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AMERICA AS I FOUND IT.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE English traveller who, having crossed the Channel, steps on shore at Calais or Ostend, finds himself much more decidedly from home and removed to a foreign land than he who, having crossed the ocean, lands at New York. The identity of language, though not the only reason, is the most powerful cause of this. Sensible people, accustomed to explain themselves with perspicuity, find themselves, when using a foreign language, reduced to an incapacity, childish in appearance, and painful because of its uncertainty.

A humorist, describing his landing in France, said the ducks in the court-yard were the only things he was sure he understood, for they quacked in good broad Scotch.

The language, then, is a great point of affinity, and a wonderful convenience. But there are a thousand other points which give a home-feeling to the British visitant of the United States. Some are

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obvious and striking, and some not the less attracting, because they are among the finer chords which elude the perception of the careless observer.

Man, in whatever climate he dwells, and under whatever modifications of habit, progress, and institution he is met, still identifies himself with his race, and claims to have sprung from the same Creator's hand. Born in what zone soever, he has a mind which will do some thinking work, and will have its conjectures about the future prospects of the immortal part that he feels stir within him. His object of fear or worship may be some monster of terror, or some pleasant myth. It matters not which, for either indicates the presence of a spiritual part, which seeks a spirit to have sprung from, to trust in, to return to, when the struggle of life shall be ended.

When man is enriched by Divine revelation, and gives himself to its guidance, he has found a compass to steer by; he falls into the track that leads him safely and uniformly, and in it he meets with fellow-travellers. Introduce the light of revelation, and his vain fancies fall out of view; philosophical and painful conjecture folds its weary wing, and he reposes on that which commends itself to his mind as common sense, and to his heart as simple truth. Christianity is the electric chain which unites communities, whatever be their external diversities, and, however their mere temporal advantages may be opposed, it combines their highest interest. It pro

duces uniformity of motive, of sentiment, and action. It is the parent of peace.

This is the bond which to the British Christian renders America a second native land. Whatever he has found of holy aim and zealous effort to attach him to his home, he will find there, in a form slightly varied, but imbued with the same spirit—and thus he combines safety and improvement with travel, he finds sympathy with strangers, and enjoys confiding trust in the midst of all the gratifications arising from novelty.

Diversity of clime, complexion, manners, and even of tongue, cannot separate, if the great pulses of the heart beat in unison. A Welsh missionary from Ohio, on the platform at the Tabernacle in New York, mentioned a Welsh woman who walked often six miles to worship, though she did not understand English. The reason she gave for this was, that the name of Jesus Christ often occurred in the service, and the sound of it warmed her heart. So, people from all lands, who know Him, are united in heart, under that name which is above every name.

It would be a dull world, and not much worth exploring, were there no national and peculiar characteristics; and he is a dull traveller who only admires and approves in proportion as things resemble his home. The organ of comparison is useful when in enlarged and generous exercise, but is poor and contemptible when it leads us only to depreciate and censure. And patriotism, that generous instinct

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