National character

Delivered as a Thanksgiving discourse, the sermon opens with gratitude for providential mercies and relief from a recent pestilence. It offers a careful definition of nation as a complex of common birth, language, territory, and citizenship, arguing that the idea of government or the State is primary. The address considers the need for size and diversity in national life, treats history as the biography of nations, and interprets national events through divine Providence, citing biblical instances where nations serve God's purposes. It closes by relating these reflections to the duties and destinies of the nation under consideration.