Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family | Page 3

Presbyterian clergyman, with furi-bond dilated nostril and a terrific
frown.
"You must lose Canada," said he to me one day, abruptly, "ay, and

Bermuda into the bargain."
"I think you had better round off your acquisitions with a few odd West
India Islands."
"We have stomach enough for that too."
"I hear you have been to Jerusalem."
"Yes; I went to recover my voice, which I lost; for I have one of the
largest congregations in Boston."
"But, my good friend, you breathe nothing but war and conquest."
"The fact is, war is as unavoidable as thunder and lightning; the
atmosphere must be cleared from time to time."
"Were you ever a soldier?"
"No; I was in the American navy. Many a day I was after John Bull on
the shores of Newfoundland."
"After John Bull?"
"Yes, Sir, sweating after him: I delight in energy; give me the man who
will shoulder a millstone, if need be."
"The capture of Canada, Bermuda, and a few odd West India Islands,
would certainly give scope for your energy. This would be taking the
bull by the horns."
"Swinging him by the tail, say I."
The burlesque vigour of his illustrations sometimes ran to anti-climax.
One day, he talked of something (if I recollect right, the electric
telegraph), moving with the rapidity of a flash of lightning, with a pair
of spurs clapped into it.
In spite of all this ultra-national bluster, we found him to be a very

good sort of man, having nothing of the bear but the skin, and in the
test of the quarantine arrangements, the least selfish of the party.
Another passenger was an elderly Mexican senator, who was the
essence of politeness of the good old school. Every morning he stood
smiling, hat in hand, while he inquired how each of us had slept. I shall
never forget the cholera-like contortion of horror he displayed, when
the clerical militant (poking his fun at him), declared that Texas was
within the natural boundary of the State, and that some morning they
would make a breakfast of the whole question.
One day he passed from politics to religion. "I am fond of fun," said he,
"I think it is the sign of a clear conscience. My life has been spent
among sailors. I have begun with many a blue jacket
hail-fellow-well-met in my own rough way, and have ended in weaning
him from wicked courses. None of your gloomy religion for me. When
I see a man whose religion makes him melancholy, and averse from
gaiety, I tell him his god must be my devil."
The originality of this gentleman's intellect and manners, led me
subsequently to make further inquiry; and I find one of his sermons
reported by a recent traveller, who, after stating that his oratory made a
deep impression on the congregation of the Sailors' chapel in Boston,
who sat with their eyes, ears, and mouths open, as if spell-bound in
listening to him, thus continues: "He describes a ship at sea, bound for
the port of Heaven, when the man at the head sung out, 'Rocks ahead!'
'Port the helm,' cried the mate. 'Ay, ay, sir,' was the answer; the ship
obeyed, and stood upon a tack. But in two minutes more, the lead
indicated a shoal. The man on the out-look sung out, 'Sandbreaks and
breakers ahead!' The captain was now called, and the mate gave his
opinion; but sail where they could, the lead and the eye showed nothing
but dangers all around,--sand banks, coral reefs, sunken rocks, and
dangerous coasts. The chart showed them clearly enough where the
port of Heaven lay; there was no doubt about its latitude and longitude:
but they all sung out, that it was impossible to reach it; there was no
fair way to get to it. My friends, it was the devil who blew up that
sand-bank, and sunk those rocks, and set the coral insects to work; his

object was to prevent that ship from ever getting to Heaven, to wreck it
on its way, and to make prize of the whole crew for slaves for ever. But
just as every soul was seized with consternation, and almost in despair,
a tight little schooner hove in sight; she was cruizing about, with one
Jesus, a pilot, on board. The captain hailed him, and he answered that
he knew a fair way to the port in question. He pointed out to them an
opening in the rocks, which the largest ship might beat through, with a
channel so deep, that the lead could never reach to the bottom, and the
passage was land-locked the whole way, so that the wind might veer
round to every point in the compass, and blow hurricanes from them all,
and yet it could