The Spiritual Improvement of the Census

The question will have occurred already, perhaps, to the minds of some who hear me, Can any similar degree of guilt attach to that numbering of our own people which is going on at this time throughout the land, from one end of it even to the other?  If, in the case of David, the measure was condemned so fearfully, and involved so signal a punishment, what are the circumstances in our own case that tend to remove from it any such reproach, and may even lead us to hope that instead of thwarting the will and pleasure of our God, we are really proceeding in conformity to it, and even promoting his purposes of grace and goodness to our land?