So deep and vital is the joy
That thrills a mother’s breast,
Clasping her infant, blue-eyed boy
From out his cradled rest.
Many attempts have been made to introduce the Bible into Chili. Our countryman, Mr. Wheelwright, who now has a flourishing school in Valparaiso, succeeded in distributing a number of copies in the Spanish language among the people of Quillota. But the priests forbade their being read, and doomed them to the flames. They were brought out and burnt in presence of the assembled multitude. They were without note or comment, and left the sectarian bigotry, that decreed the sacrilegious act, without an apology. What would my venerable friend, Bishop Hughes, say were the Protestants of New York to collect his Douay Bibles and burn them in the Park? Would that, my dear Bishop, be freedom of conscience?
The population of Chili is estimated at about a million and a half. Her commerce is steadily on the increase. Her silver and copper mines richly repay the labor bestowed in working them. Her southern plains yield an abundance of the finest wheat. Her people in the mass are hardy, frugal, and ardent lovers of freedom. The course of education, under her new constitution, is receiving fresh impulses, and gradually emerging into popular favor and national importance. Her public debt amounts to about ten millions of dollars, which is owned mostly in England. Her military establishment, which has burdened her treasury, and sometimes perilled her peace, is melting away under her civil institutions.
In breaking the Spanish yoke, and establishing her independence, she has had to pass through a fiery ordeal. The virtues that could achieve so much, will yet win farther triumphs. No nation or state ever rose at once from vassalage and ignorance to freedom and intelligence. She may emerge into disorder, but that will be more tolerable than the despotism from which she has escaped. To meet the consequences of a revolution, to restore order where it has been broken up, to consolidate the elements of national existence, and settle them on a new and permanent basis, requires all the time which this republic has enjoyed since she proclaimed her independence. There is nothing in the present condition of Chili which should fill the advocates of free institutions with distrust. She has clouds on her sky, but most of them are skeletons from which the storm has long since passed.
But I have no space for a disquisition on Chili. A labored essay is beyond the scope and purpose of this diary. I have only time to wave my adieu to
VALPARAISO.
Sweet Valparaiso—fare thee well!