Its troops are legion,
marching from the far distances of the past, and extending out to the
far confines of the eternal years.
7. It is the ascendant force of the future. Rightly conducted, it will
surely absorb the vigor of the world. To stand apart from it is to be
out of step with the march of nations. The processional of progress
to-day is the processional of the historic influence of the Church. What
force has there been in time gone by, which has lived and so greatly
grown for nineteen hundred years? Nations have risen, and nations have
decayed. States, once prominent, have passed into the oblivion of the
years. Plato and Pericles, Socrates and Sophocles, Philip and Alexander,
the Caesars, the Georges, and the Louis have passed away. Their
politics have passed from our following; their empires are no more. But
through these centuries of change, the Church of God has risen stronger,
more powerful year by year; stretching its arm out to the uttermost
parts of the earth; levying tribute on the islands of the sea; enlisting
all ages and conditions, and looking out over coming generations--not as
a waning, but as a growing and ever-increasing power.
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