Manifest Destiny in the West [pp. 148-159]

AMANIFEST DESTINY IN THE WEST.
garments, glides in as noiselessly as a
ghost, and lights the candles before the
altar. Trinita di Monte is a convent
church, belonging to the Sisters of the
Sacred Heart. Their pupils come in
two by two, bow before the altar, and
are seated in silence. The Sisters, in
their turn, follow, All these are separated from us by a high iron fence dividing the church laterally. Afterward the
priests appear and prostrate themselves
before the cross. As they kneel in the
gathering gloom, the organ in the gallery
begins a low prelude. Then a woman's
voice rises from the curtained choir, in a
strain so pure in tone, so sweet and so
spiritual in melody and rhythm, that it
steals upon us as the echo of a far-off
angel song. There are no labored flights,
no sudden transitions, no trills or quavers, or other vocal tricks; but the melody flows as smoothly, as unaffectedly,
and as pure as a baby's dream. When
it has ceased, the priests kneeling in the
chancel respond in rougher but subdued
voices. Back from chancel to organ
loft the antiphon is passed; then the
chancel takes up the strain anew; and
we sit listening to this double monologue
of earth and heaven, wherein each is
meditating upon the love of God, thought
answering thought, praise following
praise. Meanwhile the shadows are
deepening in chancel, chapels, and choir.
The lamps before the shrines burn softly, surrounding themselves with a miniature halo. Now a few rays of crimson
light, thrown level from the setting sun,
rest high up upon a pillar here and there,
like messengers from heaven about to
bear away the prayers of saints. They
tremble a moment over painting and
statue, kissing farewell to the beatified
guardians of the place; then move upward noiselessly, and are gone. The
light dies out; the sorg floats still more
faintly, and is lost. The worshipers rise
and move homeward in the twilight;
the candles are extinguished, and the
church is left to darkness and to silence.
MANIFEST DESTINY IN THE WEST.
HAT remarkable succession of cir cumstances quoted oftentimes as
"Manifest Destiny," is nowhere in history more wonderfully illustrated than in
the rapid spread of Americanism from
the eastern to the western shores of the
North American continent.
Does this opening sentence seem to
smack of the national self-praise and
confidence in our sacred mission as exemplars of all the highest virtues of republicanism and free institutions? Belief
in a manifest destiny ought, indisputably,
to inspire us with enthusiasm to fulfill it
to the utmost. But it was not of that
belief or that sentiment we were thinking when we took up the pen to utter
our dogmatical first sqntence. It was
the result of a mental review of the written and unwritten history of the last
eighty years, as it applies to the march
of empire in the Western hemisphere.
It was about eighty years ago that
Spain finally despaired of holding her
discovered territories in the Pacific north
of the forty-second parallel, and quietly
retired from her most northern post on
Vancouver and Quadra's Island, having
first made a treaty with Great Britain to
?he effect that the British lion should not
seize it in absence of its original claimant. Perhaps Spain hoped to gain a little strength in some way; or, at the worst,
to make an advantageous bargain with
I48
[AUGUST,