Vohime F/] Janum-y, igoi _ Number 2 THE SIFTED GRAIN AND THE GRAIN SIFTERS' ON occasions such as this, a text upon which to discourse is not usual ; I propose to venture an exception to the rule. I shall, moreover, offer not one text only, but two ; taken, the first, from a discourse prepared in the full theological faith of the seven- teenth century, the other from the most far-reaching scientific pub- lication of the century now drawing to its close. " God sifted a whole Nation that He might send choice Grain over into this Wilderness," said William Stoughton in the election sermon preached according to custom before the Great and Gen- eral Court of Massachusetts in April, 1668. To the same effect Charles Darwin wrote in 1871 : "There is apparently much truth in the belief that the wonderful progress of the United States, as well as the character of the people, are the results of natural selec- tion ; for the more energetic, restless and courageous men from all parts of Europe have emigrated during the last ten or twelve gen- erations to that great country and have there succeeded best ; " and the quiet, epoch-marking, creed-shaking naturalist then goes on to express this startling judgment, which, uttered by an American, would have been deemed the very superlative of national vanity : — " Looking to the distant future, I do not think [it] an exagger- ated view [to say that] all other series of events — as that which resulted in the culture of mind in Greece, and that which resulted in the Empire of Rome — only appear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with, or rather as subsidiary to, the great stream of Anglo-Saxon emigration to the West." "- Such are my texts ; but, while I propose to preach from them largely and to them in a degree, I am not here to try to instruct 1 An Address at the Dedication of the Building of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison, October 19, I900. » The Dtscent of Man (ed. 1874), II. 218, 219. VOL. VI. — 14, ( 197 ) •
