If human governments and nations are, as indeed they are, a necessity in the world, they are a necessity to God as well as to men. Has anything short of Divine Omnipotence such power for good as a holy nation whose government is founded upon the principles of righteousness, and which is conducted so as to promote intelligence and righteousness among its own people and throughout the earth? To answer these questions, as they must be answered, affirmatively, means that nations no less than individuals, even more than individuals, are instruments of Divine Providence. Never before in the history of the world have the power and influence of nations, alike for evil and for good, been so manifest as they are to-day; and never before has there been a time more fitting than the present, for the profitable study of the providential mission of a nation. If men will do, when collectively organized into corporations and governments, what they will not do as individuals, and this we know to be true, it is of the highest importance that along with national consciousness there should be developed a national conscience.