Friday, Dec. 26. The United States frigate Columbia, commanded by Capt. Richie, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Rousseau, arrived this morning from Norfolk. She has had, by a singular coincidence, the same passage as the Congress—fifty-two days. I was right glad to find on board of her, as chaplain, my esteemed friend, the Rev. T. R. Lambert. A portion of her crew are down with the smallpox, which broke out in the person of one of her marines several days after she had sailed. All direct communication with her has been interdicted; but we met her officers, who are very agreeable associates, on shore. We expected letters by the Columbia, but her departure followed so fast on our own that very few were sent.
The Columbia is a fine frigate, combining speed, strength, and grace of architecture. Near her swings the frigate Raritan, under the command of Captain Gregory. She has less beauty than her sister, is low between her decks, and her spikes, with their black heads, disfigure her planks; but she rides the water gracefully, and is a swift sailor. For this, however, she may be indebted, in some degree, to the skill of her commander, whose sagacity in detecting and bringing out the latent qualities of a ship is seldom baffled. Her wardroom, though dark from without, has light from within; not that which strays from a few dim tapers, but from the spirit that is in man, and which will still stream on when life’s taper itself is out.
Saturday, Dec. 27. Her Britannic Majesty’s frigate President, under the command of Rear-Admiral Dacres, entered the harbor to-day, and let go her anchors within a few cables length of us. She is the new-fledged phenix of the old one, captured from us in the last war. The parent has perished, but her memory still survives in the glorious triumphs of Decatur, as well as in this fledgling which bears her name. The old bird was captured by an overwhelming superiority of force; not by greater tact or courage. No laurels were won or lost.
The offspring which has arisen from her relics, is now bearing the pennant of one who was himself, while commanding the Guerrier, captured by the Constitution, under Commodore Hull. But he fought his ship well; it was no want of courage that allowed victory to perch on our flag. He had no resource but to surrender, or sink in a dismantled hulk. The English journals affected to prefer the last catastrophe; but this does very well for those who are not themselves in the hulk. The bubbles which brim the watery grave of the sailor may break and disappear as other bubbles; but when they ascend from our own strangling gasps, they carry with them agonies which should shake a world. The capture of the Guerrier, and the triumphs which followed, broke the charm of British invincibility. That dream of supremacy fled the ocean, never to return—
“That spell upon the minds of men,
Broke, never to unite again.”
Sunday, Dec. 28. Were a stranger to the religious habits of a Catholic community thrown into Rio on the Sabbath, he would think he had mistaken his sabbatical calendar. He would think he had arrived on some holiday, in which the serious concerns of life yield to gayety. He would see this spirit of social mirth pervading all classes. Even the bells would have a glee in their tones. He would find the priests in the promenade instead of the pulpit, with their large-rimmed hats rolled up over the ear, and the solemnity of their sable gowns in singular contrast with the levity that runs through their manner.
Such is the Sabbath where the principles of Protestantism have not obtained, and where its spirit is not felt. It is a day of amusement and recreation. Such it has ever been in every country where the genius of papacy has been paramount. Such it is now in Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain. Let the see of Rome roll its waves over the Protestant institutions of the United States, and it would sweep the sanctity of the Sabbath from the land. There would not be enough of its vitality left to embalm the memory of our pilgrim fathers. To rebuke those who abuse religion is not to disparage its spirit.
“All hail, Religion! maid divine,
Pardon a muse so mean as mine,