have been supposed to be upon
the verge Of war with England. Perhaps it
was not through the fault of politicians upon
either side of the sea that we have escaped
such calamity. We have had many misunder-
standings, which sometimes it seemed impOs-
sible to arrange. What influence, what
power, what relation has prevented ac-
tual hOstilities Z Was it not something
in the popular mind. answering to Dean STAN
ley's theory of Western progress--a feeling
that there would be at this time of day, in n
war between England and America, a fragrant
violation of some great law regulating the
comfy and intercourse of certain nations
We have adjusted our quarrels, settled our
disputes, and compelled diplomacy by unset
fish means to accomplish pacific ends, so that
to-day war between England and America
seems to be among the political impossibihties.
Much is said of an era of good feeling between
England and America. That great and good
men like Dean Stanley have done much to
promote it, may be safely asserted.