in its evolution has aroused itself to the necessity of carrying its life—­that has been the happiness of those under its influence—­beyond the borders which heretofore have sufficed for its activities.  That the vaunted blessings of our economy are not to be forced upon the unwilling may be conceded; but the concession does not deny the right nor the wisdom of gathering in those who wish to come.  Comparative religion teaches that creeds which reject missionary enterprise are foredoomed to decay.  May it not be so with nations?  Certainly the glorious record of England is consequent mainly upon the spirit, and traceable to the time, when she launched out into the deep—­without formulated policy, it is true, or foreseeing the future to which her star was leading, but obeying the instinct which in the infancy of nations anticipates the more reasoned impulses of experience.  Let us, too, learn from her experience.  Not all at once did England become the great sea power which she is, but step by step, as opportunity offered, she has moved on to the world-wide pre-eminence now held by English speech, and by institutions sprung from English germs.  How much poorer would the world have been, had Englishmen heeded the cautious hesitancy that now bids us reject every advance beyond our shore-lines!  And can any one doubt that a cordial, if unformulated, understanding between the two chief states of English tradition, to spread freely, without mutual jealousy and in mutual support, would increase greatly the world’s sum of happiness?

But if a plea of the world’s welfare seem suspiciously like a cloak for national self-interest, let the latter be accepted frankly as the adequate motive which it assuredly is.  Let us not shrink from pitting a broad self-interest against the narrow self-interest to which some would restrict us.  The demands of our three great seaboards, the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific,—­each for itself, and all for the strength that comes from drawing closer the ties between them,—­are calling for the extension, through the Isthmian Canal, of that broad sea common along which, and along which alone, in all the ages prosperity has moved.  Land carriage, always restricted and therefore always slow, toils enviously but hopelessly behind, vainly seeking to replace and supplant the royal highway of nature’s own making.  Corporate interests, vigorous in that power of concentration which is the strength of armies and of minorities, may here withstand for a while the ill-organized strivings of the multitude, only dimly conscious of its wants; yet the latter, however temporarily opposed and baffled, is sure at last, like the blind forces of nature, to overwhelm all that stand in the way of its necessary progress.  So the Isthmian Canal is an inevitable part in the future of the United States; yet one that cannot be separated from other necessary incidents of a policy dependent upon it, whose details cannot be foreseen exactly.  But because the precise steps that hereafter