The gist of it, so far as it could be understood
when the bran was bolted from it, consisted in an assurance that the
country had now reached that period of its life in which rapid decay
was inevitable, and that, as the mortal disease had already shown
itself in its worst form, national decrepitude was imminent, and
natural death could not long be postponed. They who attempted to
read the prophecy with accuracy were of opinion that the prophet had
intimated that had the nation, even in this its crisis, consented
to take him, the prophet, as its sole physician and to obey his
prescription with childlike docility, health might not only have been
re-established, but a new juvenescence absolutely created. The nature
of the medicine that should have been taken was even supposed to
have been indicated in some very vague terms. Had he been allowed to
operate he would have cut the tap-roots of the national cancer, have
introduced fresh blood into the national veins, and resuscitated the
national digestion, and he seemed to think that the nation, as a
nation, was willing enough to undergo the operation, and be treated
as he should choose to treat it;--but that the incubus of Mr.
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