ABSTRACT
Our last night on the American Continent was hot and oppressive. I lay awake hour after hour, thinking over the strange fate that had befallen our country, and forecasting the destinies of the little remnant of which I was leader. America was become a geographical expression. Her amazing wealth and fame were no more: –
“Fuit Ilium, et ingens gloria Teucrorum.”
But even as these sad words crossed my mind there came by way of contrast and consolation others more cheering: –“The remnant that is escaped shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.”
So was it written of the old House of Judah, and was it not possible that after a more complete and terrible uprooting our national vine might have a still more glorious renewal than they? As I pondered these things and thought how we were about to commit the whole population of a continent to three frail undermanned ships, I trembled at the responsibility laid up on me. Might it not be (for we knew not what had happened in Europe and elsewhere) that we were risking the whole hope of the human race, or at least the sole remnants of its highest types, upon the chances of a single voyage, and exposing the whole stock of that inestimable plant, mankind, to the risk of destruction by fire or ship, wreck? Well at least if this were so there would be none left to blame my rashness. But indeed I felt we were in the hands of Providence. In Faith, like the Egyptian sower of old, I would cast my corn upon the waters, trusting to find it increased and multiplied after many days.