Untitled

16 THE GREAT LONE LAND.
between outmost Whig and inmost Tory exist more opposite
extremes than between these great rival political parties of
the United States. As a drop of sea-water possesses the
properties of the entire water of the ocean, so these units of
American political controversy were microscopic representatives
of their respective parties. It was curious to remark
what a prominent pait their religious convictions played in
the war of words. The republican was a member of the
Baptist congregation ; the democrat held opinions not very
easy of description, something of a universalist and semiunitarian
tendency; these opinions became frequently intermixed
with their political jargon, forming that curious
combination of ideas which to unaccustomed ears sounds
slightly blasphemous. I recollect a very earnest American
once saying that he considered all religious, political, social,
and historical teaching should be reduced to three subjects
—the Seimon on the Mount, the Declaration of American
Independence, and the Chicago Republican Platform of 1860.
On the present occasion the Massachusetts man was a person
whose nerves were as weak as his political convictions
were strong, and the democrat being equally gifted with
strong opinions, strong nerves, and a tendency towards
strong waters, was enabled, particularly after dinner, to obtain
an easy victory over his less powerfully gifted antagonist.
In fact it was to the weakness of the latter's nervous
system that we were indebted for the pleasure of his society
on board. Eight weeks before he had been ordered by his
medical adviser to leave his wife and office in the little village
of Hyde Park to seek change and relaxation on the continent
of Europe. He was now returning to his native land filled,
he informed us, with the gloomiest forebodings. He had a
very powerful presentiment that we were never to see the
shores of America. By what agency our destruction was to