e only parallel in history that we can now recall is
the one we have used so freely in this article. It is one in which the
parallel fails chiefly in presenting stronger grounds for a permanent
disruption. Scotland struggled against a geographical necessity. She did
so under the influence of far more powerful motives than now exist at
the South. She had far less binding ties than now are still living
between us and our revolted States. A geographical necessity as vast and
potent now links the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. The struggle is
a more gigantic one, and in its fierce convulsions men's minds may well
lose their present balance, and men's hearts their calm courage.

But everlasting laws are not to be put aside. The tornadoes which sweep
the tropic seas seem for a time to reverse the course of Nature. The
waters become turbid with the sands of the ocean's bed. The air strikes
and smites down with a solid force. The heaviest stones and beams of
massy buildings fly like feathers on the blast. Vessels are found far
up on the land, with the torn stumps of trees driven through their
planking. Life and property are buried in utter ruin. But the storm
passes, the sunshine comes back into the darkened skies, and the blue
waves sparkle within their ancient limits. The awful tempest passes away
into history,--for it is God, and not man, who measures the waters in
the hollow of His hand, and sends forth and restrains the breath of the
blasting of His displeasure.

* * * * *

PANIC TERROR.

In those long-gone days when the gods of Olympus were in all their
glory, and when those gods were in the habit of disturbing the domestic
peace of worthy men, there was born unto an Arcadian nymph a son, for
whom no proper father could be found. The father was Mercury, who was a
_Dieu a bonnes fortunes_, and he did not, like some Christian gentlemen
in similar circumstances, altogether neglect his boy; for (so goes the
story) the child was "such a fright" that his mother was shocked and his
nurse ran away (Richard III. did not make a worse first appearance);
whereupon Mercury seized him, and bore him to Olympus, where he showed
him, with paternal partiality, to all the gods, who were so pleased with
the little monster that they named him _Pan_, as evidence that they were
_All_ delighted with his charming ugliness,--they being, it should seem,
as fond of hideous pets as if they had been mere morta