He had also been benefited otherwise by the experience gained on the journey. His views of life had become broadened by travel, and by the evidences of thrift and enterprise which he witnessed on his journey through the states, as well as by the possibilities of development he could forsee in the great and boundless west. He felt like a bird released from a cage after a lengthy confinement therein. He enjoyed his freedom and learned to commune with Nature as he never had done before. His knowledge of human nature had also been very materially added to since leaving his native land. There are few conditions under which human nature can be studied to better advantage than while making such a journey over sea and land as that which he had passed through. The crowding together of a large company in the hold of a ship for eight long weeks, with meagre accommodations and food generally insufficient and frequently bad, is certain to develop selfishness, impatience and irritability where these qualities exist even in latent form. His fellow passengers were actuated by the noblest motives in migrating. They had accepted the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, some of them at the sacrifice of material comforts, and most of them at the cost of friends and prestige. Some of them had been sneered at and persecuted in their native land, and had their former friends and relatives turn to be their bitter enemies, solely because of their accepting of and adhering to such an unpopular creed. They had withstood all that, and, with faith still unshaken, were willing to brave other trials and face the hardships of this long voyage and journey, and the problems incident to life in a new and wild country, to gain religious freedom, and because they regarded it as a divine requirement. But human nature, even though tempered by religious convictions, is apt to assert itself sometimes, and the helpless, dependent condition of Niels placed him in the position of a spectator, with ample opportunity to observe all that passed, and to study human nature during the voyage as he never had done before. Disputes occasionally arose among the passengers, which sometimes waxed warm and developed into angry quarrels, all of which Niels noticed but never took part in. Possibly because he was always an observer of but never a participant in these affairs, he was several times appealed to as an arbitrator, to decide between the disputants and effect a reconciliation. Without making any pretentions to judicial wisdom, he was, through strict impartiality, and tact in offering reproof without giving offense, and especially by appealing to the religious obligations of the parties to the strife, enabled to do effective work as a peace-maker, and to gain respect therefor. He couldn't refrain from indulging in a little mental philosophy on such occasions, and making note of the fact that the tongue is a dangerous member if allowed to wag too freely.