Vili.] CONCLUSION. «37 redeemed at all, or is that part of the aspiration of the Christian Church and of social philanthropists to be a vain dream ? Is the task of empires to conquer or to colonise ; the task of colonies to extirpate or to develope ? Is a commercial or a military policy the surest agent of civilisation ? Can a worn-out nation be revived and refreshed and recruited by a bracing treatment ? can it be revived at all ? Does the difference between European and Asiatic history consist in the vitality of the historic nations in Europe and the inexhaustibleness of the hive in Asia ? If not, how is Europe to treat Asia, so that the march of civilisation may affect the lands in which the stream of history seems to have long been stayed ? if it is so, how shall the East be rescued from the successive waves of barbarism which may be now impending, and how kept alive when those successive impulses are exhausted ? Small as our subject was, it was a part of that which touches all, the world's government and the long patience of Providence. ' And I said, it is mine own infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most Highest.'