istence which they have maintained against European powers. China, disenchanted of her illusions in regard to her superiority over other countries, supplicates national recognition, that she, too, may escape danger and absorption from European conquest which has been the gloomy fate of many Oriental states. Under the influence of the American idea she has consented to be a witness to the reconstruction and regeneration of her hoary civilization; and is joyfully willing that those improvements in science and art which had enabled western nations to prevail against her, should be incorporated into her social system.

The great principles on which our government rests are now firmly established and generally acknowleged, assimilating to the theory in the natural world of the planetary system, recognizing the general government as the sun of that system, and the states as political planets revolving around the common center, held in their orbits by primordial laws. Under momentum of renewed national prosperity and genial impulses, our industrial and commercial machinery is again in operation, accumulating wealth, and giving peace and plenty to the land; while our educational and moral influences are no less active in refining and elevating our development and progress, and in enabling us to realize the bolder and more exalted aims and ends of civilization.