CHAPTER XII.
VIEWS UPON PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
Father De Smet an active observer of public events - The growth of the United States - Its future - The Oregon Question - The anti-Catholic movement - The radical party - The Test Oath in Missouri.
Father De Smet was an interested observer of public affairs and of the progress of his adopted country. His letters to his European correspondents are full of references to these subjects. In regard to the growth of the United States he held the most enthusiastic views, and often expressed his wonder and admiration at the marvelous result developing under his eyes. A few examples of the way in which he represented this new nation to his friends in the Old World are given here: " I have said in Europe, and I repeat it, there is no country in the world that has greater resources than this; none that is making such progress; where everything is developing in so wonderful a manner as to draw the admiration of the civilized world. Providence has laid out this country on a gigantic scale; its destiny is to march onward, and no power on earth can stop it. It is a mighty country, young and vigorous, and possesses a vast space which time will fill with millions of men."
The vast extent of the United States appealed powerfully to his imagination: " I shall never forget," he once wrote, "the rapture of a traveler who left the green parks of New Orleans early in March - that land of the orange and the olive, then teeming with verdure, freshness and life, and, as it were, mocking him with the midsummer of his own northern home. He journeyed leisurely toward the region of ice and snow, to watch the budding of the young flowers and to catch the breezes of spring. He