I Have Heard A Chapter Of The Bible Read In Congress At The
Desire Of A Member, And Very Badly Read.
After which the chapter
itself and the reading of it became a subject of debate, partly
jocose and partly acrimonious.
It is a common thing for a
clergyman to change his profession and follow any other pursuit. I
know two or three gentlemen who were once in that line of life, but
have since gone into other trades. There is, I think, an
unexpressed determination on the part of the people to abandon all
reverence, and to regard religion from an altogether worldly point
of view. They are willing to have religion, as they are willing to
have laws; but they choose to make it for themselves. They do not
object to pay for it, but they like to have the handling of the
article for which they pay. As the descendants of Puritans and
other godly Protestants, they will submit to religious teaching,
but as republicans they will have no priestcraft. The French at
their revolution had the latter feeling without the former, and
were therefore consistent with themselves in abolishing all
worship. The Americans desire to do the same thing politically,
but infidelity has had no charms for them. They say their prayers,
and then seem to apologize for doing so, as though it were hardly
the act of a free and enlightened citizen, justified in ruling
himself as he pleases. All this to me is rowdy. I know no other
word by which I can so well describe it.
Nevertheless the nation is religious in its tendencies, and prone
to acknowledge the goodness of God in all things. A man there is
expected to belong to some church, and is not, I think, well looked
on if he profess that he belongs to none. He may be a
Swedenborgian, a Quaker, a Muggletonian, - anything will do, But it
is expected of him that he shall place himself under some flag, and
do his share in supporting the flag to which he belongs. This duty
is, I think, generally fulfilled.
CHAPTER XX.
FROM BOSTON TO WASHINGTON.
From Boston, on the 27th of November, my wife returned to England,
leaving me to prosecute my journey southward to Washington by
myself. I shall never forget the political feeling which prevailed
in Boston at that time, or the discussions on the subject of
Slidell and Mason, in which I felt myself bound to take a part. Up
to that period I confess that my sympathies had been strongly with
the Northern side in the general question; and so they were still,
as far as I could divest the matter of its English bearings. I
have always thought, and do think, that a war for the suppression
of the Southern rebellion could not have been avoided by the North
without an absolute loss of its political prestige. Mr. Lincoln
was elected President of the United States in the autumn of 1860,
and any steps taken by him or his party toward a peaceable solution
of the difficulties which broke out immediately on his election
must have been taken before he entered upon his office.
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