ver
ceased to believe that most of the Romish traditions are of the Devil;
but with waning years I have learned that the Divine mysteries are
beyond our comprehension, and that we cannot map out His purposes by any
human chart. The pure faith of your child, joined to her buoyant
elasticity,--I freely confess it,--has smoothed away the harshness of
many opinions I once held.

"Maverick, do your duty. Leave the rest to Heaven."

COMMUNICATION WITH THE PACIFIC.

It is remarkable that, while we have been fighting for national
existence, there has been a constant growth of the Republic. This is not
wholly due to the power of democratic ideas, but owing in part to the
native wealth of the country,--its virgin soil, its mineral riches. So
rapid has been the development that the maps of 1864 are obsolete in
1866. Civilization at a stride has moved a thousand miles, and taken
possession of the home of the buffalo. Miners with pick and spade are
tramping over the Rocky Mountains, exploring every ravine, digging
canals, building mills, and rearing their log cabins. The merchant, the
farmer, and the mechanic follow them. The long solitude of the centuries
is broken by mill-wheels, the buzzing of saws, the stroke of the axe,
the blow of the hammer and trowel. The stageman cracks his whip in the
passes of the mountains. The click of the telegraph and the rumbling of
the printing-press are heard at the head-waters of the Missouri, and
borne on the breezes there is the laughter of children and the sweet
music of Sabbath hymns, sung by the pioneers of civilization.

Communities do not grow by chance, but by the operation of physical
laws. Position, climate, latitude, mountains, lakes, rivers, coal, iron,
silver, and gold are forces which decree occupation, character, and the
measure of power and influence which a people shall have among the
nations. Rivers are natural highways of trade, while mountains are the
natural barriers. The Atlantic coast is open everywhere to commerce; but
on the Pacific shore, from British Columbia to Central America, the
rugged wall of the coast mountains, cloud-capped and white with snow,
rises sharp and precipitous from the sea, with but one river flowing
outward from the heart of the continent. The statesman and the political
economist who would truly cast the horoscope of our future must take
into consideration the Columbia River, its latitude, its connection with
the Missouri, the Mississippi