Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1856-12-25

THE Politics OF THE WoRID-If any of
our readers should recolIect their impressions
the first time they were at sea in large ship
in a severe storm, they will not have forgot
ten how insignificant seemed that tall, proud
vessel, which had appeared solid and immo-
vaile as amountain as she lay alongside the
wharf. Like cork in the brook, or a feather
in the stream, or bubble the wave, so
light and little 10 be trusted did il SEEM
Just like that bubble. or that feather, or that
cork, or that ship, so seems the Ship of State
of the whole civilized world at this moment.
All the governments of earth are out of
course, jostling against each other, and the
sport of circumstances quite beyond their
control, mere specks upon the sea of time,
tossed by every wave. and threatened by a
storm of severity beyond al precedent.
Fifteen years ago, and Miller the Prophet,
or the interpreter of prophecy, was dreaming
that the Millennium was about to dawn. Now
il seems, instead, as If Satan were about TO
be loosed again for season. A little while
ago and war was thought horrible thing,
and men seemed universally about to beat
their swords into ploughshares. But cow the
pruning hooks are fast Learning the utilities OF
the bowie knife. China is desolated by civil
war and the Cape of Good Hope by the Hot
tentots. Burmah has lust been rent in twain
and Persia is at this moment the seat of ac-
tive war. Russia and England seem as If
about to fight pitched battle in the heart of
India, decisive of the fate of q larger portion
of the world, than that which followed the
fate of all Alexander's battles. Europe hav-
ing wasted half million of men and hun
dreds of millions of dollars in one war, seems
in greater unrest than ever. Turkey, where
the war began, is worse off as to debt, as to
independence and as to territory than before
the war began. While the other great pow
ers have been fighting for the PrincipalitieS,
Austria holds the stakes, and, like the mon
key with the cheese, chews it up, while the
Others quarrel.
1t used to BE thought that the five great
powers had the control, at least, of Europe,
and yet little King Bomba laughs at them all
England and France included. The fact is,
there is not one of the great powers that has
the control of anything just now, or that know
on what side they will be in month hence
on any great question. Take England: Does
she know whether or not she is drifting again
into war with Russia? She has no idea.
Can she tell what will be her relations with
Austria, or what with France? Not at all.
Nor is there Frenchman who knows where
France will be in a month hence-whether
in the arms of Russia against England, or
with England against Russia 1t used to be
thought that all depended on the will ofone
man, Louis Napoleon; and yet it seems that
no sooner is his back turned than his minis
tiers play emperor in his room, in much the
same style as Mephistophiles plays the Pro-
fessor in Faust, unless it should at last prove
that the Emperor is enacting that part him
self in disguise.
If we come over to this continent look a
Mexico, with all the horror of civil wa
raging interminsbly, like a regular volcano
deep down in her heaving breast, and send
ing for 5000 Americans to come to her sue
COR Central America is as badly of as an,
country can conceive, and none can tell j
Walker will be in power six weeks hence
or what will be the result ultimately Of hi
government in the destiny, not Of Centra
America alone, but of this whole continent
There is no doubt Mr.. Soule has concocteS
with him the scheme of some Southern Con
federacy to seize Cuba and re-estab.isl
slavery and the slave trade. They reckon
on the support Of the South, and it is by M
means certain that the message of the Gov
ernor Of South Carolina and the action of tn
House of Representatives endorsing 1t, MAJ
not be designed to favor this.
Such being the situation of all the world
it is, as Jeremy Taylor says somewhere, II
subsistence, of all sin, "Whst is every nation
evil becomes all nations greater evil, an'
though alone it was very bad, yet when the
came together it was made much worse
Like ships in a storm. every one alone hatl
enough to do to outride it, but when the,
meet, besides the evils of the storm, the.
find the intolerable calamity of their mutua
conclusion, and every ship that is ready :
be oppressed with the tempest, is wors
tempest to every vessel against which it
violently dashed.-Phii. Ledger.