Excerpt from The Progress and Prospects of Christianity in the United States of America: With Remarks on the Subject of Slavery in America; And on the Intercourse Between British and American Churches

A part of the Atlantic coast of the continent of North America was discovered by the Cabots, John and Sebastian, father and son, (the for mer a native of Venice, the latter of England, who reached it on the 24th of June, in the year 1497. By this event a very large and impor tant part of that continent was secured to a country which, within less than half a century, was to throw off the chains of Rome, and to become, in due time, the most powerful of all Protestant king doms. It was in this manner that He who hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habita tion, had resolved to prepare a place to which, in ages then drawing near, those who should be persecuted for Christ's sake might flee and find protection, and thus to form a great Protestant nation. And yet how near, if we may so speak, was this vast plan to being defeated! Had De Soto, when he sailed from Cuba, a year or two earlier, turned his prow' to the east of the peninsula of Florida, instead of the west, he would have discovered the Atlantic coast of what is now the United States, and that great country might have had a Spanish in stead of an anglo-saxon, - a Roman Catholic, instead of a Protestant, - population. It is said that a very trifling circumstance decided him But all was ordered by that Being who knows how to make the most insignificant as well as the greatest occurrences subserve His glorious purposes.

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