Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/394

Rh millions of population; on the great river, the banks of which already swarm with multitudes of European people; from Minnesota, still the wild abode of the Indian tribes; from the Falls of St. Anthony, where commences the career of the river in the north, to its midmost region by the Missouri and the Ohio; and am now about to follow its course to its outlet into the Mexican Gulf, the realm of the sugar-cane and perpetual summer.

And whilst I am resting here on the banks of the beautiful river, Ohio, like the wearied dove on the olive-branch, in one of those beautiful, peaceful homes, which everywhere on my journeyings through America, have opened themselves to me and afforded me the repose of a mother's home, repose, peace, love, cheerfulness, and renewed strength—I will converse with you, you my spirit's and my mind's best friend, found late but for eternity. Ah! but even now I can merely speak a few words to you, give you a few fragments of that which I have experienced and learned, and which I still experience and learn in this New World. But you will understand what I can merely imperfectly indicate; you will follow still farther through the labyrinth the thread which I lay in your hand.

You know that I did not come to America to seek for a new object, but to establish a new hope. Whilst one portion of the people of Europe, after a struggle for light and freedom, which, in part mistook its own purpose, and not clearly knowing that which it desired, seemed (perhaps merely seemed) to sink back again under a despotism which knew better what it aimed at, obtaining for a time the power of might; in that gloomy season my soul raised itself in deep faith and love towards that distant land, where the people erected the banner of human freedom, declared the human right and ability to govern themselves, and on this right founded a monarchy of states—the commencement of the world's greatest governmental culture.