But, indeed, are not the histories of nations, and revolutions themselves, even the grandest, but fragments of those greater orbits of which we scarcely, even in centuries, can trace the movement? Is it any wonder then that national histories as well as personal should often seem tragical? As now, alas, to us! poor tempest-tossed fragments of the ship's company which we deemed should have brought home the argosies for ages to come, driven to these untrodden far off shores; whilst to England, instead of the golden fleece of peace and liberty, our enterprise may seem but to have brought a tyranny more cruel and a court more corrupt. Yet may there be something in the future which, to those who look back, will explain all! For England; and perhaps even for these wild shores which we fondly call New England! Can it be possible that we have won the Golden Fleece, and have brought it hither? There is something, moreover, in having lived in times of storm. The temperature is raised at such times; all life is keener, colour more vivid, and growth more rapid. A nation in revolution is, in more ways than one, like a ship in a storm. The dividing barriers of selfishness are dissolved for a time into a common passion of patriotic hope, purpose, and endeavour. We feel our common humanity in our common throbs of hope and fear, in our common efforts for deliverance. And we are (or ought to be) nobler, and more large of heart for ever afterwards. And I think the greater part are. Perhaps, in some measure, all; unless, indeed, it be the ship's cats, who, no doubt, privately pursue the ship's mice with undeviating purpose through the raging of winds and waves, and look on the strife of the elements as a providential arrangement to enable them to fulfil their mousing destinies with less interruption. And what such times of revolution do for a nation, ought not Christianity, the great perpetual revolution, to do for us always? The great hindrance seems to me to be, that it is so much easier to be partizans than patriots, whether in the Church or State. If men would do for the country what they do for the party, what a country we should have! If Christians would do for the Church what they do for their sect, what a world we should have! For a quarter of a century, from the signing of the Covenant in the High Kirk of Edinburgh, the long struggle went on. Nor has it ceased yet, though the combatants have changed, and the battle-field.