not admitted that the devil's servants could by
right have any share in government. They were to be shut out, punished,
exiled, maimed, and burned. The devil has no servants now; only the
people have servants. There may be some mistake about a doctrine which
makes the wicked, when a majority, the mouthpiece of God against the
virtuous, but the hopes of mankind are staked on it; and if the weak
in faith sometimes quail when they see humanity floating in a shoreless
ocean, on this plank, which experience and religion long since condemned
as rotten, mistake or not, men have thus far floated better by its aid,
than the popes ever did with their prettier principle; so that it will
be a long time yet before society repents.

Whether the new President and his chief rival, Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe,
were or were not servants of the servants of God, is not material
here. Servants they were to some one. No doubt many of those who call
themselves servants of the people are no better than wolves in sheep's
clothing, or asses in lions' skins. One may see scores of them any day
in the Capitol when Congress is in session, making noisy demonstrations,
or more usefully doing nothing. A wiser generation will employ them in
manual labour; as it is, they serve only themselves. But there are
two officers, at least, whose service is real--the President and his
Secretary of the Treasury. The Hoosier Quarryman had not been a week
in Washington before he was heartily home-sick for Indiana. No
maid-of-all-work in a cheap boarding-house was ever more harassed.
Everyone conspired against him. His enemies gave him no peace. All
Washington was laughing at his blunders, and ribald sheets, published
on a Sunday, took delight in printing the new Chief Magistrate's sayings
and doings, chronicled with outrageous humour, and placed by malicious
hands where the President could not but see them. He was sensitive to
ridicule, and it mortified him to the heart to find that remarks and
acts, which to him seemed sensible enough, should be capable of such
perversion. Then he was overwhelmed with public business. It came upon
him in a deluge, and he now, in his despair, no longer tried to control
it. He let it pass over him like a wave. His mind was muddied by the
innumerable visitors to whom he had to listen. But his greatest anxiety
was the Inaugural Address which, distracted as he was, he could not
finish, although in another week it must be delivered. He was ner