| 1130 fast our old friends are going the way of all the earth. My own toils, labors, cares and fatigues during the last year have been so great, that I have grown old very fast, and at times have felt quite out of health, and Mrs. Woodruff has also felt much the fatigues of her journeyings. Still we live and are in good spirits, and have faith to believe we shall live to see the faces of our friends again in Nauvoo, and go with them to California, or West of the Rocky Mountains. You may look for us early in the spring.
Your brother in the kingdom of God.
W. WOODRUFF.
"In all countries there is a great aversion to being ruled and governed by persons coming from foreign countries. We have alluded to the deep rooted and implacable indignation that pervades the mind of every true hearted Irishman when he sees his country ruled and governed by persons from England. When William, the Conqueror, subjugated England, the most bitter part of the oppression suffered by the conquered people was the painful mortification of having foreign normans placed over their heads. In all ages it has produced a natural but deep mortification and indignation among the people, to have foreigners imported to beat sway over those who have been born and grown up in the country. This aversion to be ruled and governed by foreigners is nothing more than a patriotic impulse, which is natural to all men, and which is noble in its origin and useful in its practical effects. If it were not for this natural feeling prompting men to prefer to be governed by their own countrymen, and to object to be ruled by persons from other countries, patriotism would cease to exist, and men would soon become cosmopolites, and would as readily serve and fight under a foreign standard as under that of our own native country. Every nation should be governed by men who are bound to it by the ties of birth and education-if they have men fit to administer their government; and when they cease to have natives of the country fit to fill its offices, it will be times to seek for officers among foreigners. This opposition to foreign sway and domination, is found ever where; it is natural and beneficial, and serves to make men true and faithful to the country of their birth. The emigrant Irishman partakes of this feeling in a high degree; the exiled Pole is actuated by the same natural motive, and all foreigners who come to our shores are governed by the same natural attachment to their own native country. The Pole swells with patriotic indignation when he thinks of his own native country being ruled and governed by the Russian, and is as bitter against the Russian as the Irishman is against the Englishman for the same cause. But whilst this strong natural feeling of attachment to their native country governs and controls all foreign emigrants, many of them seem to forget that this feeling is just as natural to the American as it is to the Pole and to the Irishman: they seem to forget that it is a natural feeling with Americans to have America governed by their own countrymen: they appear to be unwilling to allow to Americans the same feelings and motives that control the action of all other men. If Americans are capable of self-government without the supervision of foreigners, they should exercise their right, and should not surrender it to foreigners: and no reasonable foreigner should complain of Americans for entertaining a feeling which is common to all men, and which nature for wise purposes has planted deeply in the heart of a man. If this view of the subject were properly taken by emigrant foreigners we would not find among them such a rush for office, and such a desire to thrust themselves into elections, to control the public affairs of this country.-America should be governed by Americans."
New Era.
The feeling expressed in the above, is probably universal, but is it a just national trait, where the motto floats on the walls of every citadel of a great country and nation:-"The asylum of the oppressed for all nations." One thing is clear, God is not in it, for he says he will gather of every nation, tongues and kindred, and let them set under their own vine and fig tree, when there is none to molest or make afraid. The freedom of the United States is like a stool pigeon, it flutters by force to decoy others. The love of man waxes cold. Alas for the world.
"Straws show which way the Wind Blows."-The following keen thrust at the popular causes of American Freedom, was clipt [clipped] from a correspondent in the St. Louis American:
"How long!-O, how long, shall we continue to be a free and happy people, when the very elements of all freedom-all happiness, viz: virtue and religion, are so eagerly sought to be derided and destroyed? Alas, it is time, indeed, for a struggle; it is time, high time "to strike for our altars and our fires."
Public opinion, politics, and mobocracy, the grand trio to test, and use up "Liberty" in America, can look into the Mirror, and see:
"Coming events cast their shadows before."
MORMONISM IN CONGRESS.
The communication from the Baltimor [Baltimore?]
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