"The glorious achievements of the Society are blended with the archives of universal history, identified with the civilization, learning, conversion, and prosperity of innumerable countries. She has had her alternations of adversity and triumph, she has passed through the deep shades of night as well as the bright beams of day. She has had friends — devoted and true — in every class and grade of life; she has encountered, too, the fiercest and most formidable enemies, in the same."