Still, in spite of all the dross, there is a great deal of pure metal in the Japhetic movement. Underlying it all runs the doctrine that all men are sprung from the same father, and that all have had the same Redeemer; that, consequently, all are brethren, and that there should be no place among them for castes and classes, as of superior and inferior beings; that the God the Christians adore is alone omnipotent; that idolatry of all kinds ought to disappear, and that ultimately there should be but one flock and one shepherd.
These are saving truths, still held to in the main by the race of Japhet, in spite of some harsh and opposing false assertions, truths which the Catholic Church alone teaches in their purity, and which are yet destined, we hope, to make one of all mankind.
But her claims are yet far from being acknowledged by the leaders in the movement. And who are those leaders? A question all-important.
England is certainly the first and foremost. Endowed with all the characteristics of the Scandinavian race, which we shall touch upon after, deeply infused with the blood of the Danes and Northmen, she has all the indomitable energy, all the systematic grasp of mind and sternness of purpose joined to the wise spirit of compromise and conservatism of the men of the far North; she, of all nations, has inherited their great power of expansion at sea, possessing all the roving propensities of the old Vikings, and the spirit of trade, enterprise, and colonization, of those old Phoenicians of the arctic circle.
The Catholic south of Europe, Spain and Portugal, having, through causes which it is not the place to investigate here, lost their power on the ocean; the temporary maritime supremacy of Holland having passed away, because the people of that flat country were too close and narrow-minded to grasp the world for any length of time; France, the only modern rival of England as a naval power, having been compelled, owing to the revolutions of the last and the present centuries, to concentrate her whole strength on the Continent of Europe; the young giant of the West, America, being yet unable to grasp at once a vast continent and universal sway over the pathways of the ocean, England had free scope for her maritime enterprises, and she threw herself headlong into this career. Out of Europe she is incontestably the first power of the whole world. To give a better idea of the extent of her dominion, we subjoin an abridged sketch from the "History of a Hundred Years," by Cesare Cantu:
"In Europe she has colonies at Heligoland, Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Isles.
"In Africa, Bathurst, Sierra Leone, many establishments on the coast of Guinea, the islands of Mauritius, Rodrigo, Sechelles, Socotora, Ascension, St. Helena, and, most important of all, the Cape Colony.
"In Asia, where she replaced the French and Dutch, she has, besides Ceylon, an empire of 150,000,000 of people in India, the islands of Singapore and Sumatra, part of Malacca, and many establishments in China.
"In America, she is mistress of Canada, New Brunswick, and other eastern provinces; the Lucayes, Bermudas, most of the Antilles, part of Guiana, and the Falkland Isles.
"In the Southern Ocean, the greater part of Australia, Tasmania, Norfolk, Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, and many other groups of Oceanica are hers.