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RELIGION IN AMERICA; 
 
 OE, AN ACCOUNT OP 
 
 TUE ORIGIN, PROGRESS, RELATION TO THE STATE, AND PRESENT CONDITION OF TEE 
 EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 WITH NOTICES OF THE UNEVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT BAIRD, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'L'UNION DE L'EGLISE AVEC L'ETAT DANS LA NOUVELLE ANGLETERRE." 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 
 No. 82 Cliff-Steeet. 
 
 18 4 4. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by 
 
 Harper & Brothkus, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. 
 
RECOMMENDATORY NOTICE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. DRS. DAVID WELSH, WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, AND ROBERT 
 
 BUCHANAN. 
 
 Having had an opportunity of perusing a considerable portion of the following work 
 ■while it was passing through the press, we have no hesitation in complying with a re- 
 quest made to us by the publishers, to recommend it to the attention of the British 
 public. The author is an esteemed minister of the American Presbyterian Church, 
 and has had full access to the best and most authentic sources of information on the 
 various subjects which he discusses, while his personal acquaintance with the state of 
 religion and the condition of the churches, both in Britain and on the Continent, has 
 afforded him peculiar advantages in selecting the materials with regard to the state of 
 religion, and the efforts made for its promotion in America, which it might be most in- 
 teresting and useful for the British churches to possess and to examine. The work 
 contains a very large amount of interesting and valuable information with regard to the 
 origin and the history of the different religious bodies in the United States, and their 
 doctrines, constitution, organization, and agency, their relations with each other, and 
 the character and results of the efforts they are making to promote religion in their 
 own country and in other lands. It supplies a larger amount of information upon all 
 these important topics than any work with which we are acquainted ; and there can 
 be no reasonable doubt that the information it contains is well fitted to encourage the 
 efforts of all churches which are similarly situated to those in America, and to afford 
 some important practical lessons in the prosecution of those great objects which all 
 Christian churches, in every variety of external circumstances, are bound to aim at. 
 We do not agree in all the opinions which the esteemed author has expressed, but we 
 admire the judicious, benevolent, candid, and catholic spirit by which the work is per- 
 vaded. We regard the publication of this work in our own country as a boon conferred 
 upon the British churches, not merely because it gives a fuller view than could any- 
 where else be obtained of " Religion in America," but also because it is well fitted to 
 promote a spirit of love and kindness among the churches of Christ, and to diffuse more 
 widely the benefits which may be derived from a judicious use of the experience of the; 
 American churches, in the peculiar circumstances in which, in providence, they have 
 been placed, and in connexion with the peculiar way in which the Head of the Church 
 has been pleased to make them instrumental in accomplishing his gracious purposes. 
 Whatever diversities of opinion may prevail in this country on some important points 
 connected with the condition and prospects of religion in America, no candid man will 
 deny that religion has there been placed in circumstances, and has appeared in aspects, 
 which are well worthy of serious consideration, and from a judicious investigation of 
 which, important practical lessons are to be learned. And on this ground we hail with 
 much satisfaction the publication of a work which contains a very large amount of in- 
 formation upon this interesting and important subject, and cordially recommend it to 
 
 the perusal of British Christians. 
 
 David Welsh, 
 William Cunningham, 
 Robert Buchanan. 
 
 Edinburgh, September, 1843. 
 
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 The reader will learn from the preface to the English edition of this work, 
 that it was originally intended to meet the wishes of Christians on the Conti- 
 nent. Valued friends in Great Britain having, however, expressed the belief 
 that it might be useful in that country, it was published there in the month of 
 September last, being introduced to the Christian public by the very kind and 
 flattering recommendation of the Rev. Drs. Welsh, Buchanan, and Cunning- 
 ham, of Edinburgh. Upon his return to this country in November, the en- 
 terprising publishers who present this work to the American public having 
 expressed their willingness to undertake its publication, the author at once ap- 
 plied himself to the task of giving it a thorough revision, in order to make it 
 as useful as possible in this country. In doing so, he has availed himself of 
 the aid of many excellent men of almost all our evangelical denominations, in 
 order to give not only the most exact, but also the most recent information 
 respecting our churches. 
 
 And although the well-informed American reader will see many things in 
 this book with which he is already familiar, yet it is presumed he will find 
 some things, especially taken in the connexion in which they are presented, 
 that may both interest and profit him. There is no work among us that goes 
 over the whole ground which the author has attempted to survey and de- 
 scribe in this book. 
 
 At first he thought of abridging certain portions, especially the first, fourth, 
 and fifth books ; but he was dissuaded from this by the publishers, who pre- 
 ferred to give it entire, and to put it at a price which would place it within 
 the reach of all who might wish to have it. 
 
 The reader will perceive that the work throughout, even in its American 
 dress, bears the stamp of being written, as it really was, for the perusal, and 
 the author would fain hope the benefit, of Europeans. To have altered this 
 would have required the remodelling of the whole plan of the work ; nor 
 was it necessary, inasmuch as the information is just as well conveyed in the 
 one form as in the other. 
 
 In writing this work, the author, if he has not been self-deceived, has simply 
 aimed at giving a faithful picture of the religious and moral state of his coun- 
 try. He has endeavoured to write in strict accordance with fact and truth. 
 He trusts that in doing so he has not violated that Christian charity which 
 ought to regulate our opinions as well as our actions in relation to others. It 
 has given him great pleasure to speak of the zeal and the prosperity of all the 
 evangelical denominations in our land ; and if he has said anything which 
 
vi PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 may not be entirely acceptable to them, he begs that it may be ascribed to 
 inadvertence or want of correct information. Of those which are, in his 
 opinion, not evangehcal, he has tried to say what he deems to be the truth, 
 in no unkindness of spirit. He felt compelled, however, to follow what he 
 believed to be the clear demands of truth. 
 
 It is probable that many readers will not agree with the author in all his 
 statements and computations, especially those which are contained in the 
 Conclusion of the work. He only requests such persons to take the pains 
 w^hich he has done to examine into the facts of the case ; and then, if they 
 differ from him, he can have no reason to complain. But he is of the opinion 
 ■that but few people have taken the trouble necessary to form a correct judg- 
 ment respecting either the present state or the past progress of evangelical 
 religion among us. In what he has written on this subject, he has endeav- 
 oured to state only what appeared to him to be true. It is due to candour, 
 however, to say, that it is possible a strong feeling of patriotism — he hopes a 
 Christian patriotism — may have led him to take a more favourable view of 
 some things than others may be able to do. 
 
 He is aware that on some subjects he has incurred the danger of those 
 who would walk over hidden fires ; but he trusts to that " charity" which will 
 believe that he has tried to discuss these matters in an impartial spirit. 
 
 The work in its American form is that from which the translation is to be 
 made into French, and probably into German and one or two other langua- 
 ges on the Continent. The author has, therefore, made it more full on some 
 points, and especially in its summary statements in the Conclusion, than it is 
 in the English edition. 
 
 Such as it is, he commends it to the blessing of God, and bespeaks for it a 
 candid consideration on the part of his countrymen and fellow-Christians. 
 
 New-York, January, 1844. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A FEW words respecting the circumstances which have led to the prep- 
 aration and publication of the work now submitted to the reader seem to be 
 required by way of preface. 
 
 In the year 1835, at the instance of several distinguished Christian gentle- 
 men of his native land, the author visited the Continent of Europe for the 
 prosecution of certain religious and philanthropic objects, and in this pursuit 
 he has been employed during the eight years that have since elapsed. He 
 has had occasion, in the course of that period, to visit repeatedly almost every 
 country on the Continent, and has been led, also, to spend some time, more 
 than once, in England and in Scotland, from the latter of which two countries 
 his forefathers were compelled, by persecution, to emigrate two hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 In the course of his Continental journies, his engagements introduced him 
 to the acquaintance of a goodly number of distinguished individuals, belong- 
 ing to almost all professions and stations in society. Among these are many 
 who rank high in their respective countries for enlightened piety, zeal, and 
 usefulness in their several spheres. From such persons the author has had 
 innumerable inquiries addressed to him, in all the places he has visited, some- 
 times by letter, but oftener in conversation, respecting his native country, and 
 especially respecting its religious institutions. To satisfy such inquiries when 
 addressed to him by an illustrious individual,* whom God has called from the 
 scene of her activity in this world to Himself, he wrote a small work on the 
 Origin and Progress of Unitarianism in the United States.f But that little 
 work, while it so far satisfied curiosity on one subject, seemed but to augment 
 it with regard to others ; so that, without neglecting what was by his friends 
 as well as himself deemed a manifest duty, the author had no alternative 
 but to accede to the earnest request of some distinguished friends in Ger- 
 many, Sweden, France, and Switzerland, that he would write a work as 
 extensive as the subject might require, on the origin, history, economy, ac- 
 tion, and influence of religion in the United States. This task he has en- 
 deavoured to accomplish in the course of the summer and autumn that have 
 just elapsed, and which he has been permitted to spend in this ancient city, 
 whose institutions, and the influence of whose great Reformer, have, through 
 their bearings on the history of England and Scotland, so greatly affected 
 
 * The late Duchess de Broglie. 
 
 t This work was published in Paris in 1837, under the title, " L'Union de I'Eglise et de I'Etat dana U 
 JJouvelle Angleterre." 
 
Tiii PREFACE. 
 
 the colonization, political government, and religious character of the greater 
 part of North America. 
 
 His aim throughout this work has been, neither to construct a theory on 
 any controverted point in the economy of the Church, or its relations to the 
 State in any European country, nor to defend the political organizations of 
 his own, or the conduct of its government, on any measure, properly political, 
 whether of foreign or domestic policy. His sole and simple object has been 
 to delineate the religious doctrines and institutions of the United States, and 
 to trace their influence, from their first appearance in the country down to the 
 present time, with as little reference as possible to any other. 
 
 The author has mingled freely with his Protestant brethren in all the coun- 
 tries of Europe where Protestants are to be found, whatever might be their 
 political sentiments, and whatever the religious communions to which they 
 belonged. He has received nothing but kindness from them all. And while 
 it would be the merest affectation of impartiality, and most unbecoming in 
 him as a Christian, to profess having formed no opinion on the various ques- 
 tions so warmly discussed among them, and especially on the relations which 
 do, or ought to, subsist between the Church and the State — a question so 
 much agitated at the present moment in some countries, and which seems 
 destined, ere long, to be so in many others — yet he can most conscientiously 
 say that he has not allowed himself to be involved in any of them, nor is he 
 aware of having written a sentence in the present work with the view either 
 of supporting or opposing any of them. He has endeavoured to confine him- 
 self throughout to a faithful exhibition of the religious institutions of his native 
 country — their nature, their origin, their action, and their effects. His first 
 desire has been to satisfy the reasonable curiosity of those at whose request 
 he writes ; his second and most strenuous endeavour has been to promote the 
 extension of the Messiah's kingdom in the world, by communicating some in- 
 formation respecting measures which, through God's blessing, have proved 
 useful in America without having anything to adapt them to that country 
 more than to any other. 
 
 The more that the author has seen of the Christian world, the more has he 
 been impressed with the conviction that, whatever relations the churches 
 maintain with the civil powers, whatever their exterior forms or even their 
 internal discipline, nothing in these respects can compensate for the want of 
 soundness of doctrine and vital piety. Not that, as some seem to do, he would 
 treat those things as matters of indiflference ; for he firmly believes the main- 
 tenance and promotion of true rehgion to be much affected by them ; but it 
 is not in them that we are to look for that panacea for all evils which many 
 hope to find in them, or any substitute for the agency which God has ap- 
 pointed for securing the effectual reception of his glorious salvation. That 
 agency, he humbly conceives, is the presentation of the Gospel in all its ful- 
 ness, in all proper ways, and on all suitable occasions, by a spiritually-minded 
 ministry, ordained and set apart to that work, combined with holy living,, 
 faithful co-operation in their proper spheres, and earnest prayer on the part 
 of the members, in general, of the churches. The parts of his work, accord- 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 ingly, that relate to this agency and its results in the experience of the church- 
 es in the United States, are those in which he himself feels most interest, and 
 to which he would specially direct the attention of the reader. 
 
 The author has divided his work into eight Books. The First is devoted 
 to preliminary remarks intended to throw light on various points, so that 
 readers the least conversant with American history and society may, without 
 difficulty, understand what follows. Some of these preliminary remarks may^ 
 be thought at first not very pertinent to the subject in hand, but reasons will 
 probably be found for changing this opinion before the reader comes to the 
 end of the volume. 
 
 The Second Book treats of the early colonization of the country now form- 
 ing the United States ; the religious character of the first European colonists 
 — their ecclesiastical institutions — and the state of the churches when the 
 Revolution took place by which the colonies became independent of the 
 mother-country. 
 
 The Third treats of the changes involved in and consequent upon that 
 event — the influence of those changes — the character of the civil governments 
 of the States — and the relations subsisting between those governments and 
 the churches. 
 
 The Fourth exhibits the operations of the voluntary system in the United 
 States, and the extent of its influence. 
 
 The Fifth treats of the discipline of the churches — the character of Ameri- 
 can preaching — and the subject of revivals. 
 
 The Sixth is occupied with brief notices of the evangelical denominations 
 in the United States — their ecclesiastical polity and discipline — the doctrines 
 peculiar to each — their history and prospects. 
 
 The Seventh treats in like manner of the unevangelical sects. 
 
 The Eighth shows what the churches are doing in the way of sending the 
 Gospel to other lands. 
 
 From the very nature of such a work, it was requisite that the author should 
 consult many authorities. In order to procure the requisite materials, he 
 visited his native country last year, and so abundantly was he supplied with 
 what he needed, that, in the actual execution of his task, he found himself in 
 want of only one or two books and documents, and these of no essential im- 
 portance. 
 
 But he would be guilty of great injustice were he not to acknowledge his 
 obligations to many distinguished friends in America for their kind co-opera- 
 tion and aid. Without naming all who have anywise assisted him by furnish- 
 ing necessary documents, or in communicating important facts, he cannot 
 forbear to mention the names of the Rev. Drs. Dewitt, Hodge, Goodrich, 
 Bacon, Anderson, Durbin, Emerson, and Schmucker, and the Rev. Messrs. 
 Tracy, Berg, and Allen.* To the secretaries of almost all the Religious So- 
 cieties and Institutions in the country he is also greatly indebted for the Re- 
 
 * These gentlemen belong to the Reformed Dutch, Presbyterian, Congregational, Methodist, Lutheran, 
 German Reformed, and Baptist churches, and are among the most distinguished ministers in the United 
 States. 
 
I PREFACE. 
 
 ports, and in many cases, also, for the valuable hints they have furnished. 
 Nor can he omit to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. How^e, Principal of the 
 Institute for the Blind at Boston, the Rev. Mr. Weld, Principal of the Deaf 
 and Dumb Asylum at Hartford, in Connecticut, and Dr. Woodward, Director 
 of the Hospital for the Insane at Worcester, Massachusetts. 
 
 For the invaluable chapter on Revivals, the reader, as well as the author, 
 is indebted to the Rev. C. A. Goodrich, D.D., who has long been a distin- 
 guished professor in Yale College, at New-Haven, in Connecticut, than whom 
 no man in the United States is more capable of treating that subject in a ju- 
 dicious and philosophical manner. 
 
 Nor should the names of the Honourable Henry Wheaton, the Minister for 
 the United States of America at the court of Prussia, and of Robert Walsh, 
 Esq., now residing in Paris, be omitted. Among other obligations, to the 
 former of these gentlemen, the author is indebted for some views which the 
 reader will find in the Third Book ; and he has to thank the latter for many 
 important suggestions which he has found much reason to appreciate in the 
 course of his work. He makes this acknowledgment with the more pleasure, 
 because Mr. Walsh is a Roman Catholic, and yet, with a kindness and liber- 
 ality in every way remarkable, he tendered his assistance with the full knowl- 
 edge that the author is a decided Protestant, and that his work, however 
 liberal the spirit in which it is written, was to be of a thoroughly Protestant 
 character. 
 
 One word more to the English reader. The author deems it right to say 
 that his work was originally designed and primarily written for Germany 
 and other countries on the Continent of Europe. Accordingly, it is fuller on 
 some points than was absolutely requisite for British readers, these being, 
 no doubt, better acquainted with the United States than are the inhabitants 
 of the Continent. 
 
 Deeply sensible that the work is far from perfect, he commends it, never- 
 theless, to the blessing of Him without whose favour nothing that is good can 
 be accomplished. 
 
 Geneva (Switzerland), September, 1843. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. ^ 
 
 Chap. I. — General Notice of North America . 9 
 
 Chap. II. — The Aborigines of North America . 11 
 
 Chap. III. — Discovery of that Part of North 
 America which is comprised in the Limits of 
 the United States. — The early and unsuc- 
 cessful Attempts to Colonize it . . .15 
 
 Chap. IV. — The Colonization of the Territo- 
 ries now constituting the United States at 
 length accomplished 17 
 
 Chap. V. — Interior Colonization of the Country 20 
 
 Chap. VI. — Peculiar Qualifications of the An- 
 glo-Saxon Race for the Work of Coloniza- 
 tion 23 
 
 Chap. VII. — On the alleged Want of National 
 Character in America 25 
 
 Chap. VIII.— The Royal Charters . . .27 
 
 Chap. IX. — How a correct Knowledge of the 
 American People, the Nature of their Gov- 
 ernment, and of their National Character may 
 best be attained 29 
 
 Chap. X. — How to obtain a correct View of the 
 Spirit and Character of the Religious Institu- 
 tions of the United States . . . .31 
 
 Chap. XI. — A brief Notice of the Form of Gov- 
 ernment in America 33 
 
 Chap. XII. — A brief Geographical Notice of the 
 United States 35 
 
 Chap. XIII. — Obstacles which the Voluntary 
 System in supporting Religion has had to en- 
 counter in America: 1. From the erroneous 
 Opinions on the Subject of Religious Econo- 
 my which the Colonists brought with them . 37 
 
 Chap. XIV. — Obstacles which the Voluntary 
 System has had to encounter in America : 2. 
 From the Newness of the Country, the Thin- 
 ness of the Population, and the unsettled state 
 of Society 39 
 
 Chap. XV. — Obstacles which the Voluntary 
 System has had to encounter in America : 3. 
 From Slavery 40 
 
 Chap. XVI. — Obstacles which the Voluntary 
 System has had to encounter in America : 4. 
 From the vast Emigration from Foreign Coun- 
 tries 42 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE COLONIAL ERA. 
 
 Chap. I. — Religious Character of the early Col- 
 onists. — Founders of New-England . . 44 
 
 Chap. II. — Religious Character of the Founders 
 of New-England. — Plymouth Colony . . 47 
 
 Chap. III. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Founders of New-England. — Col- 
 ony of Massachusetts Bay . . . .51 
 
 Chap. IV. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Founders of New-England. — Col- 
 onies of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New- 
 Hampshire, and Maine. — General Itemarks . 56 
 
 Chap. V. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Founders of the Southern States 60 
 
 Chap. VI. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Colonists of New- York . . 64 
 
 Chap. VII. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Founders of New-Jersey . . 66 
 
 Chap. VIII. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Founders of Delaware, at first 
 called New Sweden 68 
 
 Chap. IX. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Founders of Pennsylvania . . 69 
 
 Chap. X. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists.— Emigrants from Wales . . 71 
 
 Page 
 
 Chap. XI. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists of America. — Emigrants from Scot- 
 land and Ireland 71 
 
 Chap. XII. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Huguenots from France . . 75 
 
 Chap. XIII. — Religious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Emigrants from Germany . . 80 
 
 Chap. XIV. — Rehgious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Emigrants from Poland . . 81 
 
 Chap. XV. — Rehgious Character of the early 
 Colonists. — Emigrants from the Vallies of 
 Piedmont 82 
 
 Chap. XVI.— Summary 82 
 
 Chap. XVII. — Relations between the Churches 
 and the Civil Power in the Colonies of Amer- 
 ica. — 1. In New-England . . . .84 
 
 Chap. XVIII. — Relations between the Church 
 and the Civil Power in the Colonies. — 2. In 
 the Southern and Middle Provinces . . 83 
 
 Chap. XIX. — The Influences of the Union of 
 Church and State, as it formerly existed in 
 America. — 1. In New-England . . .91 
 
 Chap. XX. — The Influences of the Union of 
 Church and State. — 2. In the Southern and 
 Middle States 96 
 
 Chap. XXI. — State of Religion during the Co- 
 lonial Era 99 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE NATIONAL ERA. 
 
 Chap. I. — Effects of the Revolution upon Reli- 
 gion. — Changes to which it necessarily gave 
 rise 102 
 
 Chap. II. — The Dissolution of the Union of 
 Church and State not etfected by the General 
 Government, nor did it take place immediately 104 
 
 Chap. III. — Dissolution of the Union of Church 
 and State in America, when and how effected 105 
 
 Chap. IV. — Effects of the Dissolution of the 
 Union of Church and State in the several 
 States in which it once subsisted . . . 112 
 
 Chap. V. — Whether the General Government 
 of the United States has the Power to pro- 
 mote Religion 116 
 
 Chap. VI. — Whether the Government of the 
 United States may justly be called Infidel or 
 Atheistical 118 
 
 Chap. VII. — The Government of the United 
 States shown to be Christian by its Acts . 120 
 
 Chap. VIII. — The Governments of the Individ- 
 ual States organized on the basis of Christi- 
 anity 122 
 
 Chap. IX. — The Legislation of the States 
 shown to be in favour of Christianity . . 124 
 
 Chap. X. — The Legislation of the States often 
 bears favourably, though incidentally, on the 
 cause of Religion 126 
 
 Chap. XI. — In what cases the action of the 
 Civil Authority may be directed in reference 
 to Religion 127 
 
 Chap. XII. — Review of the ground which we 
 have gone over 129 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 the VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE IN AMERICA; ITS 
 ACTION AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 Chap. I. — The Voluntary Principle the great 
 Alternative. — The Nature and Vastness of its 
 Mission 129 
 
 Chap. II. — Foundation of the Voluntary Princi- 
 ple to be sought for in the Character and 
 Habits of the People of the United States . 131 
 
zu 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Chap. III.— How Church Edifices are built in 
 the Cities and large Towns .... 132 
 
 Chap. IV. — How Church Edifices are built in 
 the New Settlements 134 
 
 Chap. V. — The Voluntary Principle developed. 
 — How the Salaries of the Pastors are raised 136 
 
 Chap. VI. — How Ministers of the Gospel are 
 brought forward, and how they become set- 
 lied Pastors 138 
 
 Chap. VII. — The Voluntary Principle developed 
 in Home Missions. — American Home Mission- 
 ary Society 140 
 
 Chap. VIII. — Presbyterian Board of Domestic 
 Missions, under the Direction of the General 
 Assembly 142 
 
 Chap. IX. — Home Missions of the Episcopal, 
 Baptist, and Reformed Dutch Churches . 144 
 
 Chap. X. — Home Missions of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church 145 
 
 Chap. XI. — The Voluntary Principle developed. 
 — Influence of the Voluntary Principle on Ed- 
 ucation. — Of Prunary Schools . . 146 
 
 Chap. XII. — Grammar-schools and Academies 148 
 
 Chap. XIII. — Colleges and Universities . . 150 
 
 Chap. XIV. — Suiiday-schools. — American Sun- 
 day-school Union, and other Sunday-school 
 Societies 152 
 
 Chap. XV.— Bible-classes . . . .156 
 
 Chap. XVI. — Maternal Societies . . . 156 
 
 Chap. XVII. — Education Societies . , . 157 
 
 Chap. XVKI. — Theological Seminaries . . 159 
 
 Chap. XIX. — Eflbrts to diffuse the Sacred 
 Scriptures 166 
 
 Chap. XX. — Associations for the Circulation 
 and Publication of Religious Tracts and Books 167 
 
 Chap. XXI. — The Religious Literature of the 
 United States 169 
 
 Chap. XXII. — Efforts to promote the Religious 
 and Temporal Interests of Seamen . . 172 
 
 Chap. XXIII.— Of the Influence of the Volunta- 
 ry Principle in reforming existing Evils. — 
 Temperance Societies 172 
 
 Chap. XXIV. — The American Prison Discipline 
 Society 174 
 
 Chap. XXV. — Sundry other Associations . 176 
 
 Chap. XXVI. — Influence of the Voluntary Prin- 
 ciple on the Beneficent Institutions of the 
 Country 177 
 
 Chap. XXVII. — Influence of the Voluntary 
 Principle on the Beneficent Institutions of the 
 Country. — Asylums for the Insane . . . 178 
 
 Chap. XXVIII. — Influence of the Voluntary 
 Principle on the Beneficent Institutions of the 
 Country. — Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb . 179 
 
 Chap. XXIX. — Influence of the Voluntary Prin- 
 ciple on the Beneficent Institutions of the 
 Country. — Asylums for the Blind . . . 180 
 
 Chap. XXX. — Concluding Remarks on the 
 Development of the Voluntary Principle . 181 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 the church and the pulpit in AMERICA. 
 
 Chap. I. — Importance of this Part of the Sub- 
 ject 183 
 
 Chap. II. — The Evangelical Churches in the 
 
 United States maintain Discipline . . . 183 
 Chap. J II. — The Way in which Membership in 
 
 our Churches is obtained .... 185 
 Chap. IV.— 'I'he Relations which unconverted 
 
 Men hold to the Church . . . .187 
 Chap. V. — The Administration of Discipline . 189 
 Chap. VI. — Character of American Preaching 189 
 Chap. VII. — Revivals of Religion . . 196 
 Chap. VIII. — Supplementary Remarks on Re- 
 vivals of Religion 213 
 
 Chap. IX. — Alleged Abuses in Revivals of Re- 
 ligion 214 
 
 Page- 
 Chap. X. — Concluding Remarks on the Church 
 and the Pulpit in America .... 218 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 the evangelical churches in AMERICA. 
 
 Chap. I. — Preliminary Remarks in reference to 
 
 this Subject 219 
 
 Chap. II.— The Protestant Episcopal Church . 220 
 Chap. HI.— The Congregational Churches . 223 
 Chap. IV.— The Regular Baptist Churches . 229 
 Chap. V.— The Presbyterian Church . . 233 
 Chap. VI.— The Methodist Episcopal Church . 245 
 Chap. VII.— The Moravian Church . . .250 
 Chap. VIII. — Smaller Baptist Denominations . 251 
 Chap. IX. — Smaller Presbyterian Churches. — 
 
 Cumberland Presbyterians .... 252 
 Chap. X. — Smaller Presbyterian Churches. — 
 
 Reformed Dutch Church .... 253 
 Chap. XI. — Smaller Presbyterian Churches. — 
 The Associate Church. — The Associate Re- 
 formed Church, and the Reformed Presbyte- 
 rian Church 255 
 
 Chap. XII. — Smaller Presbyterian Churches. — 
 
 The Lutheran Church 257 
 
 Chap. XIII. — Smaller Presbyterian Churches. 
 
 — The German Reformed Church . . . 260 
 Chap. XIV.— Smaller German Sects . . 261 
 Chap. XV. — Smaller Methodist Denominations 262 
 Chap. XVI.— The Friends or Quakers . . 263 
 Chap. XVII.— The Summary . . . .264 
 Chap. XVIII.— Number of Evangelical Sects . 266 
 Chap. XIX. — Alleged Want of Harmony among 
 the Evangelical Christians of the United 
 States 267 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 UNEVANGELICAL denominations in AMERICA. 
 
 Chap. I. — Introductory Remarks . . . 269 
 Chap. II.— The Roman Catholic Church . . 270 
 
 Chap. 111. — Unitarianism 272 
 
 Chap. IV.— The Christ-ian Connexion . . 280 
 Chap. V.— The Universalists . . . .281 
 Chap. VI. Swedenborgians and Tunkers . . 282 
 
 Chap. VII.— The Jews 283 
 
 Chap. VIII. — Rappists, Shakers, Mormons, &;c. 283 
 Chap. IX. — Atheists, Deists, Socialists, Four- 
 
 rierists, &c 286 
 
 Chap. X. — General Remarks on the State of 
 
 Theological Opinion in America . . . 287 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 EFFORTS OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES FOR THE 
 CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Chap. I. — Introductory Remarks . . . 292 
 
 Chap. II. — Earlier Eflbrts to convert the Abori- 
 gines 293 
 
 Chap. III. — American Board of Commissioners 
 for Foreign Missions 299 
 
 Chap. IV. — Board of Foreign Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church 307 
 
 Chap. V. — Missions of the Baptist Churches . 309 
 
 Chap. VI. — Foreign Missions of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church 310 
 
 Chap. VII. — Board of Missions of the Protest- 
 ant Episcopal Church 311 
 
 Chap. VIII. — Foreign Missions of other Denom- 
 inations 312 
 
 Chap. IX. — American Society for Ameliorating 
 the Condition of the Jews . . . .313 
 
 Chap. X. — Foreign Evangelical Society of the 
 United States . 313 
 
 Chap. XI. — American Colonization Society . 314 
 
 Chap. XII. — Summary 317 
 
 Conclusion 3L8 
 
RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL NOTICE OF NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 The configuration of the Continent of 
 North America, at first view, presents sev- 
 eral remarkable features. Spreading out 
 like a partially open fan, with its apex to- 
 wards the south, its coasts, in advancing 
 northward, recede from each other with 
 considerable regularity of proportion and 
 correspondence, until, from being separa- 
 ted by only sixty miles at the Isthmus of 
 Darien, they diverge to the extent of 4500 
 miles ; the east coast pursuing a northeast- 
 ern, and the west a nothwestern direction. 
 
 Parallel to these coasts, and at almost 
 equal distances from them, there are two 
 ranges of mountains. The eastern range, 
 called the Alleghany, or Appalachian, runs 
 fiom southwest to northeast, at an average 
 distance of 150 miles from the Atlantic. 
 Its length is usually estimated at 900 miles.* 
 Its greatest width, which is in Virginia and 
 Pennsylvania, is about 120 miles. Rather 
 a system, than a range, of mountains, it 
 is composed of parallel ridges, generally 
 maintaining a northeast and southwest di- 
 rection. But as it advances towards its 
 northern extremity, and passes through the 
 New-England States, it loses much of its 
 continuity, and gradually runs off into a 
 chain of nearly isolated mountains. The 
 southern extremity gradually sinks down 
 into the hills of Georgia, unless, indeed, 
 we may consider it as disappearing in the 
 low, central line of the peninsula of Flori- 
 da. The northeastern end terminates in 
 the ridges of Nova Scotia. The whole of 
 this range is within the limits of the Uni- 
 ted States, excepting that part of it which 
 stretches into the British Provinces of New 
 Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We may re- 
 mark, in passing, that although this mount- 
 ain range apparently separates the waters 
 which flow into the Atlantic Ocean from 
 those which fall into the Mississippi and 
 the St. Lawrence, such is not really the 
 
 * This is the length of the chain considered as a 
 continuous range, from the northern parts of Geor- 
 gia and Alabama to the State of New -York. Taken 
 in the extensive sense in which it is spoken of in the 
 text, the entire range exceeds 1500 English miles. 
 
 case. These mountains simply stand, as it 
 were, on the plateau or elevated plain on 
 which those waters have their origin. Ri- 
 sing in the immediate vicinity of each other, 
 and often interlocking, these streams are not 
 in the least affected in their course by the 
 mountains, the gaps and valleys of which 
 seem to have been made to accommodate 
 them, instead of their accommodating 
 themselves to the shape and position of the 
 mountains. In a part of its northern ex- 
 tension, this range of mountains seems to 
 detach itself entirely from the plain where 
 those streams have their source, and lies 
 quite east of it, so that the streams that 
 fall into the Atlantic, in making their way 
 to the southeast, as it were, cut through 
 the mountain range, in its entire width. 
 
 When first discovered by Europeans, and 
 for a century and more afterward, the long 
 and comparatively narrow strip of country 
 between the Alleghany range and the At- 
 lantic Ocean was covered with an unbro- 
 ken forest. The mountains, likewise, up 
 to their very summits, and the valleys that 
 lay between them, were clad with wood. 
 Nothing deserving the name of a field, or 
 a prairie, was anywhere to be seen. 
 
 On the western side of the continent, as 
 has been stated, another range of mount- 
 ains runs parallel to the coast of the Pa- 
 cific Ocean. This range is a part of the im- 
 mense system of mountains running from 
 Cape Horn throughout the entire length 
 of the continent, and seems as if intended, 
 like the backbone in large animals, to give 
 it unity and strength. It is by far the long- 
 est in the world ;* and bearing different 
 names in different parts of its extent, it is 
 the Andes in South America, the Cordille- 
 ras in Guatimala and Mexico, and the Rocky 
 Mountains! "^ ^he north. 
 
 The long, and, in many parts, wide strip 
 of land between the Oregon Mountains 
 and the Pacific Ocean, is claimed, on the 
 
 * The entire length of this range is estimated to 
 be 9000 English miles. 
 
 t The proper name of this portion of the range is 
 Oregon, a word of Indian origin, and which, whatev- 
 er may be its original signification, is a much better 
 name than that which it has so long borne, and which 
 has nothing distinctive about it, for all mountains 
 are rocky. 
 
10 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book L 
 
 north, by Russia ; on the south, by Mexico ; 
 and in the middle, by England and the Uni- 
 ted States. 
 
 Between these two ranges of mountains 
 — the Alleghany on the east and the Ore- 
 gon on the west — lies the immense Cen- 
 tral Valley of North America, wider in 
 the north than towards the south, and 
 reaching from the Northern Ocean to the 
 Gulf of Mexico. It is the most extensive 
 valley in the world, and is composed of two 
 vast sections, separated by a zigzag line 
 of table-land. This ridge, which is of no 
 great elevation, and which commences near 
 the 42° of north latitude on one side, while 
 it terminates near the 49° on the other, 
 stretches across from the Alleghany sys- 
 tem to the Oregon, and thus separates, 
 also, the waters that flow southward into 
 the Gulf of Mexico, from those flowing in 
 the opposite direction into the northern 
 seas. Thus the one section of this great 
 valley inclines to the south, the other gen- 
 tly, nay, almost imperceptibly, descends to- 
 wards the north. The former is drained 
 mainly by one great river and its numerous 
 branches, called, in the pompous language 
 of the Aborigines of the country, the Mis- 
 sissippi, or Father of Waters. The latter 
 is drained by the St. Lawrence, falling into 
 the Northern Atlantic ; the Albany and oth- 
 er streams falling into Hudson's Bay ; and 
 by M'Kenzie's River, which falls into the 
 Arctic Ocean. 
 
 These great sections of this immense 
 valley diff'er much in character. The north- 
 ern possesses a considerable extent of com- 
 paratively elevated and very fertile land in 
 its southern part ; while towards the north 
 it subsides to a low, monotonous, swampy 
 plain, little elevated above the level of the 
 ocean, and, by reason of its marshes, bogs, 
 and inhospitable climate, is almost as unin- 
 habitable as it is incapable of cultivation. 
 The southern section — more commonly 
 called the Valley of the Mississippi — termi- 
 nates on the low, marshy coast of the Gulf 
 of Mexico ; but, with the exception of the 
 part of it which lies on the upper streams 
 of the Red River and La Platte, it eve- 
 rywhere abounds in fertile land, covered, 
 for the most part, even yet, with noble for- 
 ests, or adorned with beautiful prairies. 
 The St. Lawrence is the great river of the 
 northern section or basin, thougli not with- 
 out a rival in the M'Kenzie's River; wliile 
 its southern rival, the Mississippi, flows al- 
 most alone in its vast domain. There are, 
 however, the Alabama and a few small 
 rivers on its left, and the Sabine, tlio Bra- 
 zos, and some others of lesser note on its 
 right. The St. Lawrence boasts a length 
 of more than 2000 miles. Tliat of tlie 
 Mississippi exceeds 2500 ; and if the Mis- 
 souri be considered the main upper branch, 
 as it ought to be, then it may fairly claim 
 the honour of dragging its vast length, with 
 
 many a fold, through more than 4000 miles.. 
 But, though exceeded by the Mississippi in 
 length, the St. Lawrence clearly has the 
 advantage in depth and noble expansion 
 towards its mouth, being navigable for the 
 largest ships of war as high as Quebec, 340 
 miles ; and for large merchant vessels to 
 Montreal, 180 miles farther; whereas the 
 Mississippi does not reach the medium 
 width of a mile, nor a depth in the shallow 
 places of the central channel, when the 
 stream runs low, of more than fifteen feet ; 
 so that, excepting when in flood, it is not 
 navigable by ships of 500 tons for more than 
 300 miles. The St. Lawrence, and all the 
 other considerable rivers of tlie northern 
 basin, pass through a succession of lakes, 
 some of vast extent, by which the floods 
 caused by melting snows and heavy rains, 
 which otherwise, by rushing down in the 
 spring, and accumulating vast masses of 
 ice in the yet unopened channel of its low- 
 er and northern course, would spread dev- 
 astation and ruin over the banks, are col- 
 lected in huge reservoirs, and permitted 
 to flow oflT gradually during the summer 
 months. Wonderful display of wisdom and 
 beneficence in the arrangements of Divine 
 creation and providence ! But the Missis- 
 sippi, as it flows into the warmer regions 
 of the south, needs no such provision ; and 
 hence, with the exception of a few small 
 lakes connected with the head streams of 
 the Upper Mississippi in the west, and one 
 or two connected with the Alleghany, a 
 branch of the Ohio, in the east, no lake 
 occurs in the whole of the southern basin. 
 Owing to this diflerence in these rivers, a 
 sudden rise of three feet in the waters of 
 the St. Lawrence would be more surpri- 
 sing than a rise of thirty feet in the Missis- 
 sippi. But in order that the country which 
 borders upon the latter may not be too 
 much exposed to great and destructive in- 
 undation, the Creator has, in his wisdom, 
 given to it a peculiar configuration. The 
 inclined plane which slopes down from 
 the Oregon Mountains towards the east is 
 much wider than that sloping from the 
 mountains on the opposite side. Hence 
 the rivers from the western side of the val" 
 ley have a much greater distance to trav- 
 erse than those that drain the eastern slope, 
 and the floods which they roll down in the 
 spring are, of course, proportionally later 
 in reaching the Lower Mississippi. In fact, 
 just as the floods of the Tennessee, the 
 Cumberland, and the Ohio, have subsided, 
 tliose of the Arkansas, the Missouri, and 
 Upper Mississippi begin to appear. If 
 these all came down at once, the Lower 
 Mississippi, as the common outlet, by 
 swelling to such an extent as to overflow 
 its banks, would spread destruction far and 
 wide over the whole Delta. Such a calam- 
 ity, or, rather, something approaching to 
 it, does occasionally occur ; but at long in- 
 
Chap.II.3 general notice of north AMERICA. 
 
 ir 
 
 tervals, to teach men their dependance on 
 Divine Providence, as well as to punish 
 them for their sins. 
 
 Of the slope between the Oregon Mount- 
 ains and the Pacific, the northern part, 
 occupied by Russia, is cold, and little of 
 it fit for cultivation ; the middle, claimed 
 by the United States and Great Britain, is 
 said to be a fine country in many parts ; 
 Avhile that occupied by Mexico has very 
 great natural advantages. The country 
 bordering on the Gulf of California is 
 surpassed by none in North America for 
 pleasantness of climate and fertility of 
 soil. 
 
 On both sides of the Upper Mississippi, 
 as well as on both sides of the Missouri, 
 there are extensive prairies,* as the French, 
 who first explored that country, called 
 them ; that is, in many places there are 
 districts, some of them very extensive, in- 
 cluding hundreds, and even thousands of 
 acres of land ; others smaller, and resem- 
 bling a field or meadow, which are covered 
 in the summer with tall grass and a great 
 variety of flowers, but on which scarcely 
 anything in the shape of a tree is to be 
 found. Many of these prairies possess a 
 fertile soil ; but others produce only a sort 
 of stunted grass and short weeds ; and be- 
 tween the upper streams of the Red River 
 and the La Platte, towards the Oregon 
 Mountains, there lies an extensive tract 
 which has been called the Great American 
 Desert. The country there is covered 
 with sand and detached rocks, or boul- 
 ders, which have evidently come from the 
 Oregon Mountains, and is thinly clothed 
 with a species of vegetation called buffalo 
 grass. The prickly pear may often be 
 seen spreading its huge leaves over the 
 ground. Not a tree, and scarcely a bush, 
 is to be met with in many places for miles. 
 Herds of buffalo sometimes traverse it. and 
 
 * Much has been said and written on the origin 
 of the prairies of North America ; but, after all, no 
 perfectly satisfactorj' theory has yet been invented. 
 The Indians know nothing on the subject. As to 
 the barren prairies between the upper streams of the 
 Red River and the Platte, mentioned in the text un- 
 der the name of the Great American De.xert, the same 
 cause produced them which produced the Great Sa- 
 hara in Africa, the utter sterility of the soil. But 
 as it relates to those fertile prairies which one finds 
 in the States of Illinois and Missouri, and in the Ter- 
 ritories of Wisconsin and Iowa, the case is very dif- 
 ferent. In some respects, the theory that they owe 
 their existence to the annual burning of the dry, de- 
 cayed grass, and other vegetable matter, in the au- 
 tumnal months, seems plausible. It accounts well 
 enough for the perpetuation of these prairies, but it 
 fails to account for their origin. How is it that the 
 same cause did not produce prairies in those parts 
 of North America where none have ever existed ? 
 which yet have been, as far as we can learn, occu- 
 pied by the Aborigines as long as those in which the 
 prairies are found. It is very likely that fire was one 
 of the causes of their origin ; but there may have 
 been others not less efficient, as well as various con- 
 curring circumstances, with respect to which we 
 are wholly in the dark. 
 
 a few straggling Indians are occasionally 
 seen upon its outskirts. With these ex- 
 ceptions, the whole portion of North Amer- 
 ica which is now either occupied or claim- 
 ed by the people of the United States, was, 
 when first visited by Europeans, and for 
 more than a century afterward, one vast 
 wilderness. The luxuriant vegetation with 
 which it had been clothed year after year, 
 for ages, was destined only to decay and 
 enrich the soil. Thus did the work of pre- 
 paring it to be the abode of millions of civ- 
 ihzed men go silently and steadily on ; the 
 earth gathering strength, during this long 
 repose, for the sustentation of nations 
 which were to be born in the distant fu- 
 ture. One vast and almost unbroken for- 
 est covered the whole continent, imbo- 
 soming in its sombre shadows alike the 
 meandering streamlet and the mighty riv- 
 er, the retired bay and the beautiful and 
 tranquil lake. A profound and solemn si- 
 lence reigned everywhere, save when in- 
 terrupted by the songs of the birds which 
 sported amid the trees, the natural cries of 
 the beasts which roamed beneath, the ar- 
 ticulate sounds of the savage tribes around 
 their wigwams, or their shouts in the chase 
 or in the battle. The work of God, in all 
 its simplicity, and freshness, and grandeur, 
 was seen everywhere ; that of man almost 
 nowhere ; universal nature rested, and, as 
 it were, kept Sabbath. 
 
 Two hundred years more pass away, 
 and how widely different is the scene ! 
 Along the coasts, far and wide, tall ships 
 pass and repass. The white sails of brig 
 and sloop are seen in every bay, cove, 
 and estuary. The rivers are covered with 
 boats of every size, propelled by sail or 
 oar. And in every water the steamboat, 
 heedless alike of wind and tide, pursues 
 its resistless way, vomiting forth steam 
 and flame. Commerce flourishes along- 
 every stream. Cities are rising in all di- 
 rections. The forests are giving way to 
 cultivated fields or verdant meadows. Sav- 
 age life, with its wigwams, its blanket-cov- 
 ering, its poverty, and its misery, yields on 
 every side to the arts, the comforts, and 
 even the luxuries of civilization. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE ABORIGINES OF NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 North America, when discovered by 
 Europeans, was in the occupancy of a 
 great number of uncivilized tribes ; some 
 large, but most of them small : and, al- 
 though differing in some respects from 
 one another, yet exhibiting indubitable evi- 
 dence of a common origin. Under the be- 
 lief that the country was a part of the East 
 Indies, to reach which, by pursuing a west- 
 erly course, had been the object of their 
 
w 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 TBooK I. 
 
 voyage, the companions of Columbus gave 
 the name of Indians to those nations of 
 the Aborigines which they first saw. Sub- 
 sequent and more extensive exploration of 
 the coasts of America convinced them of 
 their mistake, but the name thus given to 
 the indigenous tribes has adhered to them 
 to this day. 
 
 A striking similarity of organization per- 
 vades the tribes of North America.* All 
 have the same dull vermilion, or cinna- 
 mon complexion, differing wholly from 
 the white, the olive, and the black vari- 
 eties of the human family ; all have the 
 same dark, glossy hair, coarse, but uni- 
 formly straight. Their beards are gen- 
 erally of feeble growth, and instead of be- 
 ing permitted to become long, are almost 
 universally eradicated. The eye is elonga- 
 ted, and has an orbit inclined to a quadran- 
 gular shape. The cheek-bones are prom- 
 inent; the nose broad; the jaws project- 
 ing ; the lips large and thick, though far 
 less so than those of the Ethiopic race. 
 
 Yet there are not wanting considerable 
 varieties in the organization and complex- 
 ion of the Aborigines of North America. 
 Some nations are fairer skinned, some 
 taller and more slender than others ; and 
 even in the same tribe there are often 
 striking contrasts. Their limbs, unre- 
 strained in childhood and youth by the 
 appliances which civilization has invented, 
 are generally better formed than those of 
 the white men. The persons of the males 
 are more erect, but this is not so with the 
 females ; these have become bowed down 
 with the heavy burdens which, as slaves, 
 they are habitually compelled to bear. 
 
 Their manner of life, when first discov- 
 ered, was in the highest degree barbarous. 
 They had nothing that deserved the name 
 of houses. Rude huts, mostly for tempo- 
 rary use, of various forms, but generally 
 circular, were made by erecting a pole to 
 support others which leaned upon it as a 
 centre, and which were covered with leaves 
 and bark, while the interior was lined with 
 skins of tlie buff"alo, the deer, the bear, &c. 
 A hole at the top permitted the escape of 
 the smoke ; a large opening in the side 
 answered the purpose of a door, a window, 
 and sometimes of a chimney. The skins 
 of animals formed almost the whole cov- 
 ering of the body. Moccasins, and some- 
 times a sort of boot, made of the skins of 
 the animals slain in the chase, were the 
 
 * This may be said also of all the aboriginal tribes 
 of America entire, from the shores of the Northern 
 Ocean to the island of Terra del Fuego. But there 
 was a vast difference in regard to civilization. The 
 inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, wlien those conn- 
 tries were visited and conquered by Cortes and Pi- 
 zarro, were far more civilized than the tribes of the 
 portion of North America which we are considering. 
 No remains of antiquity among the latter can be for 
 a moment compared with those of the kingdom of 
 Monfezuma. 
 
 only protection to their feet and legs in 
 the coldest weather. The head was adorn- 
 ed with feathers and the beaks and claws 
 of birds, the neck with strings of shells, 
 and that of the warrior with the scalps of 
 enemies slain in battle or in ambush. 
 
 Nothing like agriculture was known 
 among them, save the planting of small 
 patches of a species of corn which takes 
 its name from them, and which, when 
 parched, or when pounded and made into 
 paste and baked, is both palatable and nu- 
 tritious. Having no herds, the use of milk 
 was unknown. They depended mainly on 
 the chase and on fishing for a precarious 
 subsistence, not having the skill to fur- 
 nish themselves with suitable instruments 
 for the prosecution of either with much 
 success ; and when successful, as they 
 had no salt, they could preserve an abun- 
 dant supply of game only by smoking it. 
 Hence the frequent famines among them, 
 during the long, cold months of winter. 
 
 Poets have sung of the happiness of the 
 natural, in other words, uncivilized life. 
 But all who know anything of the abori- 
 ginal tribes of North America, even in 
 the present times, when those that border 
 upon the abodes of civilized men live far 
 more comfortably than did their ances- 
 tors three hundred years ago, are well 
 aware that their existence is a miserable 
 one. During the excitements of the chase, 
 there is an appearance of enjoyment ; but 
 such seasons are not long, and the utter 
 want of occupation, and the consequent 
 tedium of other periods, make the men in 
 many cases wretched. Add to this the 
 want of resources for domestic happiness ; 
 the evils resulting from polygamy ; the de- 
 pression naturally caused by the sickness 
 of friends and relatives, without the means 
 of alleviation ; the gloomy apprehensions 
 of death ; and we cannot wonder that the 
 " red man" should be miserable, and seek 
 gratification in games of chance, the revel- 
 ries of drunkenness, or the excitements of 
 war. I have seen various tribes of Indians ; 
 I have travelled among them ; I have slept 
 in their poor abodes, and never have I 
 seen them, under any circumstances, with- 
 out being deeply impressed with the con- 
 viction of the misery of those especially 
 who are not yet civilized. 
 
 They are not without some notions of a 
 Supreme Power which governs the world, 
 and of an Evil Spirit who is the enemy of 
 mankind. But their theogony and their 
 theology are alike crude and incoherent. 
 They have no notion of a future resurrec- 
 tion of the body. Like children, they can- 
 not divest themselves of the idea that the 
 spirit of the deceased still keeps company 
 with the body in the grave, or that it wan- 
 ders in the immediate vicinity. Some, 
 however, seem to have a confused impres- 
 sion that there is a sort of elysium for the 
 
€hap. I.] 
 
 THE ABORIGINES OF NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 13 
 
 departed brave, where they will forever 
 enjoy the pleasures of the chase and of 
 war. Even of their own origin they have 
 nothing but a confused tradition, not ex- 
 tending back beyond three or four genera- 
 tions. As they have no calendars, and 
 reckon their years only by the return of 
 certain seasons, so they have no record of 
 time past. 
 
 Though hospitable and kind to strangers 
 to a remarkable degree, they are capable 
 of the most diabolical cruelty to their ene- 
 mies. The well-authenticated accounts of 
 the manner in which they sometimes treat 
 their prisoners would almost make us 
 doubt whether they can belong to the 
 human species. And yet we have only to 
 recall to our minds scenes which have 
 taken place in highly-civilized countries, 
 and almost within our own day, when 
 Christian men have been put to death in its 
 most horrible forms by those who pro- 
 fessed to be Christians themselves, to be 
 convinced that, when not restrained by the 
 grace and providence of God, there is no- 
 thing too devilish for man to do. 
 
 Some remains of the law, written origi- 
 nally on the heart of man by his Creator, 
 are to be found even among the Indian 
 tribes. Certain actions are considered 
 criminal and deserving of punishment ; 
 others are reckoned meritorious. The 
 catalogue, it is true, of accredited virtues 
 and vices is not extensive. Among the 
 men, nothing can atone for the want of 
 -courage and fortitude. The captive war- 
 rior can laugh to scorn all the tortures of 
 his enemies, and sing in the very agonies 
 of a death inflicted in the most cruel man- 
 ner, what may be termed a song of triumph, 
 rather than of death ! The narrations which 
 the Jesuit (French) missionaries, who knew 
 the Indian character better, perhaps, than 
 any other white men that have ever writ- 
 ten of them, have left of what they them- 
 selves saw, are such as no civilized man 
 can read without being perfectly appalled.* 
 Roman fortitude never surpassed that dis- 
 played in innumerable instances by cap- 
 tured Indian warriors. In fact, nothing can 
 be compared with it except that said to 
 have been exhibited by the Scandinavians, 
 in their ea.'-ly wars with one another and 
 with foreign enemies ; and of which we 
 have many accounts in their Elder and 
 Younger Eddas, and in their Sagas. 
 
 * The reader is referred to the work entitled " Re- 
 lation de ce qui s'est passe en la Nouvelle France," 
 in 1632, and the years following, down till 1660. 
 Also to the work of Creuxius, and the Journal of 
 Marest. Much is to be found on the same horrible 
 subject in Charlevoix's " Histoire de la Nouvelle 
 France ;" Lepage Dupratz's " Histoire de la Louisi- 
 ane;" Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia;" " Transac- 
 tions of the American Philosophical Society," vol. i. ; 
 and the volumes of the late excellent Heckewelder, 
 who was for forty years a missionary among the 
 Delaware Indians, and whom the author of this 
 •work had the happiness of knowing intimately. 
 
 Very many of the tribes speak dialects, 
 rather than languages, distinct from thos{»^ 
 of their neighbours. East of the Missis- 
 sippi River, and within the bounds of what 
 is now the United States, when the coloni- 
 zation of the country by Europeans com- 
 menced, there were eight races, or families 
 of tribes, each comprehending those most 
 alike in language and customs, and who 
 constantly recognised each other as rela- 
 tives. These were, 1. The Algonquins, 
 consisting of many tribes, scattered over 
 the whole of the New-England States, the 
 southern part of New- York, New-Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Vir- 
 ginia,' and what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
 nois, and Michigan. Being the most nu- 
 merous of all the tribes, they occupied 
 about half the territory east of the Missis- 
 sippi and south of the St. Lawrence and 
 the lakes. 2. The Sioux, or Dacotas, liv- 
 ing between Lake Superior and the Missis- 
 sippi. These were a small branch of the 
 great tribe of the same name, to be found 
 about the higher streams of that river, and 
 between them and the Oregon Mountains. 
 
 3. The Hukon-Iroquois nations, who occu- 
 pied all the northern and western parts of 
 what is now the State of New- York, and a 
 part of Upper Canada. The most impor- 
 tant of these tribes were the Five Nations, 
 as they were long called, viz. , the Mohawks, 
 Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Sene- 
 cas. These were afterward joined by the 
 Tuscaroras from the Carolinas, a branch 
 of the same great family, and then they 
 took the name of the Six Nations, by which 
 title they are better known to history. 
 
 4. The Catawbas, who lived chiefly in 
 what is now South CaroHna. 5. The 
 Cherokees, who lived in the mountainous 
 parts of the two Carolinas, Georgia, and 
 Alabama. Their country lay in the south- 
 ern extreme of the Alleghany Mountains, 
 and abounded in ridges and valleys. 6. 
 The UcHEEs, who resided in Georgia, in 
 the vicinity of the site occupied at present 
 by the city of Augusta. 7. The Natchez, 
 so famous for their tragical end, who lived 
 on the banks of the Mississippi, in the 
 neighbourhood of the present city of Nat- 
 chez. 8. The MoBiLiAN tribes, or, as Mr. 
 Gallatin calls them, the Muskhogee-Choc- 
 TA, who occupied the country which com- 
 prises now the States of Alabama and 
 Mississippi, and the Territory of Florida. 
 The tribes which composed this family, or 
 nation, are well known by the name of the 
 Creeks, the Chickasas, the Choctas, and 
 the Seminoles ; to whom may be added 
 the Yamasses, who formerly lived on the 
 Savannah River, but exist no longer as a 
 separate tribe. 
 
 The languages of these eight families of 
 tribes are very different, and yet they are 
 marked by strong grammatical affinities. 
 It is most probable that the people who 
 
14 
 
 KELIGICN in AMERICA, 
 
 [Book L 
 
 first settled America, come whence they I 
 might, spoke different, though remotely re- 
 lated languages. All the languages of the 
 Aborigines of America are exceedingly 
 compHcated, regular in the forms of verbs, 
 irregular in those of nouns, and admitting 
 of ciianges by modifications of final sylla- 
 bles, initial syllables, and even, in the case 
 of verbs, by the insertion of particles, in a 
 \vay unknown to the languages of Western 
 Europe. They exhibit demonstrative proof 
 that they are not the invention of those 
 who use them, and that they who use them 
 have never been a highly-civilized people. 
 Synthesis, or the habit of compounding 
 words with words, prevails, instead of the 
 more simple method of analysis, which a 
 highly cultivated use of language always 
 displays.* The old English was much 
 more clumsy than the modern. The same 
 thing is true of the French and German ; 
 indeed, of every cultivated language. The 
 languages of the tribes bordering upon the 
 frontier settlements of the United States 
 begin to exhibit visible evidences of the 
 effect of contact with civilization. The 
 half-breeds are also introducing modifica- 
 tions, which show that the civiUzed mind 
 tends to simplify language ; and the labours 
 of the missionaries, who have introduced 
 letters among several tribes, are also pro- 
 ducing great results, and leading to decided 
 improvements. 
 
 A great deal has been said and written 
 about the gradual wasting and disappear- 
 ance of the tribes which once occupied the 
 territories of the United States. 
 
 It is not intended to deny that several 
 tribes which figure in the history of the 
 first settlement of the country by Europe- 
 ans are extinct, and that several more are 
 nearly so. Nor is it denied that this has 
 been partly occasioned by wars waged with 
 them by the white or European popula- 
 tion ; si ill more by the introductioa of 
 drunkenness and other vices of civilized 
 men, and by the diseases incident to those 
 vices. But while this may be all true, 
 still the correctness of a good deal that 
 has been said on this subject may well be 
 questioned. Nothing can be more certain 
 than that the tribes which once occupied 
 the country now comprised within the Uni- 
 ted States, were, at the epoch of the first 
 settlement of Europeans on its shores, 
 gradually wasting away, and had long been 
 so ; from the destructive wars waged with 
 each other ; from the frequent recurrence 
 of famine, and sometimes from cold ; and 
 from diseases and pestilences, against 
 
 * The reader who desires, may see much on the 
 Indian languages in Humboldt's Voyages ; Vater's 
 Mithradates, vol. iii. ; Baron Will. Humboldt; Pub- 
 lications of the Berlin Academy, vol. xliv. ; Gallatin's 
 Analysis ; Duponceau's Notes on Zeisberger ; Amer- 
 ican Quarterly Review, vol. iii. ; Heckewelder's two 
 works respecting Indian manners, customs, etc. ; 
 aiid Mr. Schoolcraft's publications. 
 
 which they knew not how to protect them- 
 selves. If the Europeans introduced some 
 diseases, it is no less certain that they 
 found some formidable ones among the 
 natives. A year or two before the Pilgrim 
 Fathers reached the coast of New-Eng- 
 land, the very territory on which they set- 
 tled was swept of almost its entire pop- 
 ulation by a pestilence. Several of the 
 tribes which existed when the colonists 
 arrived from Europe were but the rem- 
 nants, as they themselves asserted, of once 
 powerful tribes, that had been almost an- 
 nihilated by war or by disease. This, as is 
 believed, was the case with the Catawbas,. 
 the Uchees, and the Natchez. Many of 
 the branches of the Algonquin race, and 
 some of the Huron-Iroquois, used to speak 
 of the renowned days of their forefathers, 
 when they were a powerful people. It is- 
 not easy, indeed, to estimate what was the 
 probable number of the Indians who occupi- 
 ed, at the time of its discovery, the country 
 east of the Mississippi and south of the St. 
 Lawrence, comprising very nearly what 
 may be called the settled portion of the 
 United States ; and from which the Indian 
 race has disappeared, in consequence of 
 emigration or other causes. But I am in- 
 clined to think, with Mr. Bancroft, an Amer- 
 ican author who deserves the highest praise 
 for the diligent research he has displayed 
 in his admirable work on the United States, 
 and to whom I am greatly indebted on 
 this subject, as well as many others which 
 are treated in this work, that there may 
 have been in all not far f^rom one hundred 
 and eighty thousand souls.* That a con- 
 siderable number were slain in the numer- 
 ous wars carried on between them and 
 the French and English during our colo- 
 nial days, and in our wars with them after 
 our independence, and that ardent spir- 
 its, also, have destroyed many thousandsy 
 cannot be doubted. But the most fruitful 
 source of destruction to these poor " chil- 
 dren of the wood" has been the occasional 
 prevalence of contagious and epidemic dis- 
 eases, such as the smallpox, which some- 
 years since cut off, in a few months, al- 
 most the whole tribe of the Mandans, on 
 the Missouri. 
 
 Of the Algonquin race, whose numbers, 
 two hundred years ago, were estimated at 
 ninety thousand souls, only a few small 
 tribes, and remnants of tribes, remain, 
 probably not exceeding 20,000 persons. 
 Of the Huron-Iroquois, not more probably 
 than two or three thousand remain within 
 the limits of the United States. The great- 
 er part who survive are to be found in. 
 Canada. The Sioux have not diminished. 
 The Cherokees have increased. The Ca- 
 tawbas are nearly extinct as a nation. The 
 remains of the Uchees a nd N at chez ha ve 
 
 ^Bancroft^sHist.oryl)f the United States, vol. iii. 
 p. 253. 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 15 
 
 been absorbed among the Creeks and 
 Choctas ; and, indeed, it is certain, that 
 not only stragghng individuals, but also 
 large portions of tribes, have united with 
 other tribes, and so exist in a commingled 
 state with them. It has happened that an 
 entire conquered tribe has been compelled 
 to submit to absorption among the conquer- 
 ors. And, finally, the Mobilian or Musk- 
 hogee-Chocta tribes, taken as a whole, 
 have decidedly increased, it is believed, 
 within the last twenty-five years. They, 
 with the Cherokees, and the remains of 
 several tribes of the Algonquin race, are 
 almost all collected together, in the district 
 of country assigned to them by the Gen- 
 eral Government, west of the States of Ar- 
 kansas and Missouri. Respecting this plan, 
 as well as touching the general policy of 
 the government of the United States to- 
 wards the Indians, I shall speak fully in 
 another place. 
 
 It is diflficult to estimate, with anything 
 like absolute precision, the number of In- 
 dians that now remain as the descendants 
 of the tribes which once occupied the coun- 
 try of which we have spoken. Without 
 pretending to reckon those who have sought 
 refuge with tribes far in the West, we may 
 safely put it down at one hundred and fif- 
 teen or twenty thousand souls. Of what 
 is doing to save them from physical and 
 moral ruin, I shall speak hereafter. 
 
 The most plausible opinion respecting 
 the origin of the Aborigines of America is, 
 that they are of the Mongolian race ; and 
 that they came to America from Asia, ei- 
 ther by way of the Polynesian world,* or 
 by Behring's Straits, or by the Aleutian 
 Islands, Mednoi Island, and the Behring 
 group. Facts well attested prove this to 
 have been practicable. That the resem- 
 blance between the Aborigines of America 
 and the Mongolian race is most striking, 
 every one will testify who has seen both. 
 " Universally and substantially," says the 
 American traveller, Ledyard, respecting 
 the Mongolians, " they resemble the Abo- 
 rigines of America." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THAT PART OF NORTH AMER- 
 ICA WHICH IS COMPRISED IN THE LIMITS 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES. THE EARLY AND 
 
 UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO COLONIZE IT. 
 
 As the American hemisphere had been 
 discovered by expeditions sent out by 
 Spain, that country claimed the erUre con- 
 tinent, as well as the adjoin '.ig islands ; 
 and to it a pope, as the vic^^erent of God, 
 undertook to cede the .vnole. But other 
 
 * Lang's View of the Polynesian Nations. Ban- 
 croft's History of the United States, vol. iii., p. 315-18. 
 
 countries having caught the spirit of dis- 
 tant adventure in quest of gold, these soon 
 entered into competition with the nation 
 whose sovereign had won the title of Most 
 Catholic Majesty; and as all Christendom at 
 that day bowed its neck to the spiritual do- 
 minion of the Vicar of Christ, as the Bishop 
 of Rome claimed to be, they could not be 
 refused a portion from the "holy father,"' 
 on showing that they were entitled to it. 
 On the ground that Spain could not justly 
 appropriate to herself any part of the Amer- 
 ican Continent which she had not actually 
 discovered, by coasting along it, by mark- 
 ing its boundaries, and by landing upon it, 
 they created for themselves a chance of 
 obtaining no inconsiderable share. 
 
 England was the first to follow in the 
 career of discovery. Under her auspices, 
 the continent itself was first discovered,* 
 June 24, 1497, by the Cabots, John and Se- 
 bastian, father and son, the latter of whom 
 was a native of that country, and the for- 
 mer a merchant adventurer from Venice, 
 but at the time residing in England, and 
 engaged in the service of Henry VII. By 
 this event, a very large and important part 
 of the coast of North America was secured 
 to a country which, within less than half 
 a century, was to begin to throw off the 
 shackles of Rome, and to become, in due 
 time, the most powerful of all Protestant 
 kingdoms. He who " hath made of one 
 blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on 
 all the face of the earth, and hath deter- 
 mined the times before appointed, and the 
 bounds of their habitation," had resolved in 
 this manner to prepare a place to which, in 
 ages then drawing near, those who should 
 be persecuted for Christ's sake might 
 flee and find protection, and thus found 
 a great Protestant empire. And yet how 
 near, if we may so speak, was this mighty 
 plan to being defeated 1 A Spanish discov- 
 erer, a year or two before, was diverted, 
 by some apparently trivial circumstance, 
 from directing his course from Cuba to 
 the very coast which the Cabots after- 
 ward sailed along. Had he done so, how 
 diflferent, in some momentous respects, 
 might have been the state of the world at 
 this day ! We have here another illustra- 
 tion of the littleness of causes with which 
 the very greatest of human events are 
 often connected, and of that superintend- 
 ing Providence which rules in all things. 
 
 Spain, however, far from at once relin- 
 quishing her pretensions to a country thus 
 discovered by England, insisted on claim- 
 ing a large part of it, and for a long time 
 extended the name of the comparatively 
 insignificant peninsula of Florida, with 
 which she was compelled to be contented at 
 last, over the whole tract reaching as far 
 
 * Columbus had not at that epoch touched the 
 continent, but had only discovered the West India 
 Islands. 
 
16 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 north as the Chesapeake Bay, if not farther. 
 France, on the otlier hand, was not likely, 
 under so intelligent and ambitious a mon- 
 arch as Francis I., to remain an inactive 
 spectator of maritime discovei-ies made by 
 the nations on both sides of her. Under 
 her auspices, Verrazzani, in 1524, and Car- 
 tier ten years afterward, made voyages in 
 search of new lands, so that soon she, too, 
 had claims in America to prosecute. As 
 the result of the former of those two en- 
 terprises, she claimed the coast lying to 
 the south of North Carolina, and extending, 
 as was truly asserted, beyond the farthest 
 point reached by the Cabots. Still more 
 important were the results of Cartier's 
 voyage. Having gone up the River St. 
 Lawrence as far as the island on which 
 Montreal now stands, he and Roberval 
 made an ineffectual attempt to found a 
 colony, composed of thieves, murderers, 
 debtors, and other inmates of the prisons 
 in France, on the spot now occupied by 
 Quebec. Two other unsuccessful attempts 
 at colonization in America were made by 
 France, the one in 1598, under the Marquis 
 de la Roche ; the other in 1600, under Chau- 
 vin. At length, in 1605, a French colony 
 ■was permanently established, under De 
 Monts, a Protestant, at the place now call- 
 ed Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, but not un- 
 til after having made an abortive attempt 
 within the boundaries of the present State 
 of Maine. Quebec was founded in 1608, 
 imder the conduct of Champlain, who be- 
 came the father of all the French settle- 
 ments in North America. From that point 
 the French colonists penetrated farther and 
 farther up the St. Lawrence, until at length 
 parties of their hunters and trappers, ac- 
 companied by Jesuit missionaries, reached 
 the great lakes, passed beyond them, and 
 descending the Valley of the Mississippi, 
 established themselves at Fort Du Quesne, 
 Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and various other 
 places. Thus the greater part of the im- 
 mense Central Valley of North America 
 fell, for a time, into the hands of the 
 French. 
 
 Nor was it only in the North that that na- 
 tion sought to plant colonies. The failure 
 of the French Protestants in all their efforts 
 to secure for themselves mere toleration 
 from their own government, naturally sug- 
 gested the idea of expatriation, as the sole 
 means that remained to them of procuring 
 liberty to worship God according to his own 
 Word. Even the Prince of Conde, though 
 of royal blood, nobly proposed to set the ex- 
 ample of withdrawing from F'ranco, rather 
 than be the occasion, by remaining in it, 
 of perpetual civil war with the obstinate 
 partisans of Rome ; and iu 1562, under the 
 auspices of the brave and good Coligny, to 
 whom, also, the idea of expatriation was 
 familiar, two attempts were made by the 
 Huguenots to establish themselves on the 
 
 southern coast of North America. The first 
 of these took place on the confines of South 
 Carolina, and seems at once to have failed. 
 The second, which was on the River St. 
 John's in Florida, survived but a few years. 
 In 1565, it was attacked by the Spaniards, 
 under Melendez, that nation claiming the 
 country in right of discovery, in conse- 
 quence of Ponce de Leon having landed 
 upon it in 1512; and as religious bigotry 
 was added to national jealousy in the as- 
 sailants, they put almost all the Huguenots 
 to death in the most cruel manner, " not as 
 Frenchmen," they alleged, "but as Luther- 
 ans." For this atrocity the Spaniards were 
 severely punished three years afterward, 
 when Dominic de Gourgues, a Gascon, 
 having captured two of their forts, hanged 
 his prisoners upon trees, not far from the 
 spot where his countrymen had suffered, 
 and placed over their bodies this inscrip- 
 tion : " I do not this as unto Spaniards or 
 mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers, and 
 murderers." 
 
 With a view to encourage the coloniza- 
 tion of those parts of North America that 
 were claimed by England, several patents 
 were granted by the crown of that country 
 before the close of the sixteenth century. 
 The enterprises, however, to which these 
 led, universally failed. The most famous 
 was that made in North Carolina, under a 
 patent to Sir Walter Raleigh and others ; it 
 was continued from 1584 to 1588 ; but even 
 the splendid talents and energy of its chief 
 could not save his colony from final ruin. 
 Though the details of this unsuccessful 
 enterprise fill many a page in the history 
 of the United States, strange to say, we 
 are in absolute ignorance of the fate .of the 
 few remaining colonists that were left on 
 the banks of the Roanoke ; the most prob- 
 able conjecture being that they were mas- 
 sacred by the natives, though some affirm 
 that they were incorporated into one of 
 the Indian tribes. Two monuments of 
 that memorable expedition remain to this 
 day ; first, the name of Virginia, given to 
 the entire coast by the courtier, in honour 
 of his royal mistress, though afterward re- 
 stricted to a single province ; and, next, the 
 use of tobacco in PJurope, Sir Walter hav- 
 ing successfully laboured to make it an 
 article of commerce between the two con- 
 tinents. 
 
 Some of the voyages made from Eng- 
 land to America in that century for the 
 mere purpose of traffic were not unprofit- 
 able to the adventurers, but it was not until 
 the following that any attempt at coloniza- 
 tion met with success. In this no one who 
 loves to mark the hand of God in the af- 
 fairs of men, and who has studied well the 
 history of those times, can fail to be struck 
 with the display it presents of the Divine 
 wisdom and goodness. For be it observed, 
 that England was not yet ripe for the work 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 COLONIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 17 
 
 of colonization, and could not then have 
 planted the noble provinces of which she 
 was to be the mother-country afterward. 
 The mass of her population continued, until 
 far on in the sixteenth century, to be at- 
 tached to Rome ; her glorious Constitution 
 was not half formed until the century that 
 followed. The Reformation, together with 
 the persecutions, the discussions, and the 
 conflicts that followed in its train, were all 
 required, in order that minds and hearts 
 might be created for the founding of a free 
 empire, and that the principles and the 
 forms of the government of England 
 might in any sense be fit for the imitation 
 of her colonies. 
 
 Though England, when she first discover- 
 ed America, thought only, as other nations 
 had done, of enriching herself from mines 
 of the precious metals and gems ; on being 
 undeceived by time, she indulged for a 
 while the passion that followed for traffick- 
 ing with the natives. But the commercial, 
 as well as the golden age, if we may so 
 speak, had to pass away, before men could 
 be found who should establish themselves 
 on that great continent with a view to agri- 
 culture as well as commerce, and who 
 should look to the promotion of Christiani- 
 ty no less than to their secular interests. 
 To this great and benevolent end God was 
 rapidly shaping events in the Old World. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COLONIZATION OF THE TERRITORIES NOW CON- 
 STITUTING THE UNITED STATES AT LENGTH 
 ACCOMPLISHED. 
 
 The first permanent colony planted by 
 the English in America was Virginia. 
 Even in that instance, what was projected 
 was a factory for trading with the natives, 
 rather than a fixed settlement for persons 
 expatriating themselves with an eye to the 
 future advantage of their offspring, and 
 looking for interests which might recon- 
 cile them to it as their home. It was 
 founded in 1607, by a Company of noble- 
 men, gentlemen, and merchants in London, 
 by whom it was regarded as an affair of 
 business, prosecuted with a view to pecu- 
 niary profit, not from any regard to the 
 welfare of the colonists. These, consist- 
 ing of forty-eight gentlemen, twelve labour- 
 ers, and a few mechanics, reached the 
 Chesapeake Bay in April, 1607, and having 
 landed, on the i:nh of May, on a peninsula 
 in the James River, there they planted their 
 first settlement, and called it James Town. 
 There had been bestowed upon the com- 
 pany by royal charter a zone of land, ex- 
 tending from the thirty-fourth to the thirty- 
 eighth degree of north latitude, and from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, together 
 with ample powers for administering the 
 affairs of the colony, but reserving to the 
 B 
 
 king the legislative authority, and a con- 
 trol over appointments ; a species of doub- 
 le government, under which few political 
 privileges were enjoyed by the colonists. 
 
 What from the wilderness state of the 
 country, the unfriendliness of the Abori- 
 gines, the insalubrity of the climate, the ar- 
 bitrary conduct of the company, and the un- 
 fitness of most of the settlers for their task, 
 the infant colony had to contend with many 
 difl^culties. Yet not only did it gain a per- 
 manent footing in the country, but, not- 
 withstanding the disastrous wars with the 
 Indians, insurrectionary attempts on the 
 part of turbulent colonists, misunderstand- 
 ings with the adjacent colony of Maryland, 
 changes in its own charter, and other unto- 
 ward circumstances, it had become a power- 
 ful province long before the establishment of 
 American Independence. By a second char- 
 ter granted in 1609, all the powers that had 
 been reserved by the first to the king were 
 surrendered to the company ; but in 1624 
 that second charter was recalled, the com- 
 pany dissolved, and the government of the 
 colony assumed by the crown, which con- 
 tinued thereafter to administer it in a gen- 
 eral way, though the internal legislation 
 of the colony was left, for the most part, 
 to its own Legislature. 
 
 Massachusetts was settled next in the 
 order of time, and owed its rise to more 
 than one original colony. The first plant- 
 ed within the province was that of New- 
 Plymouth, founded on the west coast of 
 Massachusetts Bay, in 1620; but although 
 it spread by degrees into the adjacent dis- 
 trict, yet it never acquired much extent. 
 It originated in a grant of land from the 
 Plymouth Company in England, an incor- 
 poration of noblemen, gentlemen, and bur- 
 gesses, on which King James had bestowed 
 by charter all the territories included with- 
 in the forty-first and forty-fifth degrees of 
 north latitude, from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific Ocean. That company having 
 undergone important modifications, much 
 more numerous settlements were made 
 under its auspices, in 1628 at Salem, and 
 in 1630 at Boston, from which two points 
 colonization spread extensively into the 
 surrounding country, and the province soon 
 became populous and powerful. A colony 
 was planted in New-Hampshire in 1631, 
 and some settlements had been made in 
 Maine a year or two earlier ; but for a 
 long time the progress of all these was 
 slow. In 1636, the celebrated Roger 
 Williams, being banished from Massachu- 
 setts, retired to Narragansett Bay, and by 
 founding there, in 1638, the city of Prov- 
 idence, led to the plantation of a new 
 province, now forming the State of Rhode 
 Island. In 1635, the Rev. Thomas Hooker 
 and John Haynes having led a colony into 
 Connecticut, settled at the spot where the 
 city of Hartford now stands, and rescued 
 
18 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 the Valley of Connecticut from the Dutch, 
 who, having invaded it from their province 
 of New Netherlands, had erected the fort 
 called Good Hope on the right bank of the 
 river. Three years thereafter, the colony 
 of New-Haven was planted by two Puritan 
 Nonconformists, the Rev. John Davenport 
 and Theophilus Eaton, who had first re- 
 tired to Holland on account of their reli- 
 gious principles, and then left that country 
 for Boston, in 1637. Thus, with the ex- 
 ception of Vermont, which originated in a 
 settlement of much later date, drawn 
 chiefly from Massachusetts and New- 
 Hampshire, we see the foundation of all 
 the New-England States laid within twenty 
 years from the arrival of the Pilgrim Fa- 
 thers at Plymouth. 
 
 Meanwhile, Maryland, so called in hon- 
 our of Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry 
 IV. of France, and wife of Charles I., had 
 been colonized. The territory forming the 
 present state of that name, though inclu- 
 ded in the first charter of Virginia, upon 
 that being cancelled and the company be- 
 ing dissolved, reverted to the king, and he, 
 to gratify his feehngs of personal regard, 
 bestowed the absolute proprietorship of 
 the whole upon Sir Charles Calvert, the 
 first Lord Baltimore, and his legal heirs in 
 succession. Never was there a more lib- 
 eral charter. The statutes of the colony 
 were to be made with the concurrence of 
 the colonists, thus securing to the people 
 a legislative government of their own. 
 Sir Charles was a Roman Catholic, but 
 his colony was foimded on principles of 
 the fullest toleration ; and though he died 
 before the charter in his favour had passed 
 the great seal of the kingdom, yet all the 
 royal engagements being made good to his 
 son Cecil, who succeeded to the title and 
 estates, the latter sent out a colonj^ of 
 about two hundred persons, most of whom 
 were Roman Catholics, and many of them 
 gentlemen, accompanied by his brother 
 Leonard. Maryland, though subjected to 
 many vicissitudes, proved prosperous upon, 
 the whole. Though the Roman Catholics 
 formed at first the decided majority, the 
 Protestants became by far the more nu- 
 merous body in the end, and, with shame 
 be it said, enacted laws depriving the Ro- 
 man Catholics of all political influence in 
 the colony, and tending to prevent their 
 increase. 
 
 The first colony in the State of New- 
 York was that planted by the Dutch, about 
 the year 1614, on the southern point, it is 
 supposed, of the island where the city of 
 New- York now stands. The illustrious 
 English navigator Hudson, having been in 
 the employment of the Dutch at the time 
 of his discovering the river that bears his 
 name, Holland chiimed the country bor- 
 dering upon it, and gradually formed set- 
 tlements there, the first of which was 
 
 situate on an island immediately below the 
 present city of Albany. Hudson being 
 supposed to have been the first European 
 that sailed up the Delaware, the Dutch 
 claimed the banks of that river also. But 
 their progress as colonists in America was 
 slow. Though Holland was nominally a 
 republic, yet she did not abound in the ma- 
 terials proper for making good colonists. 
 The country presenting but a limited scope 
 for agriculture, the people were mostly en- 
 gaged in trade or in the arts. 
 
 Pursuing in the New World the same 
 selfish principles which made the Dutch 
 mercantile aristocracy the worst enemies 
 of their country in the Old, the New Neth- 
 erlands colonists were allowed little or 
 no share in the government, and accord- 
 ingly, notwithstanding the greatest nat- 
 ural advantages, the progress of the colony 
 was very slow. New Amsterdam, which, 
 in consequence of such advantages, might 
 have been expected even to outstrip the 
 mother-city, as she has since done under 
 the name of New-York, remained but an 
 inconsiderable village. The vicinity of 
 New-England provoked comparisons that 
 could not fail to make the Dutch colonists 
 discontented with their institutions. At 
 length, in 1664, the English took posses- 
 sion of all the Dutch colonies in North 
 America, which by that time, in addition 
 to their settlements on the Hudson, ex- 
 tended to the eastern part of New-Jersey, 
 Staten Island, and the western extremity 
 of Long Island, besides a detached settle- 
 ment on the banks of the Delaware, with 
 a population not exceeding in all ten thou- 
 sand souls. New Netherlands was granted 
 by Charles II. to his brother the Duke o'f 
 York, from whom the colony and its cap- 
 ital took the name of New- York. The 
 voice of the people was now, for the first 
 time, heard in its Legislature ; it began 
 thenceforth to advance rapidly in popula- 
 tion, and, notwithstanding occasional sea- 
 sons of trial and depression, gave early 
 promise of what it was one day to become. 
 
 New-Jersey was likewise granted to 
 the Duke of York, who, in 1664, handed it 
 over to Lord Berkeley and Sir George 
 Carteret, both proprietors of Carolina. 
 Difficulties, however, having arisen be- 
 tween the colonists and the lords superior 
 with regard to the quit-rents payable by 
 the former, that province was gladly sur- 
 rendered by the latter, upon certain con- 
 ditions, to the crown, and was for some 
 time attached to New- York, within twenty 
 years after all the Dutch possessions had 
 i'allen into the hands of the English. West 
 Jersey was afterward purchased by a 
 company of Friends, or Quakers, and a 
 few years later, in 1G80, William Penn,, 
 previous to his undertaking to plant a col- 
 ony on a larger scale in Pennsylvania, 
 purchased East Jersey, with the view of 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 COLONIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 19 
 
 making it an asylum for his persecuted 
 co-religionists. Finally, East and West 
 Jersey being united as one province un- 
 der the direct control of the crown, ob- 
 tained a Legislature of its own, and enjoyed 
 a gradual and steady prosperity down to 
 the Revolution by which the colonies were 
 severed from England. 
 
 Pennsylvania, as is indicated by its 
 name, was founded by the distinguished 
 philanthropist we have just mentioned, but 
 he was not the first to colonize it. This 
 was done by a mixture of Swedes, Dutch, 
 and English, who had for years before oc- 
 cupied the right bank of the Delaware, both 
 above the point where Philadelphia now 
 stands, and many miles below. The char- 
 ter obtained by William Penn from Charles 
 II. dates from 1681. On the 27th of Octo- 
 ber in the following year, the father of the 
 new colony having landed on his vast do- 
 main in America, immediately set about 
 the framing of a constitution, and began to 
 found a capital, which was destined to be- 
 come one of the finest cities in the Western 
 hemisphere. The government, like that 
 established by the Quakers in New-Jersey, 
 was altogether popular. *The people were 
 to have their own Legislature, whose acts, 
 however, were not to conflict with the just 
 claims of the proprietor, and were to be 
 subject to the approval of the crown alone. 
 The colony soon became prosperous. The 
 true principles of peace, principles that 
 form so conspicuous a part of the Quaker 
 doctrines, distinguished every transaction 
 in which the Aborigines were concerned. 
 It is the glory of Pennsylvania that it nev- 
 er did an act of injustice to the Indians. 
 
 The territory belonging to the State of 
 Delaware was claimed by Penn and his 
 successors, as included in the domain de- 
 scribed in their charter, and for a time 
 formed a part of Pennsylvania, under the 
 title of the Three Lower Counties. But 
 the mixed population of Swedes, Dutch, 
 and English by which it was occupied, 
 were never reconciled to this arrange- 
 ment, and having at last obtained a gov- 
 ernment of its own, Delaware became a 
 separate province. 
 
 The settlement of the two Carolinas be- 
 gan with straggling emigrants from Vir- 
 ginia, who sought to better their fortunes 
 in regions farther south, and were after- 
 ward joined by others from New-England, 
 and also from Europe. At length, in 1663, 
 the entire region lying between the thirty- 
 sixth degree of north latitude and the Riv- 
 er St. John's in Florida, was granted to a 
 proprietary company in England, which 
 was invested with most extraordinary pow- 
 ers. The proprietors, eight in number, 
 were Lord Ashley Cooper, better known 
 as the Earl of Shaftesbury, Clarendon, 
 Monk, Lord Craven, Sir John Colleton, 
 Lord John and Sir William Berkeley, and 
 
 Sir George Carteret. Their grand object 
 was gain, yet the celebrated John Locke, 
 at once a philosopher and a Christian, was 
 engaged to make "Constitutions," or a 
 form of government, for an empire that 
 was to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
 cific. The result of the philosophical law- 
 giver's labours was such as the world had 
 never seen the like of before. The pro- 
 prietors were to form a close corporation ; 
 the territory was to be partitioned out into 
 counties of vast extent, each of which was 
 to have an Earl or Landgrave, and two Bar- 
 ons or Caciques, who, as lords of manors, 
 were to have judicial authority within their 
 respective estates. Tenants of ten acres 
 were to be attached as serfs to the soil, to 
 be subject to the jurisdiction of their lords 
 without appeal, and their children were to 
 continue in the same degradation forever! 
 The possession of at least fifty acres of 
 land was to be required in order to the en- 
 joyment of the elective franchise ; and of 
 five hundred acres in order to a man's be- 
 ing eligible as a member of the colonial 
 Parliament or Legislature. These " Con- 
 stitutions," into the farther details of which 
 we cannot enter, were attempted to be in- 
 troduced, but were soon rejected in North 
 (>arolina ; and after a few years' struggle, 
 were thrown aside also in South Carolina, 
 which had been separated from the Nor- 
 thern province. The colonists adopted for 
 themselves forms of government analo- 
 gous to those of the other colonies ; the 
 proprietary company was after a while 
 dissolved ; the Carolinas fell under the di- 
 rect control of the crown, but were gov- 
 erned by their own legislatures. Their 
 prosperity was slow, having been frequent- 
 ly interrupted by serious wars with the 
 native tribes, particularly the Tuscaroras, 
 which, as it was the most powerful, was 
 for a long time also the most hostile. 
 
 Last of all the original thirteen provin- 
 ces, in the order of time, came Georgia, 
 which was settled as late as 1732, by the 
 brave and humane Oglethorpe. The col- 
 onists were of mixed origin, but the Eng- 
 lish race predominated. Although it had 
 difficulties to encounter almost from the 
 first, yet, notwithstanding wars with the 
 Spaniards in Florida, hostile attacks from 
 the Indians, and internal divisions, Geor- 
 gia acquired, by degrees, a considerable 
 amount of strength. , 
 
 Such is a brief notice of the thirteen 
 original North American provinces, which, 
 by the Revolution of 1775-1783, were trans- 
 formed into as many states. They all 
 touch more or less on the Atlantic, and 
 stretch to a greater or less distance into 
 the interior. Virginia, Georgia, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and North Carolina are the largest ; 
 Rhode Island and Delaware are the small- 
 est. 
 
 In 1803, the French colony of Louisiana, 
 
20 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 now the state of that name, together with 
 the territories since comprised in the 
 States of Arkansas and Missouri, and an 
 almost indefinite tract lying westward of 
 those last two, was purchased by the Uni- 
 ted States for fifteen millions of dollars. 
 And in 1821, the Spanish colony of Flori- 
 da, comprising the peninsula which used 
 to be called East Florida, and a narrow 
 strip of land on the Gulf of Mexico, called 
 West Florida, was purchased by the same 
 government for five millions of dollars. 
 Both purchases now form, of course, part 
 of the great North American Republic. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INTERIOR COLONIZATION OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 After the short account we have given 
 of the first planting of the thirteen original 
 provinces, by successive arrivals of colo- 
 nists from Europe, on the seacoast and 
 the banks of the larger streams, we pro- 
 ceed to say something of the progress of 
 colonization in the interior of the country. 
 A hundred and twenty-five years, it will 
 be observed, elapsed between the found- 
 ation of the first and the last of these 
 provinces ; also, that, with the exception 
 of New-York and Delaware, which receiv- 
 ed their first European inhabitants from 
 Holland and Sweden, they were all origi- 
 nally English ; but that, eventually, these 
 two were likewise included in English pat- 
 ents, and their Dutch and Swedish inhabi- 
 tants merged among the English. 
 
 All these colonies were of slow growth, 
 ten, and even twenty years being required, 
 in several instances, before they could be 
 regarded as permanently established. That 
 of Virginia, the earliest, was more than once 
 on the point of being broken up. Indeed, 
 we may well be surprised that, when the 
 colonists that survived the ravages of dis- 
 ease and attacks from the Indians were 
 still farther reduced in their number by the 
 return of a part of them to England, the 
 remainder did not become disheartened 
 and abandon the country in despair. The 
 Plymouth colonists lost, upon the very 
 spot where they settled, half their number 
 witiiin six months after their arrival ; and 
 terrible, indeed, must have been the sor- 
 rows of the dreary winter of 1G20-21, as 
 endured by those desolate yet persevering 
 exiles. Hut they had a firm faith in God's 
 goodness ; they looked to the future ; tlicy 
 felt that they had a great and a glorious 
 task to accomplish, and that, although they 
 themselves might perish in attempting it, 
 yet their children would enjoy the prom- 
 ised land. 
 
 Stout hearts were required for such en- 
 terprises. Few of the colonists were 
 wealthy persons, and as those were not 
 
 the days of fine packets, or of large and 
 well-appointed merchant vessels, the voy- 
 ages had to be made in small and crowded 
 ships. The inconveniences, to say nothing 
 of the sickness that attended them, were 
 but ill calculated to nerve the heart for 
 coming trials ; and as the colonists ap- 
 proached the coast, the boundless and sol- 
 emn forests that stretched before them, 
 the strangeness of every object that filled 
 the scene, the absence of all tillage and 
 cultivation, and of a village or house to 
 give them shelter, and the uncouth and 
 even frightful aspect of the savage inhabi- 
 tants, must have damped the boldest spir- 
 its. In the case of Plymouth and some 
 others, the settlers arrived during winter, 
 when all nature wore her gloomiest attire. 
 The rudest hovels were the only abodes 
 that could be immediately prepared for 
 their reception, and for weeks together 
 there might only be a few days of such 
 weather as would permit their proceeding 
 with the operations required for their com- 
 fort. Not only conveniences and luxuries, 
 such as the poorest in the mother-country 
 enjoyed, but even the necessaries of life, 
 were often wanthig. Years had to be 
 passed before any considerable part of the 
 forest could be cleared, comfortable dwell- 
 ings erected, and pleasant gardens plant- 
 ed. Meanwhile, disease and death would 
 enter every family ; dear friends and com- 
 panions in the toils and cares of the enter- 
 prise would be borne, one after another, to 
 the grave. To these causes of depression 
 there were often added the horrors of sav- 
 age warfare, by which some of the colo- 
 nies were repeatedly decimated, and du- 
 ring which the poor settler, for weeks and 
 months together, could not know, on reti- 
 ring to rest, whether he should not be 
 awakened by the heart-quailing war-whoop 
 of the savages around his house, or by find- 
 ing the house itself in flames. Ah, what 
 pen can describe the horror that fell upon 
 many a family, in almost all the colonies, 
 not once, but often, when aroused by false 
 or real alarms ! Who can depict the scenes 
 in which a father, before he received the 
 fatal blow himself, was compelled to see 
 his wife and children fall by the tomahawk 
 before his eyes, or be dragged into a cap- 
 tivity worse than death '■ With such de- 
 pressing circumstances to try the hearts 
 of the colonists — circumstances that can 
 be fully understood by those only who 
 have passed through them, or who have 
 heard them related with the minute fideli- 
 ty of an eyewitness — who can wonder 
 that the colonists advanced but slowly *? 
 
 Still, as I have said, they gradually gain- 
 ed strength. At the Revolution in England 
 of 1688, that is, eighty-one years after the 
 first settlement of Virginia, and sixty-eight 
 after that of Plymouth, the population of 
 the colonies, then twelve in number, was 
 
Chap, v.] INTERIOR COLONIZATION OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 estimated at about two hundred thousand, 
 which might be distributed thus : Massa- 
 chusetts, including Plymouth and Maine, 
 may have had forty- four tliousand ; New- 
 Hampshire and Rhode Island, including 
 Providence, six thousand each ; Connecti- 
 cut, from seventeen to twenty thousand ; 
 making up seventy-five thousand for all 
 New-England : New- York, not less than 
 twenty thousand ; New-Jersey, ten thou- 
 sand ; Pennsylvania and Delaware, twelve 
 thousand ; Maryland, twenty-five thou- 
 sand ; Virginia, fifty thousand ; and the 
 two Carolinas, which then included Geor- 
 gia, probably not fewer than eight thou- 
 sand souls. 
 
 After having confined their settlements 
 for many years within a short distance, 
 comparatively speaking, from the coast, 
 the colonists began to penetrate the inland 
 forests, and to settle at diflferent points in 
 the interior of the country, in proportion 
 as they considered themselves strong 
 enough to occupy them safely. Where 
 hostility on the part of the Aborigines was 
 dreaded, these settlers kept together as 
 much as possible, and established them- 
 selves in villages. This was particularly 
 the case in New-England, where, from the 
 soil being less favourable to agriculture, 
 colonization naturally assumed the com- 
 pact form required for the pursuits of trade 
 and the useful arts, as well as for mutual 
 assistance when exposed to attack. As 
 the New-England colonists had all along 
 devoted themselves much to the fisheries 
 and other branches of commerce, their set- 
 tlements were for a long time to be found 
 chiefly on the coast, and at points affording 
 convenient harbours. But it was much 
 otherwise in the South. In Virginia, in 
 particular, the colonists were induced to 
 settle along the banks of rivers to very 
 considerable distances, their main occu- 
 pation being the planting of tobacco and 
 trading to some extent with the Indians. 
 In the Carolinas, again, most hands being 
 employed in the manufacture of tar, tur- 
 pentine, and rosin, or in the cultivation of 
 rice, indigo, and, eventually, of cotton, the 
 colonial settlements took a considerable 
 range whenever there was peace with the 
 Indians in their vicinity. Where there 
 was little or no commerce, and agricultu- 
 ral pursuits of different kinds were the chief 
 occupation of the people, there could be 
 few towns of much importance ; and so 
 much does this hold at the present day, 
 that there is not a city of twenty-five 
 thousand inhabitants in all the five South- 
 ern Atlantic States, with the exception of 
 Baltimore, in Maryland, and Charleston, in 
 South Carolina. 
 
 Even at the commencement of the war 
 of the Revolution, in 1775, the colonies 
 had scarcely penetrated to they Alleghany 
 or Appalachian Mountains in any of the 
 
 21 
 
 provinces that reach thus far, and their 
 whole population was confined to the strip 
 of land interposed between those mount- 
 ains and the Atlantic Ocean. It is true, 
 that immediately after the treaty of Parish 
 in 1763, by which England acquired the 
 Canadas and theValley of the Mississippi- 
 excepting Louisiana, which remained with 
 France, or, rather, was temporarily ceded 
 to Spain— a few adventurers began to pass 
 beyond the mountains, and this emigration 
 westward continued during the war of the 
 Revolution. But when peace came, in 
 1783, I much doubt if there were twen- 
 ty thousand Anglo-Americans in West- 
 ern Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, Ken- 
 tucky, and Tennessee. These were but the 
 advanced posts of the immense host about 
 to follow, and, for many years after the 
 peace, the colonization of the interior was 
 slower than might be supposed. The pop- 
 ulation of the thirteen provinces at the 
 commencement of the Revolution is not 
 positively known, but it certainly did not 
 exceed three millions and a half, slaves in- 
 cluded. No doubt the population of the 
 seaboard increased with considerable ra- 
 pidity, and Vermont was not long in be- 
 ing added to the original thirteen states, 
 making fourteen in all upon the Atlan- 
 tic slope. They amount now to fifteen, 
 Maine, which was long a sort of province 
 to Massachusetts, having become a sep- 
 arate state in 1820. After the establish- 
 ment of Independence, danger from the 
 Aborigines ceased to be apprehended 
 throughout the whole country situated be- 
 tween the Alleghany Mountains and the 
 Atlantic Ocean. The remains of the nu- 
 merous tribes, its former inhabitants, had, 
 with some exceptions in New-England, 
 New- York, and the Carolinas, retired to 
 the West, and there they either existed 
 apart, or had become merged in other and 
 kindred tribes. 
 
 But it was far otherwise in the great re- 
 gion to the west of the Appalachian range. 
 There, many of the Indian tribes occupied 
 the country in all their pristine force, and 
 were the more to be dreaded by settlers 
 from the Eastern States, inasmuch as 
 they were supposed to be greatly under 
 the influence of the British government in 
 Canada, and as unkindly feelings long sub- 
 sisted between the Americans and their 
 English neighbours, each charging the oth- 
 er, probably not without justice, with exci- 
 ting the Indians, by means of their respect- 
 ive agents and hunters, to commit acts of 
 violence. Excepting in some parts of 
 Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ten- 
 nessee, there was little security for Amer- 
 ican settlers in the West from 1783 until 
 1795. The first emigrants to Ohio suffered 
 greatly from the Indians ; two armies sent 
 against them, in the western part of that 
 state, under Generals Harmer and St. Clair, 
 
22 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 were defeated and shockingly cut to pie- 
 ces ; and not until they had received a 
 dreadful defeat from General Wayne, on 
 the River Miami-of-the-lake,* was there 
 anything like permanent peace established. 
 But, as a prelude to the war between the 
 United States and Great Britain, which 
 commenced in 1812 and ended in 1815, the 
 Indian tribes again became troublesome, 
 particularly in Indiana and in the southeast- 
 ern part of the Valley of the Mississippi, 
 forming now the State of Alabama. The 
 Creeks, a powerful tribe of the Muskho- 
 gee race, then occupied that country, and 
 it was not until defeated in many battles 
 and skirmishes that they were reduced 
 to peace. In point of fact, perfect secu- 
 rity from Indian hostilities has prevailed 
 throughout the West only since 1815; 
 since that there have been the insignifi- 
 cant war with Black Hawk, a Sioux chief, 
 which took place a few years ago, and the 
 still more recent war with the Seminoles 
 in Florida — exceptions not worth special 
 notice, as they in nowise affected the coun- 
 try at large. 
 
 It is now (1844) about sixty years since 
 the tide of emigration from the Atlantic 
 States set fairly into the Valley of the 
 Mississippi, and though no great influx 
 took place in any one year during the first 
 thirty-five of that period, it has wonder- 
 fully increased during the last twenty-five. 
 When this emigration westward first com- 
 menced, all the necessaries that the emi- 
 grants required to take with them from the 
 East had to be carried on horseback, no 
 roads for wheeled carriages having been 
 opened through the mountains. On arri- 
 ving at the last ridge overlooking the 
 plains to the west, a boundless forest lay 
 stretched out before those pioneers of civ- 
 ilization, like an ocean of living green. 
 Into the depths of that forest they had to 
 plunge. Often long years of toil and suf- 
 fering rolled away before they could es- 
 tablish themselves in comfortable abodes. 
 The climate and the diseases peculiar to 
 the different localities were unknown. 
 Hence, fevers of a stubborn type cut many 
 of them off. They were but partially ac- 
 quainted with the mighty rivers of that 
 vast region, beyond knowing that their 
 common outlet was in the possession of 
 foreigners, who imposed vexatious reg- 
 ulations upon their infant trade. The 
 navigation of those rivers could be car- 
 ried on only in flat-bottomed boats, keels, 
 and barges. To descend them was not 
 unattended with danger, but to ascend by 
 means of sweeps and oars, by poling, 
 warping, bush-whacking i^ and so forth. 
 
 * Or the River Miami which flows into Lake 
 Erie, and so called to distinguish it from the Miami 
 that falls into the Ohio. 
 
 t The word bush-whackin/r is of Western origin, 
 and signifies a pecuhar mode of propelling a boat up 
 
 was laborious and tedious beyond concep- 
 tion. 
 
 Far different are the circumstances of 
 those colonists now ! The mountains, at 
 various points, are traversed by substan- 
 tial highways ; and, still farther to aug- 
 ment the facilities for intercourse with the 
 vast Western Valley, canals and railroads 
 are in progress. It is accessible, also, from 
 the south, by vessels from the Gulf of 
 Mexico, as well as from the north by the 
 lakes, on v/hose waters from fifty to a hun- 
 dred steamboats now pursue their foaming 
 way.* As for the navigable streams of the 
 Valley itself, besides boats of all kinds of 
 ordinary construction, nearly, if not quite, 
 four hundred steamboats ply upon their 
 waters. And now, instead of being a 
 boundless forest uninhabited by civilized 
 men, as it was sixty years ago, the West 
 contains no fewer than eleven regular- 
 ly-constituted states, and two territories 
 which will soon be admitted as states into 
 the Union, the population having, mean- 
 while, advanced from ten or twenty thou- 
 sand Anglo-American inhabitants to above 
 six millions.! 
 
 Generally speaking, the various sections 
 of the Valley of the Mississippi may be said 
 to have been colonized from the parts of 
 the Atlantic coast which correspond with 
 them as nearly as possible in point of lati- 
 tude. This is easily accounted for : emi- 
 grants from the East to the West naturally 
 wish to keep as much as they can within 
 the climate which birth and early life have 
 
 the Mississippi, Ohio, or any other river in that re- 
 gion, when the water is very high. It is this: in- 
 stead of keeping in the middle of the stream, the 
 boat is made to go along close to one of the banks, 
 and the men who guide it, by catching hold of the 
 boughs of the trees which overhang the water, are 
 enabled to drag the boat along. It is an expedient 
 resorted to more by way of change than anything 
 else. Sometimes it is possible, at certain stages of 
 the rivers, to go along for miles in this way. Even 
 to this day the greater portion of the banks of the 
 rivers of the West are covered with almost uninter- 
 rupted forests. 
 
 * There are more than sixty on Lake Erie alone. 
 
 + It may be worth while to give the names of 
 these states and territories, their extent in English 
 square miles, and their population according to the 
 census of 1840. They are as follows : 
 
 
 STATES. 
 
 
 
 Sq. miles. 
 
 Pop. in 1640. 
 
 Ohio . . . 
 
 . . . 40,260 
 
 1,519,467 
 
 Indiana . . 
 
 . . . 36,500 
 
 685,868 
 
 Michigan . 
 
 . . . 59,700 
 
 212,267 
 
 Illinois . . 
 
 . . . 57,900 
 
 476,183 
 
 Kentucky . 
 
 . . . 40,500 
 
 779,828 
 
 Tennessee . 
 
 . . . 40,200 
 
 829,210 
 
 Missouri 
 
 . . . C3,800 
 
 383,702 
 
 Arkansas . 
 
 . . . 60,700 
 
 97,574 
 
 Alabama 
 
 . . . 52,900 
 
 590,756 
 
 Mississippi . 
 
 . . . 47,680 
 
 375,651 
 
 Louisiana . 
 
 . . . 49,300 
 
 TEEKITORIES. 
 
 352,411 
 
 Wisconsin . 
 
 
 30,945 
 
 Iowa . . . 
 
 . . . ■ ■ 
 
 43,112 
 
 Total 
 
 6,376,972 
 
Chap. VI.] ANGLO-SAXON QUALIFICATIONS FOR COLONIZATION. 
 
 23 
 
 rendered familiar and agreeable, though a 
 regard to their health may compel some of 
 them to seek a change by passing to the 
 south or north of their original latitude. 
 The New-England tide of emigration, in its 
 westward course, penetrated and settled 
 the northern and western parts of the State 
 of New-York, and advancing still farther in 
 the direction of the setting sun, entered the 
 northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illi- 
 nois, extended over the whole of Michigan, 
 and is now stretching into the Territory 
 of Wisconsin. That from the southern 
 counties of New- York, from New-Jersey, 
 and Eastern Pennsylvania, first occupied 
 Western Pennsylvania, and then extended 
 into the central districts of Ohio and Indi- 
 ana. The Maryland and Virginia column 
 colonized Western Virginia and Kentucky, 
 and then dispersed itself over the southern 
 parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois ; while 
 that from North Carolina, after having 
 colonized Tennessee, is reaching into 
 Missouri and Iowa. The South Carolina 
 column, mingling with that of Georgia, 
 after having covered Alabama and a great 
 part of the State of Mississippi, is now ex- 
 tending itself into Arkansas. 
 
 This account of the progress of coloni- 
 zation westward, as a general statement, is 
 remarkably correct, and it furnishes a bet- 
 ter key to the political, moral, and religious 
 character of the West, than any other that 
 could be given. The West, in fact, may 
 be regarded as the counterpart of the East, 
 after allowing for the exaggeration, if I may 
 so speak, which a life in the wilderness 
 tends to communicate for a time to man- 
 ners and character, and even to religion, 
 but which disappears as the population 
 increases, and the country acquires the 
 stamp of an older civilization. Strag- 
 glers may, indeed, be found in all parts 
 of the West, from almost all parts of the 
 East ; and many emigrants from Europe, 
 too, Germans especially, enter by New- 
 Orleans, and from that city find their way 
 by steamboats into Indiana, Illinois, Mis- 
 souri, Wisconsin, and Iowa. But all these 
 form exceptions that hardly invalidate the 
 .general statement. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PECULIAR QUALIFICATIONS OF THE ANGLO- 
 SAXON RACE FOR THE WORK OF COLONIZA- 
 TION. 
 
 Apart altogether from considerations of 
 a moral and religious character, and the in- 
 fluence of external circumstances, we may 
 remark, that the Anglo-Saxon race possess- 
 es qualities peculiarly adapted for success- 
 ful colonization. The characteristic per- 
 severance, the spirit of personal freedom 
 and independence, that have ever distin- 
 
 guished that race, admirably fit a man for 
 the labour and isolation necessarily to be 
 endured before he can be a successful 
 colonist. Now, New-England, together 
 with the States of New- York, New-Jersey, 
 Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the ex- 
 ception of Dutch and Swedish elements, 
 which were too inconsiderable to affect the 
 general result, were all colonized by peo- 
 ple of Anglo-Saxon origin. And assuredly 
 they have displayed qualities fitting them 
 for their task such as the world has never 
 witnessed before. No sooner have the 
 relations between the colonies and the 
 Aborigines permitted it to be done with 
 safety (and sometimes even before), than 
 we find individuals and families ready to 
 penetrate the wilderness, there to choose, 
 each for himself or themselves, some fer- 
 tile spot for a permanent settlement. If 
 friends could be found to accompany him 
 and settle near him, so much the better ; 
 but if not, the bold emigrant would venture 
 alone far into the trackless forest, and sur- 
 mount every obstacle single-handed, like a 
 fisherman committing himself to the deep 
 and passing the livelong day at a distance 
 from the shore. Such was the experience 
 of many of the first colonists of New-Eng- 
 land ; such that of the earliest settlers in 
 New- York, New-Jersey, Delaware, and 
 Pennsylvania; such in our own day has 
 been the case with many of the living oc- 
 cupants of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
 gan, Wisconsin, and Iowa ; and thus is 
 colonization advancing in all those states 
 and territories at the present moment. 
 
 Living on the lands which they cultivate, 
 the agricultural inhabitants of the New- 
 England and Middle States are very much 
 dispersed ; the country, far and wide, is 
 dotted over with the dwellings of the land- 
 holders and those who assist them in the 
 cultivation of the soil. For almost every 
 landowner tills his property himself, as- 
 sisted by his sons, by young men hired for 
 that purpose, or by tenants who rent from 
 him a cottage and a few acres. Field 
 work in all those states is performed by 
 men alone ; a woman is never seen hand- 
 ling the plough, the hoe, the axe, the 
 sickle, or the scythe, unless in the case 
 of foreign emigrants who have not yet 
 adopted American usages in this respect. 
 
 Now it is in this isolated and independent 
 mode of life that our men best fitted to 
 penetrate and settle in the wilderness are 
 trained ; and from this what may be em- 
 phatically called our frontier race has 
 sprung, and is recruited from time to time. 
 
 Take the following case as an illustra- 
 tion of the process that is continually going 
 on in the frontier settlements. A man re- 
 moves to the West, he purchases a piece 
 of ground, builds a house, and devotes 
 himself to the clearing and tillage of his 
 forest acres. Ere long he has rescued a 
 
24 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 farm from the wilderness, and has reared 
 a family upon it. He then divides his land 
 among his sons, if there be enough for a 
 farm to each of them ; if not, each receives 
 money enough to buy one as he comes of 
 age. Some may settle on lands bestowed 
 on them by their father ; others, preferring 
 a change, may dispose of their portion and 
 proceed, most commonly unmarried, to 
 " the new country," as it is called, that is, 
 to those parts of the West where the pub- 
 lic lands are not yet sold. There he 
 chooses out as much as he can convenient- 
 ly pay for, receiving a title to it from the 
 District Land Office, and proceeds to make 
 for himself a home. This is likely to be in 
 the spring. Having selected a spot for his 
 dwelling, generally near some fountain, 
 or where water may be had by digging a 
 well, he goes round and makes the acquaint- 
 ance of his neighbours, residing within 
 the distance, it may be, of several miles. 
 A time is fixed for building him a house, 
 upon which those neighbours come and 
 render him such efficient help, that in a 
 single day he will find a log-house con- 
 structed, and perhaps covered with clap- 
 boards, and having apertures cut out for 
 the doors, windows, and chimney. He 
 makes his floor at once of rough boards 
 riven from the abundant timber of the sur- 
 rounding forest, constructs his doors, and 
 erects a chimney. Occupying himself, 
 while interrupted in out-door work by 
 rainy weather, in completing his house, he 
 finds it in a few weeks tolerably comfort- 
 able, and during fair weather he clears the 
 underwood from some ten or fifteen acres, 
 kills the large trees by notching them 
 round so as to arrest the rise of the sap, 
 and plants the ground with Indian corn, or 
 maize, as it is called in Europe. He can 
 easily make, buy, or hire a plough, a har- 
 row, and a hoe or two. If he finds time, 
 he surrounds his field with a fence. At 
 length, after prolonging his stay until his 
 crop is beyond the risk of serious injury 
 from squirrels and birds, or from the growth 
 of weeds, he shuts up his house, commits 
 it to the care of some neighbour, living 
 perhaps one or two miles distant, and re- 
 turns to his paternal home, which may be 
 from one to three hundred miles distant 
 from his new settlement. There he stays 
 until the month of September, then mar- 
 ries, and with his young wife, a wagon 
 and pair of horses to carry their effects, a 
 few cattle or sheep, or none, according to 
 circumstances, sets out to settle for life iu 
 the wilderness. On arriving at his farm, he 
 sows wheat or rye among his standing In- 
 dian corn, then gathers in this last, and 
 prepares for the winter. His wife shares 
 all the cares incident to this humble begin- 
 ning. Accustomed to every kind of house- 
 hold work, she strives by the diligence of 
 her fingers to avoid the necessity of going 
 
 to the merchant, who has opened his stor& 
 at some village among the trees, perhaps 
 some miles off, and there laying out the 
 little money they may have left. With 
 economy and health, they gradually be- 
 come prosperous. The primitive log-house 
 gives place to a far better mansion, con- 
 structed of hewn logs, or of boards, or of 
 brick or stone. Extensive and well- fenced 
 fields spread around, ample barns stored 
 with grain, stalls filled with horses and cat- 
 tle, flocks of sheep, and herds of hogs, all 
 attest the increasing wealth of the owners. 
 Their children grow up, perhaps to pursue 
 the same course, or, as their inclinations 
 may lead, to choose some other occupa- 
 tion, or to enter one of the learned profes- 
 sions. 
 
 This sketch will give the reader some 
 idea of the mode in which colonization 
 advances among the Anglo-Saxon race of 
 the Middle and New-England States ot 
 America. Less Anglo-Saxon in their ori- 
 gin, and having institutions and customs 
 modified by slavery, the Southern States 
 exhibit colonization advancing in a very 
 different style. When an emigrant from 
 those states removes to the " Far West," 
 he takes with him his wagons, his cattle, 
 his little ones, and a troop of slaves, so as 
 to resemble Abraham when he moved from 
 place to place in Canaan. When he set- 
 tles in the forest he clears and cultivates 
 the ground with the labour of his slaves. 
 Everything goes on heavily. Slaves are 
 too stupid and improvident to make good 
 colonists. The country, under these dis- 
 advantages, never assumes the garden-like 
 appearance that it already wears in the 
 New-England and Middle States, and which 
 is to be seen in the northern parts of the 
 great Central Valley. Slavery, in fact, 
 seems to blight whatever it touches. 
 
 Next to the Anglo-Saxon race from the 
 British shores, the Scotch make the best 
 settlers in the great American forests. 
 The Irish are not so good ; they know not 
 how to use the plough, or how to manage 
 the horse and the ox, having had but little 
 experience of either in their native land. 
 None can handle the spade better, nor are 
 they wanting in industry. But when they 
 first arrive they are irresolute, dread the 
 forest, and hang too much about the large 
 towns, looking around for such work as 
 their previous mode of life has not disquali- 
 fied them for. Such of them as have beea 
 bred to mechanical trades might find suffi- 
 cient employment if they would let ardent 
 spirits alone, but good colonists for the for- 
 ests they will never be. Their children 
 may do better in that career. The few 
 Welsh to be found in America are much 
 better fitted than the Irish for the life and 
 pursuits of a farmer. 
 
 The perseverance and frugality of the 
 German, joined to other good qualities 
 
Chap. VII.] WANT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER IN AMERICA. 
 
 25 
 
 which he has in common with the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, enable him to succeed tolera- 
 bly well even in the forest, but he finds it 
 more to his advantage to settle on a farm 
 bought at second-hand and partiallj" culti- 
 vated. The Swiss are much the same with 
 the Germans. The P'rench and Italians, 
 on the other hand, are totally unfit for 
 planting colonies in the woods. Nothing 
 could possibly be more alien to the usual 
 habits of a Frenchman. The population 
 of France is almost universally collected 
 in cities, towns, villages, and hamlets, and 
 thus, from early habit as well as constitu- 
 tional disposition. Frenchmen love socie- 
 ty, and cannot endure the loneliness and 
 isolation of the settlements we have de- 
 scribed. When they attempt to form colo- 
 nies, it is by grouping together in villages, 
 as may be seen along the banks of the St. 
 Lawrence and of the Lower Mississippi. 
 Hence their settlements are seldom either 
 extensive or vigorous. They find them- 
 selves happier in the cities and large towns. 
 If resolved to establish themselves in the 
 country, they should go to comparatively 
 well-settled neighbourhoods, not to the for- 
 ests of the Far West. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON THE ALLEGED WANT OF NATIONAL CHAR- 
 ACTER IN AMERICA. 
 
 Foreigners who have written about the 
 United States have often asserted that it 
 is a country without a national character. 
 Were this the mere statement of an opin- 
 ion, it might be suffered to pass unnoticed, 
 like many other things emanating from 
 authors who undertake to speak about 
 countries which they have had only very 
 partial, and hence very imperfect, opportu- 
 nities of knowing. But as the allegation 
 has been made with an air of considerable 
 pretension, it becomes necessary that we 
 should submit it to the test of truth. 
 
 If oneness of origin be essential to the 
 formation of national character, it is clear 
 that the people of the United States can 
 make no pretensions to it. No civilized 
 nation was ever composed of inhabitants 
 derived from such a variety of sources ; 
 for in the United States we find the de- 
 scendants of Enghsh, W^elsh, Scotch, 
 Irish, Dutch, Germans, Norwegians, Danes, 
 Swedes, Poles, French, Italians, and Span- 
 iards ; and there is even a numerous and 
 distinguished family in which it is admitted, 
 with pride, that the blood of an Indian prin- 
 cess mingles with that of the haughty Nor- 
 man or Norman-Saxon. Many other na- 
 tions are of mixed descent, but where shall 
 we find one derived from so many distinct 
 races 1 
 
 Neither, if national character depends 
 
 upon the existence of but one language, 
 can the citizens of the United States make 
 any claim to it ; for the colonists from 
 whom they are descended brought with 
 them the languages of the different coun- 
 tries from which they came, and these are 
 retained in some instances to the present 
 day. At least eleven of the different lan- 
 guages of Europe have been spoken by 
 settlers in the United States. 
 
 But let us examine these two points 
 somewhat more minutely, and we cannot 
 fail to be struck with the facts which will 
 be presented to our view. 
 
 And in the first, never has there been 
 witnessed so rapid a blending of people 
 from different countries, and speaking dif- 
 ferent languages, as may be seen in the 
 United States. Within the last two hun- 
 dred years, people have been arriving from 
 some eleven or twelve different countries, 
 and distinguished by as many different 
 tongues, yet so singular a fusion has ta- 
 ken place, that in many localities, where 
 population is at all compact, it would puz- 
 zle a stranger to determine the national 
 origin of the people from any peculiarity 
 of physiognomy or dialect, far less of lan- 
 guage. Who can distinguish in New-York 
 the mass of persons of Dutch descent from 
 those of Anglo-Saxon origin, unless, per- 
 haps, by their retaining Dutch family 
 names ■? Where discover, by the indices of 
 language, features, or manners, the de- 
 scendants of the Swedes, the Welsh, with 
 a few exceptions the Poles, the Norwe- 
 gians, the Danes, or the great body of 
 French Huguenots'? Almost the only ex- 
 ceptions to this universal amalgamation 
 and loss of original languages are to be 
 found in the Germans and French ; and even 
 in regard to these, had it not been for com- 
 paratively recent arrivals of emigrants 
 caused by the French Revolution, the St. 
 Domingo massacres, and various events in 
 Germany, both the French and German 
 languages would have been extinct ere now 
 in the United States. The former is spo- 
 ken only by a few thousands in the large 
 cities, and some tens of thousands in Loui- 
 siana. In the cities, English as well as ' 
 French is spoken by most of the French ; 
 and in Louisiana, the only portion of the 
 Union which the French language has ever 
 ventured to claim for itself, it is fast giving 
 place to English. German, also, spoken 
 although it be by many thousands of emi- 
 grants arriving yearly from Europe, is fast 
 disappearing from the older settlements. 
 The children of these Germans almost uni- 
 versally acquire the English tongue in their 
 infancy, and where located, as generally 
 happens, in the neighbourhood of settlers 
 who speak English as their mother tongue, 
 learn to speak it well. Indeed, over nearly 
 the whole vast extent of the United States, 
 English is spoken among the well-educa- 
 
26 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 ted, with a degree of purity to which there 
 is no parallel in the British realm. There, 
 on a space not much larger than a sixth part 
 of the United States territory, no fewer than 
 three or four languages are spoken ; and in 
 England alone, 1 know not how many dia- 
 lects are to be found which a person unac- 
 customed to them can hardly at all com- 
 prehend, however familiar he may be with 
 pure English. As for France, with its Gas- 
 con, Breton, and I know not how many 
 other remains of the languages spoken by 
 the ancient races which were once scat- 
 tered over its territory, the case is still 
 worse.* Nor does either Germany or Ita- 
 ly present the uniformity of speech that 
 distinguishes the millions of the United 
 States, with the exception of the newly-ar- 
 rived foreigners ; a uniformity which ex- 
 tends even to pronunciation, and the ab- 
 sence of provincial accent and phraseology. 
 A well-educated American who has seen 
 much of his country may, indeed, distin- 
 guish the Southern from the Northern 
 modes of pronouncing certain vowels ; he 
 may recognise by certain shades of sound, 
 if 1 may so express myself, the Northern 
 or Southern origin of his countrymen ; but 
 these differences are too slight to be read- 
 ily perceived by a foreigner. 
 
 Generally speaking, the pronunciation 
 of well-educated Americans is precisely 
 that given in the best orthoepical authori- 
 ties of England, and our best speakers 
 adopt the well-established changes in pro- 
 nunciation that from time to time gain 
 ground there. A few words, however, are 
 universally pronounced in a manner differ- 
 ent from what prevails in England. Either 
 and neither, for example, are pronounced 
 eether and neether, not 'tther and nither, nor 
 will our lawyers probably ever learn to say 
 lien for leen. There is a very perceptible 
 difference of accent between the English 
 and Americans, particularly those of the 
 Eastern or New-England States. There 
 is also a difference of tone ; in some of the 
 states there is more of a nasal inflexion of 
 the voice than one hears in England. 
 
 English literature has an immense cir- 
 culation in America ; a circumstance which 
 may be an advantage in one sense, and a 
 disadvantage in another. We are not want- 
 ing, however, in authors of unquestion- 
 able merit in almost every branch of liter- 
 ature, art, and science. Still, if a litera- 
 ture of our own creation be indispensable 
 to the possession of a national character, 
 we must abandon all claim to it. 
 
 It may be added, that we have no fash- 
 ions of our own. We follow the modes of 
 Paris. But in this Germans, Russians, 
 Italians, and English, without any abate- 
 
 * I have been informed that there are twelve dis- 
 tinct lauguages and patois spoken in France, and 
 that interpreters are needed in courts of justice vvilh- 
 . in a hundred miles of Paris ! 
 
 ment of their claims to national character, 
 do the same. 
 
 Amalgamation takes place, also, by in- 
 termarriages to an extent quite unexam- 
 pled anywhere else ; for though the Anglo- 
 Saxon race has an almost undisputed pos- 
 session of the soil in New-England, peo- 
 ple are everywhere else to be met with 
 in whose veins flows the mingled blood 
 of English, Dutch, Germans, Irish, and 
 French. 
 
 Nor has the assimilation of races and 
 languages been greater than that of man- 
 ners, customs, religion, and political prin- 
 ciples. The manners of the people, in 
 some places less, in others more refined, 
 are essentially characterized by simplicity, 
 sincerity, frankness, and kindness. The 
 religion of the overwhelming majority, and 
 which may therefore be called national, is, 
 in all essential points, what was taught by 
 the great Protestant Reformers of the six- 
 teenth century. With respect to politics, 
 with whatever warmth we may discuss the 
 measures of the government, but one feel- 
 ing prevails with regard to our political 
 institutions themselves. We are no prop- 
 agandists : we hold it to be our duty to 
 avoid meddling with the governments of 
 other countries ; and though we prefer our 
 own political forms, would by no means 
 insist on others doing so too. That gov- 
 ernment we believe to be the best for any 
 people under which they live most happi- 
 ly, and are best protected in their rights of 
 person, property, and conscience ; and we 
 would have every nation to judge for itself 
 what form of government is best suited to 
 secure for it these great ends. 
 
 Assuredly no country possesses a press 
 more free, or where, notwithstanding, pub- 
 lic opinion is more powerful ; but on these 
 points we shall have more to say in an- 
 other part of this work. 
 
 The American people, taken as a whole, 
 are mainly characterized by perseverance, 
 earnestness, kindness, hospitality, and self- 
 reliance, that is, by a disposition to depend 
 upon their own exertions to the utmost, 
 rather than look to the government for as- 
 sistance. Hence, there is no country where 
 the government does less, or the people 
 more. In a word, our national character 
 is that of the Anglo-Saxon race, which 
 still predominates among us in conse- 
 quence of its original preponderancy in 
 the colonization of the country, and of the 
 energy which forms its characteristic dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 Has the reader ever heard Haydn's cel- 
 ebrated oratorio of the Creation perform- 
 ed by a full orcliestra 1 If so, he cannot 
 liave forgotten how chaos is represented 
 at the commencement, by all the instru- 
 ments being sounded together without the 
 least attempt at concord. By-and-by, how- 
 ever, something like order begins, and 
 
Chap. VIII.] 
 
 THE ROYAL CHARTERS. 
 
 27 
 
 at length the clear notes of the clarionet 
 are heard over all the others, controlling 
 them into harmony. Something like this 
 has been the influence in America of the 
 Anglo-Saxon language, laws, institutions, 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 But if, when it is alleged that we have 
 no national character, it be meant that we 
 have not originated any for ourselves, it 
 may be asked, What nation has ! All owe 
 much to those from whom they have 
 sprung ; this, too, has been our case, al- 
 though what we have inherited from our 
 remote ancestors has unquestionably been 
 much modified by the operation of politi- 
 cal institutions which we have been Jed to 
 adopt by new circumstances, and which, 
 probably, were never contemplated by the 
 founders of our country. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE ROYAL CHARTERS. 
 
 Few points in the colonial history of the 
 United States are more interesting to the 
 curious inquirer than the royal charters, 
 under which the settlement of the country 
 first took place. 
 
 These charters were granted by James 
 I., Charles I., Charles II., James II., Will- 
 iam and Mary, and George I. They were 
 very diverse, both in form and substance. 
 Some were granted to companies, some to 
 single persons, others to the colonists 
 themselves. Most of them preceded the 
 foundation of the colonies to which they 
 referred ; but in the cases of Rhode Island 
 and Connecticut, the territories were set- 
 tled first ; while Plymouth colony had no 
 crown charter at all, and not even a grant 
 from the Plymouth Company in England, 
 imtil the year after its foundation. 
 
 The ordinary reader can be interested 
 only in the charters granted by the crown 
 of England ; those from proprietary com- 
 panies and individuals, to whom whole 
 provinces had first been granted by the 
 crown, can interest those readers only 
 who would study the innumerable lawsuits 
 to which they gave occasion. Such in 
 those days was the utter disregard for the 
 correct laying down of boundaries, that 
 the same district of country was often cov- 
 ered with two or more grants, made by the 
 same proprietors, to different individuals ; 
 thus furnishing matter for litigations which 
 lasted in some colonies more than a cen- 
 tury, and sometimes giving rise to lawsuits 
 even at the present day. 
 
 The royal charters give us an amusing 
 idea of the notions with respect to North 
 American geography entertained in those 
 days by the sovereigns of England, or by 
 those who acted for them. The charter 
 of Virginia not only included those vast 
 regions now comprised in the States of 
 
 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, but 
 the northern and southern bounding lines, 
 if extended according to the terms of the 
 charter, would have terminated, the one in 
 the Pacific Ocean, and the other in Hud- 
 son's Bay ; yet by the same charter, they 
 were both to terminate at the South Sea, 
 as the Pacific Ocean was then called. 
 
 The North Carolina and Georgia char- 
 ters conveyed to the colonists provinces 
 that were to extend westward to the South 
 Sea. 
 
 The Massachusetts and Connecticut 
 charters made these colonies also reach 
 to the South Sea, it never appearing to 
 have entered the royal head that they must 
 thus have interfered with the claims of 
 Virginia. New-York, which they must also 
 have traversed, seems not to have been 
 thought of, though claimed and occupied 
 at the time by the Dutch. Indeed, con- 
 sidering the descriptions contained in their 
 charters, it is marvellous that the colonies 
 ever ascertained their boundaries. Look- 
 ing at the charter of Massachusetts, for 
 example, and comparing it with that state 
 as laid down on our maps, we are amazed 
 to think by what possible ingenuity it 
 should have come to have its existing 
 boundaries, especially that on the north- 
 east. Still more confounding does it seem 
 that Massachusetts should have success- 
 fully claimed the territory of Maine, and 
 yet have had to relinquish that of New- 
 Hampshire. 
 
 The charter granted to William Penn 
 for Pennsylvania was the clearest of all,, 
 yet it was long matter of dispute whether 
 or not it included Delaware. On the oth- 
 er hand, Delaware was claimed by Mary- 
 land, and with justice, if the charter of the 
 latter province were to be construed lit- 
 erally. Still, Maryland did not obtain 
 Delaware. 
 
 Such charters, it will be readily sup- 
 posed, must have led to serious and pro- 
 tracted disputes between the colonies 
 themselves. Many of these disputes were 
 still undetermined at the commencement 
 of the war of the Revolution ; several re- 
 mained unadjustified long after the achieve- 
 ment of the national independence ; and it 
 was only a few years ago that the last of 
 the boundary questions was brought to a 
 final issue before the Supreme Court of the 
 United States. 
 
 After the Revolution, immense diflEicul- 
 ties attended the settlement of the various 
 claims preferred by the Atlantic States to 
 those parts of the West which they be- 
 lieved to have been conveyed to them by 
 their old charters, and into which the tide 
 of emigration was then beginning to flow. 
 Had Virginia successfully asserted her 
 claims, she would have had an empire in 
 the Valley of the Mississippi sufl[icient, at 
 some future day, to counterbalance almost 
 
28 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 all the other states put together. North 
 Carolina and Georgia also laid claim to 
 territories of vast extent. The claims of 
 Connecticut and Massachusetts directly 
 conflicted with those of Virginia. Hence 
 it required a great deal of wisdom and pa- 
 tience to settle all these claims, without 
 endangering the peace and safety of the 
 confederacy. All, at length, were adjusted 
 except that of Georgia, and it, too, was ar- 
 ranged at a later date. Virginia magnan- 
 imously relinquished all her claims in the 
 West ; a spontaneous act, which immedi- 
 ately led to the establishment of the State 
 of Kentucky, followed in due time by 
 the foundation of those of Ohio, Indiana, 
 Illinois, and Michigan, in what was long 
 called the Northwestern Territory. The 
 relinquishment by North Carolina of her 
 claims west of the Alleghany Mountains 
 led to the creation of the State of Tennes- 
 see. But Connecticut refused to abandon 
 her claim to the northeastern part of Ohio, 
 often called to this day New Connecticut, 
 without receiving from the General Gov- 
 ernment a handsome equivalent in money, 
 which has been safely invested, and forms 
 the basis of a large capital, set apart for 
 the support of the common schools of the 
 state.* Georgia also ceded her claims in 
 the West to the General Government, on 
 the condition that it should obtain for her 
 from the Indians a title to their territory 
 lying to the east of the Chattahoochee 
 River, now the western boundary of that 
 state. Out of the cession thus made by 
 Georgia have been formed the States of 
 Alabama and Mississippi. 
 
 The United States have had to struggle 
 with still more serious difficulties, origina- 
 ting in the old royal charters. Little re- 
 gard was paid to the prior claims of the 
 Indians in the extensive grants made by 
 those charters, directly or indirectly, to 
 the colonists. The pope had set the ex- 
 ample of giving away the Aborigines with 
 the lands they occupied, or, rather, of giv- 
 ing away the land from under them ; and 
 although in all the colonies founded by 
 our English ancestors in America there 
 was a kind of feeling that the Indians had 
 some claims on the ground of prior occu- 
 pation, yet these, it was thought, ought to 
 give place to the rights conferred by the 
 royal charters. The colonists were sub- 
 ject to the same blinding influence of 
 selfishness that aff'ects other men, and to 
 this we are to ascribe the importunity with 
 which tliey urged the removal of the Indi- 
 ans from the land conveyed by the royal 
 charters, and which they had long been 
 wont to consider and to call their own. 
 In no case, indeed, did the new-comers 
 seize upon the lands of the aboriginal oc- 
 cupants without some kind of purchase ; 
 
 * Amounting to 2,040,228 dollars. 
 
 yet unjustifiable means were often em- 
 ployed to induce the latter to cede their 
 claims to the former, such as excessive 
 importunity, the bribery of the chiefs, and 
 sometimes even threats. Thus, although, 
 with the exception of lands obtained by 
 right of conquest in war, I do not believe 
 that any whatever was obtained without 
 something being given in exchange for it, 
 yet I fear that the golden rule of " doing 
 to others as we would that they should do 
 unto us," was sadly neglected in many of 
 those transactions. In Pennsylvania and 
 New-England, unquestionably, greater fair- 
 nes was shown than in most, if not all the 
 other colonies ; yet even there, full justice, 
 according to the above rule, was not always 
 practised. Indeed, in many cases it was 
 difficult to say what exact justice implied. 
 To savages roaming over vast tracts of 
 land which they did not cultivate, and 
 which, even for the purposes of the chase, 
 were often more extensive than necessary ,^ 
 to part with hundreds, or even thousands 
 of square miles, could not be thought a 
 matter of much importance, and thus con- 
 science was quieted. But although our 
 forefathers may not have done full justice 
 to the poor Indians, it is by no means cer- 
 tain that others in the same circumstances 
 would have done better. 
 
 The impatience of the colonists to ob- 
 tain possession of lands which their char- 
 ters, or arrangements consequent thereon, 
 led them to regard as their own, has at 
 limes thrown the General Government into 
 much embarrassment and difficulty. Thus, 
 in the conflict between it and the State of 
 Georgia, a few short years ago. Congress 
 had agreed to buy the claims of the Indi- 
 ans still remaining within that state, and to 
 provide for their removal beyond its lim- 
 its, in return for the relinquishment of its 
 claims in the West. But this removal of 
 the Indians, it had been expressly stipula- 
 ted, was to be effected peaceably, and with 
 their own consent. Time rolled on, the 
 population of Georgia increased, the set- 
 tlements of the white men had begun to 
 touch those of the red men, and the latter 
 were urged to sell their lands and to retire 
 farther to the west. But to this they 
 would not consent. Thereupon the Gen- 
 eral Government was called on to fulfil its 
 engagement. It exerted itself to the ut- 
 most to persuade the Indians to sell their 
 lands ; but neither would it employ force 
 itself, nor allow Georgia to do so, though, 
 much was done by the colonists, and some- 
 thing, too, by the state indirectly, to worry 
 the Indians into terms. The chiefs, how- 
 ever, long held back. But at length the 
 lands were sold at a great price, and their 
 occupants received others west of the 
 Mississippi, and have removed to these. 
 There, I doubt not, they will do bettei 
 than in their former abode. 
 
Chap.IX.] a knowledge OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, ETC. 
 
 29 
 
 To rid itself of such embarrassments 
 created by the old charters, the General 
 Government, at the instance of great and 
 good men, adopted, some years ago, the plan 
 of collecting all the tribes still to be found 
 within the confines of any of the states, 
 upon an extensive district to the wesi of 
 Arkansas and Missouri, claimed by no 
 state, and, therefore, considered as part of 
 the pubUc domain. There it has already 
 collected the Cherokees, the Choctas, the 
 Chickasas, the Creeks, and several smaller 
 tribes. Soon the territories of all the states 
 will be cleared of them, except in so far as 
 they may choose to remain and become 
 citizens. Nor can I avoid cherishing the 
 hope that the great Indian community novir 
 forming, as 1 have said, west of Missouri 
 and Arkansas, will one day become a state 
 itself, and have its proper representatives 
 in the great council of the nation. I may 
 conclude these remarks by observing, that 
 the late painful dispute between the Uni- 
 ted States and Great Britain, now^ so hap- 
 pily terminated, relative to the boundaries 
 between the State of Maine on the one 
 hand, and Lower Canada and New-Bruns- 
 wick on the other, originated in the geo- 
 graphical obscurity of certain limits, de- 
 scribed in one of these old charters. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF THE AMER- 
 ICAN PEOPLE, THE NATURE OF THEIR GOV- 
 ERNMENT, AND OF THEIR NATIONAL CHAR.'VC- 
 TER, MAY BEST BE ATTAINED. 
 
 He who would obtain a thorough knowl- 
 edge of the people of the United States, their 
 national character, the nature of their gov- 
 ernment, and the spirit of their laws, must 
 go back to the earliest ages of the history 
 of England, and study the character of the 
 various races that from early times have 
 settled there. He must carefully mark 
 the influences they exerted on each other, 
 and upon the civil and politi,cal institutions 
 of that country. He must study the Sax- 
 on Conquest, followed by the introduction 
 of Saxon institutions, and Saxon laws and 
 usages ; the trial of an accused person by 
 his peers ; the subdivision of the country 
 into small districts, called townships or 
 hundreds ; the political influence of that 
 arrangement ; and the establishment of 
 seven or eight petty kingdoms, in which 
 the authority of the king was shared by the 
 people, without whose consent no laws of 
 importance could be made, and who often 
 met for legislation in the open fields, or 
 beneath the shade of some wrde-spreading 
 forest, as their Scandinavian kinsmen met, 
 at a much later period, round the Mora 
 stone.* He must next study the modifi- 
 
 * On the plains of Upsala in Sweden. The mora 
 stone signifies the stone on the moor. 
 
 cations afterward introduced during the 
 subjugation of the Saxons by the North- 
 men or Danes, lasting through 261 years,* 
 and which, though both partial in its ex- 
 tent, and interrupted in its continuance, 
 left not a few monuments of its existence, 
 and gave a name to one of the orders of 
 the English nobility. f 
 
 But, above all, he must study the influence 
 of the Norman Conquest, which was com- 
 pleted within twenty years from the battle 
 of Hastings, fought A.D. 1066. Without 
 extirpating all the Saxon institutions, that 
 event reduced the Anglo-Saxons of Eng- 
 land to the condition of serfs ; gave their 
 lands to sixty thousand warriors, compo- 
 sing the conqueror's army ; established an 
 absolute monarchy, surrounded bj'' a pow- 
 erful landed aristocracy ; and thus intro- 
 duced an order of things wholly new to 
 the country, and foreign to its habits. 
 
 He must attentively mark the influence 
 exercised by the Anglo-Saxon and Nor- 
 man races upon each other, during the pe- 
 riod that has since elapsed, of nearly eight 
 hundred years; and he will there find a 
 clew to many transactions which appear 
 wholly unintelligible in the common histo- 
 ries of England. The reciprocal hatred of 
 the two races will explain the quarrel of 
 Becket, the first archbishop of the Saxon 
 race after the Conquest, and Henry II., 
 the fifth of the Norman kings ; that nation- 
 al> animosity leading Becket to resist the 
 demands of the king, as calculated to ex- 
 tend the tyranny of a hated race of con- 
 querors, and the king to humble the con- 
 quered by crushing theirhaughty represent- 
 ative. That this, and not the diminution 
 of the power of the pope, as is commonly 
 believed, was Henry's object, may be seen 
 from the fact of his being no less earnest 
 in calling -for assistance from Rome, than 
 Becket was in invoking her protection. 
 
 He will perceive this mutual animosity 
 manifesting itself in innumerable instances 
 and in apparently contradictory conduct. 
 At one time the Anglo-Saxons sided with 
 the nobility against the monarch, as in the 
 wars between the barons and King John, 
 and also Henry HI., not because they loved 
 the barons, who were of the same detest- 
 ed Norman race, but because they dread- 
 ed the consequences to themselves of an- 
 other conquest, by a king who had invited 
 over the Poitevins, the Aquitains, and the 
 ProveuQals, to help him against his own 
 subjects in England. At other times they 
 sided with the king against the barons, 
 when they saw that the triumph of the lat- 
 ter was likely to augment their burdens. 
 
 And although, as M. Thierry remarks,^ 
 
 * From A.D. 787 to A.U. 1048. 
 
 t That of Earl, from the Danish and Norwegian 
 Jarl, who was at once the civil and military govern- 
 or of a province. 
 
 t " ConquSte de I'Angleterre," vol. iv.,p. 366-368, 
 Brussels edition. 
 
30 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 the bitter hostility which had lasted for four 
 centuries seemed to become extinct in the 
 fifteenth, when the wars between the Hous- 
 es of York and Lancaster ranged the two 
 races promiscuously on each side, yet tra- 
 ces of their distinct existence are to be 
 found at this day, in the language, in the 
 customs, and in tlie institutions of England. 
 Although the monarch no longer employs 
 the ancient formula, as it occurs in royal 
 ordinances and proclamations for four hun- 
 dred years after the Conquest, such as 
 " Henry V., Henry VIL of that name since 
 the conquest,''* yet to this day a Norman 
 phraseology is sometimes employed by the 
 monarch, as, for instance, le roy Ic veult ; le 
 roy s'adviserd ; le roy mercie ses loyaux su- 
 ]ets.-\ To this day the nobility of England, 
 though recruited from time to time from the 
 rich, the talented, and the ambitious com- 
 moners of Saxon blood, remains essential- 
 ly Norman in spirit and in character. The 
 same may be said of the gentry, or propri- 
 etors of landed estates ; whereas the great 
 bulk of the remaining population is of An- 
 glo-Saxon origin. t In Wales, and in Ire- 
 land, the races of the conquerors and the 
 conquered appear still more distinct, and 
 in the latter mutual antipathy is far from 
 having ceased. In Scotland, there is com- 
 paratively little Norman blood, the Nor- 
 mans never having conquered that coun- 
 try.*^ 
 
 To the resistance of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race in England to the domination of the 
 Norman aristocracy that kingdom was ul- 
 timately indebted for the free institutions 
 it now enjoys. The oppressions of the 
 nobility and of the crown were checked 
 by the cities and boroughs, in which the 
 Anglo-Saxon commons became more and 
 more concentrated, with the advance of 
 civilization and population. The nobles 
 themselves, on occasions when they, too, 
 had to contend for their rights and privi- 
 leges against the sovereign, gave a help- 
 ing hand to the people ; and in later times 
 especially, after the people had established 
 the power of their t-ommons, or third es- 
 tate, on an immovable foundation, aided 
 the sovereign against alleged encroach- 
 
 * Henry Vtll. was tliP last monarch who used this 
 formula in his proclamations, and styled himself Hen- 
 ry, Eighth of the name since the CotKiuest. 
 
 t "The king wills;" "the king will take coun- 
 sel ;" " the king thanks his loyal subjects." 
 
 X Even in our day, the language of the Chronicle 
 of Robert of Gloucexirr holds true in no inconsiderable 
 degree in regard to the population of England: 
 " The folk of Normandie 
 
 Amnns us woucth ytt, and sh.alleth evermore. 
 
 Of Normans beth these high men that beth in this land, 
 
 And the low men of Saxons." 
 
 <^ In fact, there is not a little Norman blood in 
 Scotland; but what of it is to be found in the aris- 
 tocracy came by intermarriages, or by Normans who 
 recommended themselves l)y their talents and cour- 
 age to the favour of the Scottish inonarchs, not by 
 conquest. 
 
 ments on the part of the people. Thus- 
 the cause of liberty gained ground both • 
 among the nobility and the commonalty. 
 
 With the progress of the Reformation, 
 the strife between the two races became 
 exasperated ; the nobility and gentry de- 
 siring little more than the abatement or 
 rejection of the papal usurpation ; the Sax- 
 on race, led by men whose hearts were 
 more deeply interested in the subject, de- 
 siring to see the Church rid of error and 
 superstition of every form. From the dis- 
 cussion of the rights of conscience, the' 
 latter went on to examine the nature and 
 foundations of civil government, and being 
 met with violent opposition, they proceed- 
 ed to lengths they never dreamed of when 
 they first set out. In the fearful struggle 
 that followed, both the National Church 
 and the monarchy were for a time com- 
 pletely overthrown. 
 
 It was just as this grand opposition of 
 sentiment was drawing on to a direct col- 
 lision, and when men's minds were en- 
 grossed with the important questions that 
 it pressed upon them, that the two colo- 
 nies destined to exercise a predominant 
 influence in America left the British shore. 
 The first of the two in point of date sought 
 the coasts of Southern, the second sailed 
 to those of Northern Virginia, as the whole 
 Atlantic slope was then called. The one 
 settled on James River, in the present 
 state of Virginia, and became, in a, sense, 
 the ruling colony of the South ; the other 
 established itself in New-England, there 
 to become the mother of the six Northern 
 States. Both, however, have long since 
 made their influence to be felt far beyond 
 the coasts of the Atlantic, and are contin- 
 uing to extend it towards the Pacific, iii 
 parallel and cleary-defined lines ; and both 
 retain to this day the characteristic fea- 
 tures that marked their founders when they 
 left their native land. 
 
 If not purely Norman in blood, the South- 
 ern colony was entirely Norman in spirit ; 
 whereas llie Northern was Anglo-Saxon 
 in character and in the institutions which 
 it took to the New World. Both loved 
 freedom and free institutions, but they dif- 
 fered as to the extent to which the people 
 should enjoy them. The one had sprung 
 from the ranks of those in England who 
 pleaded for the prerogatives of the crown 
 and the privileges of the nobility ; the oth- 
 er, from the great party that was contend- 
 ing for popular rights. The one origina- 
 ted with the friends of the Church as left 
 by Queen Elizabeth : the other, with those 
 wlio desired to see it purified from what 
 they deemed the corruptions of antiquity, 
 and shorn of the exorbitant pretensions of 
 its hierarchy. The one, composed of a 
 company of gentlemen, attended by a few 
 mechanics or labourers, contemplated an 
 extensive traffic with the natives ; the oth- 
 
Chap.X] religious INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER. 
 
 er, composed, with a few exceptions, of 
 substantial farmers of moderate means and 
 industrious artisans, contemplated the cul- 
 tivation of the ground, and the establish- 
 ment of a state of society in which they 
 might serve God according to his Word. 
 The one had no popular government for 
 some years after its foundation ; the other 
 was self-organized and self governed be- 
 fore it disembarked upon the shores that 
 were to be the scene of its future prosperi- 
 ty. Finally, the religion of the one, though 
 doubtless sincere, and, so far as it went, 
 beneficial in its influence, was a religion 
 that clung to forms, and to an imposing 
 ritual ; the religion of the other was at the 
 farthest possible remove from the Church 
 of Rome, both in form and spirit, and pro- 
 fessed to be guided by the Scriptures alone. 
 
 Such was American colonization in its 
 grand origin. But widely different has 
 been the subsequent histories of those 
 English colonies from that of England her- 
 self. The former carried out to their le- 
 gitimate extent the great principles of civ- 
 il and religious liberty, which they had 
 learned in England, in the school of op- 
 pression and of long and fierce discussion. 
 The latter, after rushing on for a time in 
 the same career, carried those principles 
 to such a length as to subvert the govern- 
 ment, and plunge the country into all the 
 horrors of revolution and misrule, ending, 
 at last, in the despotism of a military chief. 
 The former went on gradually improving 
 the forms of popular government which 
 they had originally adopted, in the face of 
 all the eftbrts of the crown of England to 
 destroy them. The latter provoked, by 
 the wildest excesses, a revulsion, from 
 which, even after the lapse of two cen- 
 turies, she is still sufiering. The former, 
 although never were there subjects more 
 loyal to a crown, or a people more sin- 
 cerely attached to their fatherland, were 
 compelled, as they believed, by the unkind 
 and almost unnatural course pursued by 
 that fatherland, to sever the bonds that 
 bound them to it, and to establish an inde- 
 pendent government of their own. The 
 latter has had to fight the battles of liberty 
 over and over again, and has not even yet 
 obtained for the people all the rights which 
 are considered, in America, their proper 
 inheritance from the hand of their Cre- 
 ator. 
 
 I speak not here of the form of govern- 
 ment. The founders of the American col- 
 onies, and their descendants for several 
 generations, were monarchists, as they 
 would doubtless have been to this day, 
 had they not been compelled, while strug- 
 gling against injustice and oppression, to 
 dissolve their political connexion with the 
 mother-country. In all essential points, 
 colonial freedom differed not from that 
 which an independent existence has given 
 
 31 
 
 them ; and the people of the United States 
 enjoy little more liberty at present than 
 what the fathers of the Revolution main- 
 tained that they ought to have enjoyed 
 under the British Constitution and crown. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW TO OBTAIN A CORRECT VIEW OF THE 
 SPIRIT AND CHARACTER OF THE RELIGIOUS 
 INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Thus, too, if we would have a thorough 
 knowledge of the spirit and character of 
 the Religion of the United States, we must 
 study the history of religion in England 
 first, and then in those other countries 
 whose religious institutions must have con- 
 siderably influenced those of America, in 
 consequence of the numerous emigrants 
 from them that have settled there. In- 
 deed, it is very certain that the religious 
 institutions of America have been hardly 
 less affected than the pohtical, by colonists 
 from Holland, France, and other parts of 
 the Continent of Europe, as well as from 
 Scotland and Ireland. 
 
 Men of speculative habits may indulge 
 many plausible a priori reasonings on the 
 kind of religion likely to find favour with a 
 people of Democratic feehngs and institu- 
 tions, but their conclusions will probably 
 be found very much at variance with facts. 
 M. de Tocqueville presents a striking in- 
 stance of this in the first few chapters of 
 his second work on Democracy in Ameri- 
 ca.* A purely abstract argument, or, rath- 
 er, a mere fanciful conjecture, might, in 
 this case, interest by its ingenuity, and 
 even be believed as true, in the absence 
 of facts. But when he proceeds to estab- 
 lish an hypothesis by an appeal to facts, it 
 is hard to say whether he is oftener right 
 or wrong. Take one or two paragraphs. 
 " In the United States," says he, " the ma- 
 jority undertakes to furnish individuals 
 
 * Both of M. de Tocqueville's works, entitled " De- 
 mocracy in America," unqnestionably possess great 
 merit ; the earlier publication, however, is much su- 
 perior to the later. But the author's great fault is, 
 that he puts his theory uniformly before his facts, in- 
 stead of deducing, according to the principles of the 
 Baconian philosophy, his theory from his facts. Ths 
 consequence of this fatal mistake is, that, having ad- 
 vanced a theory, and shown by argument its plausi- 
 bility, he immediately goes to work to support it by 
 facts, and, in doing so, often distorts them sadly. 
 For the object for which he wrote, that of arresting 
 the progress of Democracy in Europe, by reading 
 lectures from American Democracy as from a text- 
 book, his works certainly correspond to his purpose. 
 But, however able they may be, it is absurd to say 
 that his volumes give a just view of American insti- 
 tutions on all points. On many subjects he has said 
 some excellent things ; and, indeed, no other foreign- 
 er has come so near to comprehending the spirit of 
 our institutions. But no man ever will, no man ever 
 can, understand them perfectly, unless he lias imbi- 
 bed their spirit, as it were, with his mother'a miJk. 
 
32 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 with a multitude of ready-made opinions, 
 and thus to relieve them of the necessity 
 of forming their own. There are many 
 theories in philosophy, morals, and poli- 
 tics, which every one there adopts with- 
 out examination, upon the faith of public 
 opinion ; and, upon a closer inspection, it 
 "will be found that religion itself reigns 
 there much less as a doctrine of revelation 
 than as a commonly-admitted opinion."* 
 
 Now, Democratic as America may be, it 
 would be impossible to find a country in 
 which the last assertion in the above para- 
 graph is less true, for nowhere do people 
 demand reasons for everything more fre- 
 quently or more universally ; nowhere are 
 the preachers of the Gospel more called 
 upon to set forth, in all their variety and 
 force, the arguments by which the Divine 
 revelation of Christianity is established. 
 
 Again, he says, " In the United States 
 the Christian sects are infinitely various, 
 and incessantly undergoing modifications : 
 but Christianity itself is an established and 
 irresistible fact, which no one undertakes 
 either to attack or to defend." 
 
 Again : " The Americans, having ad- 
 mitted without examination the main dog- 
 mas of the Christian religion, are obliged, 
 in like manner, to receive a great num- 
 ber of truths flowing from and having rela- 
 tion to it."t 
 
 Now hardly any assertions concerning 
 his country could surprise a well-inform- 
 ed American more than those contained in 
 these paragraphs, nor could M. de Tocque- 
 ville have made them, had he not been 
 carried away by certain theories with re- 
 spect to the influence of Democratic insti- 
 tutions upon religion. 
 
 M. de Tocqueville does not forget that 
 religion gave birth to Anglo-American so- 
 ciety, but he does forget for the moment 
 what sort of religion it was ; that it was not 
 a religion that repels investigation, or that 
 would have men receive anything as Truth, 
 where such momentous concerns are in- 
 volved, upon mere trust in public opinion. 
 
 * " Aux Etats-Unis, la maiorite se charge de four- 
 nir aux individus une foule ci'opinions toutes faites, 
 et les soulage ainsi de I'obligation de s'en former qui 
 leur soient propres. II y a un grand nombre de the- 
 ories en malitre de philusophie, de morale, ou de po- 
 litique que chacun y adopte ainsi sans examen, sur 
 la foi du public ; et si Ton regardc de trespres on 
 verra que la religion elle mtnie y ri^gne bien moins 
 comme doctrine rev6lee que comme opinion com- 
 mune." — Diinocratie en Amerique, Seconde I'artie, 
 tome i.. chapitre ii. 
 
 + " Aux Etats-Unis, les sectes chr6tiennes vari- 
 ent a Tinfini et se modifient sans cesse ; mais le 
 Christianisine hii-rn6me est un fait ^tabli et irresisti- 
 ble qu'on n'entreprend point d'attaquer ni de d6fen- 
 dre." 
 
 "Les Amcricains, ayant admis sans examen les 
 principaux dogmes de la religion chretienne, soiit 
 obliges de recevoir de la m6me manifere un grand 
 nombre de v6rites qui en decoulent et qui y tienncnt." 
 — DemocTotie en Amerique, Seconde Partie, tome i., 
 chapitre i. 
 
 Such has never been the character of Prot- 
 estantism, rightly so called, in any age. 
 
 Nor is this distinguished author nearer 
 the truth when, giving way to the same 
 speculative tendency, he asserts that " the 
 human mind in Democratic countries must 
 tend to pantheism."* But enough : all 
 that I have wished to show in referring to 
 M. de Tocqueville's work, in many respects 
 an admirable one, is, that the religious 
 phenomena of the United States are not to 
 be explained by reasonings a priori, how- 
 ever plausible and ingenious. 
 
 No : we must go back to the times when, 
 and the influences under which, the reli- 
 gious character of the first colonists from 
 England was formed, and then trace their 
 eff'ects upon the institutions that were es- 
 tablished by those colonists in the New 
 World. 
 
 It is interesting to investigate the histo- 
 ry of Christianity in England from the 
 earliest ages; its propagation by mission- 
 aries from Asia Minor ; its reception by 
 the Celtic races ; the resistance made by 
 the British Christians, in common with 
 those of Ireland and France, to the claims 
 of Rome ; the conquest of England by the 
 Saxons, and the advantage taken of that 
 event, by Rome, to subdue the native 
 Christians, whom it accused of heresy ; 
 the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to 
 Christianity, and their subsequent dissatis- 
 faction with the Romish hierarchy ; the 
 Norman Conquest, and the efforts of the 
 popes to take advantage of that also, in 
 seeking to establish a complete ascendency 
 over the British and Irish Christians ; the 
 witnesses to the Truth raised up by God 
 from the ancient Anglo-Saxon churches ; 
 the influence of Wicliff"e and other oppo- 
 nents of Rome ; and, finally, the dawn of 
 the Reformation. That event, there can 
 be no doubt, was connected, in the provi- 
 dence of God, with the long-continued and 
 faithful resistance of the ancient churches 
 of England to Error. Some remains of 
 Truth had doubtless lain concealed, like 
 unextinguished embers beneath the ashes, 
 but the clearing away of the accumulated 
 rubbish of ages, and the contact of God's 
 Word, sufficed to revive and make it spread 
 anew throughout the nation. 
 
 But the grand means employed by God 
 in preparing a people who should lay the 
 foundation of a Christian empire in the 
 New World was the Reformation. To 
 their religion the New-England colonists 
 owed all their best qualities. Even their 
 political freedom they owed to the contest 
 tliey had waged in lOngland for religious 
 liberty, and in which, long and painlul as 
 it was, nothing but their Faith could have 
 sustained them. Religion led them to aban- 
 
 * " Democratic en Amerique," Seconde Partie-, 
 tome i., chapitre vii. 
 
Chap. XI.] 
 
 THE FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 33 
 
 don their country, rather than submit to a 
 tyranny that threatened to enslave their im- 
 mortal minds, and made them seek in the 
 New World the freedom of conscience 
 that was denied to them in the Old. 
 
 They have been justly accused, indeed, 
 of not immediately carrying out their prin- 
 ciples to their legitimate results, and of be- 
 ing intolerant to each other. Still, be it 
 remembered to their honour, that both in 
 theory and in practice, they were in these 
 respects far in advance of all their con- 
 temporaries ; still more, that their descend- 
 ants have maintained this advanced posi- 
 tion ; so that the people of the United 
 States of America now enjoy liberty of 
 conscience to an extent unknown in any 
 other country. Persecution led the Puri- 
 tan colonists to examine the great subject 
 of human rights, the natui'e and just extent 
 of civil government, and the boundaries 
 at which obedience ceases to be a duty. 
 What Sir James Mackintosh has said of 
 John Bunyan might be applied to them : 
 " The severities to which he had been sub- 
 jected had led him to revolve in his own 
 mind the principles of religious freedom, 
 until he had acquired the ability of baf- 
 fling, in the conlhct of argument, the most 
 acute and learned among his persecutors." 
 The clear convictions of their own minds 
 on this subject they transmitted to their 
 posterity, nor was the inheritance neglect- 
 ed or forgotten. 
 
 The political institutions of the Puritan 
 colonies of New-England are to be traced 
 to their religion, not their religion to their 
 political institutions, and this remark ap- 
 plies to other colonies also. Now, if the 
 reader would know what the religious 
 character of those Puritans was, let him 
 peruse the following eloquent eulogy upon 
 them, from a source which will not be sus- 
 pected of partiality to their religion, what- 
 ever opinions may be attributed to it in re- 
 lation to their political principles. 
 
 " The Puritans were men whose minds 
 had derived a peculiar character from the 
 daily contemplation of superior beings and 
 eternal interests. Not content with ac- 
 knowledging in general terms an overru- 
 ling Providence, they habitually ascribed 
 every event to the will of the Great Being 
 for whose power nothing was too vast, for 
 whose inspection nothing was too minute. 
 To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him, 
 was with them the great end of existence. 
 They rejected with contempt the ceremo- 
 nious homage which other sects substitu- 
 ted for the pure worship of the soul. In- 
 stead of catching occasional glimpses of 
 the Deity through an obscuring veil, they 
 aspired to gaze full on the intolerable 
 brightness, and to commune with Him face 
 to face. Hence originated their contempt 
 of earthly distinctions. The difference 
 between the greatest and meanest of man- 
 
 kind seemed to vanish, when compared 
 with the boundless interval which separa- 
 ted the whole race from Him on whom 
 their own eyes were constantly fixed. 
 They recognised no title to superiority but 
 His favour ; and, confident of that, they 
 despised all the accomplishments and all 
 the dignities of the world. If their names 
 were not found in the registers of heralds, 
 they felt assured that they were recorded 
 in the Book of Life. If their steps were 
 not accompanied by a splendid train of 
 menials, legions of ministering angels had 
 charge over them. Their palaces were 
 houses not made with hands ; their dia- 
 dems, crowns of glory which should never 
 fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, 
 on nobles and priests, they looked down 
 with contempt ; for they esteemed them- 
 selves rich in a more precious treasure, 
 and eloquent in a more sublime language ; 
 nobles by the right of an earlier creation, 
 and priests by the imposition of a mightier 
 hand. The very meanest of them was a 
 being to whose fate a mysterious and 
 terrible importance belonged ; on whose 
 slightest action the spirits of light and 
 darkness looked with anxious interest ; 
 who had been destined, before the heavens 
 and the earth were created, to enjoy a fe- 
 licity which should continue when heaven 
 and earth should have passed away. 
 Events, which short-sighted politicians 
 ascribed to earthly causes, had been or- 
 dained on his account. For his sake em- 
 pires had risen, and flourished, and decay- 
 ed. For his sake the Almighty had pro- 
 claimed his will, by the pen of the evange- 
 list, and the harp of the prophet. He had 
 been rescued by no common Deliverer 
 from the grasp of no common foe. He 
 had been ransomed by the sweat of no 
 vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly 
 sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had 
 been darkened, that the rocks had been 
 rent, that the dead had arisen, that all na- 
 ture had shuddered at the sufferings of her 
 expiring God."* 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A BRIEF NOTICE OF THE FORM OF GOVBRN- 
 MENT IN AMERICA. 
 
 Some knowledge of the civil and politi- 
 cal structure of the government is almost 
 indispensable to a correct investigation of 
 the religious economy of the United States ; 
 for although there is no longer a union 
 there between Church and State, still the 
 interests of religion come into contact, in 
 many ways, with the pohtical organizations 
 of the General and State Governments. 
 
 The Government of the United States 
 must appear extremely co mplicated to a 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, vol. xlii., 339. 
 
34 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book L 
 
 foreigner accustomed to the unity that 
 distinguishes most monarchical polities, 
 and complicated it is m fact. We will en- 
 deavour to describe its leading features as 
 briefly as possible. 
 
 The whole country, then, is subject to 
 Avhat is called the National or General 
 Government, composed of three branches : 
 I. The Executive ; II. The Legislative ; 
 III. The Judicial. 
 
 The executive power is lodged in one 
 man, the President ; who is appointed for 
 four years, by electors chosen for that 
 purpose, each state being allowed as many 
 as it has members of Congress. These 
 are chosen differently in different states, 
 but generally by districts, each district 
 choosing one elector, and that for the sole 
 purpose of electing the President and Vice- 
 President. The latter presides over the 
 Senate, but his office is almost nominal : 
 should the President die, the Vice-Presi- 
 dent immediately steps into his place. 
 
 The President appoints the secretaries 
 of state, or ministers of the various depart- 
 ments of the administration, such as the 
 treasury, navy, war office, &c., and, direct- 
 ly or indirectly, he appoints to all offices 
 in the National or General Government ; 
 in the case of the more important ones, 
 however, only with the consent and appro- 
 bation of the Senate. 
 
 The legislation of the National Govern- 
 ment is committed to the Congress, and 
 that has two branches, the Senate and the 
 House of Representatives. The Senate is 
 composed of two persons from each state 
 in the Union, chosen by the legislatures 
 of the states respectively, and for the 
 period of six years. The House of Rep- 
 resentatives is chosen by the people of the 
 states, generally by districts, and for the 
 period of two years.* Their number is, 
 from time to time, determined by law. The 
 House of Representatives represents the 
 people ; the Senate represents the states. 
 No act of Congress has the force of law 
 without the President's signature, unless 
 when two thirds of each House has voted 
 in favour of an act which he refuses to 
 sign. All matters falling within the legis- 
 lative jurisdiction of the Congress are spe- 
 cified in the Constitution of the United 
 States : such as arc not specifically men- 
 tioned tliere, are reserved for the legisla- 
 tion of the individual states. 
 
 The judicial power is vested in a Su- 
 preme Court, consisting at present of nine 
 judges, appointed by the President, with 
 the consent of the Senate. They can be 
 removed only by impeachment before the 
 Senate, and hold a yearly winter session 
 at Washington, the capital of the United 
 States. When not thus united there, they 
 
 * I5y a recent law, the members of the House of 
 Representatives are hereafter to be chosen by dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 hold circuit courts in different parts of the 
 country. The whole country is divided, 
 also, into districts, each having a judge ap- 
 pointed by the President, for the decision 
 of causes that fall within the cognizance 
 of the United States' courts, and from 
 whose decisions an appeal lies to the Su- 
 preme Court. That court decides how 
 far the laws passed by the National Con- 
 gress, or by the legislatures of the differ- 
 ent states, are consistent with the Consti- 
 tution ; also, all questions between indi- 
 vidual states, or between the United States 
 and an individual state, and questions ari- 
 sing between a foreigner and either the 
 United States or any one state. 
 
 Tiie government of the states individu- 
 ally, closely resembles that of the Confed- 
 eration, the jurisdiction of each being con- 
 fined, of course, to its own territory. Each 
 has its own governor and its own Legisla- 
 ture ; the latter, in all cases but one,* con- 
 sists of a Senate and House of Representa- 
 tives, besides a supreme law court, with 
 subordinate district and county courts. 
 The Legislature of each state embraces a 
 vast variety of subjects, falling within the 
 compass of its own internal interests. The 
 different states vary materially on several 
 points, such as tlie term during which the 
 governor holds office, and the extent of his 
 power ; the terms for which the senators 
 and representatives are elected, and for 
 which the judges are appointed; the sala- 
 ries of those functionaries, and so forth. 
 
 With the exception of South Corolina 
 and Louisiana, in which the territorial di- 
 visions are called districts, all the states 
 are subdivided into counties, having courts 
 of justice attached to each, and officers, 
 likewise, for a great many local objects, 
 such as maintaining the roads, providing 
 for the poor, &c., &c. These counties are 
 subdivided into what are called townships, 
 averaging six or eight miles square, in New- 
 England, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and most of the states in the Valley 
 of the Mississippi ; in Delaware they are 
 called Hundreds, and in Louisiana Parish- 
 es, while in Maryland, Virginia,! the two 
 Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Ten- 
 nessee, the counties form the smallest terri- 
 torial divisions. In the Territories, the sub- 
 division into townships has been adopted. 
 
 These townships form nnportant politi- 
 cal and civil districts and corporations ; the 
 inhabitants meet once a year, or oftener, 
 for local purposes, and for the appoint- 
 ment of local officers and committees. At 
 tliese primary assemblies the people ac- 
 quire habits of transacting public business, 
 which are of the greatest importance in fit- 
 
 * Vermont has but one House in its Legislature. 
 
 t In the eastern part of Virgmia, and a great part 
 of Maryland, the parochial subdivisions that existed 
 previous to the Revolution are still retained for many 
 local purposes, and are even recognised by the law. 
 
chap.xii.] geographical sketch of the united states. 
 
 35 
 
 ting them for legislation and government 
 both in national and local affairs. As for 
 the larger towns, they are incorporated as 
 cities and boroughs, and have municipal 
 governments of a threefold kind : legisla- 
 tive, executive, and judicial. 
 
 The separation of the colonies from Great 
 Britain, and the reorganization of their re- 
 spective governments, produced changes 
 less essential than at first view might be sup- 
 posed. The King, Parhament, and Justicia- 
 ry of England were superseded by the Pres- 
 ident, Congress, and Supreme Court of the 
 United States, the nature of the government 
 remaining essentially the same. For a he- 
 reditary sovereign, we have a President, 
 chosen once in four years ; for a hereditary 
 House of Peers, a Senate, the members of 
 Avhich are chosen for six years ; the powers 
 of the President and Senate being almost 
 identical in most things with those of the 
 corresponding branches of the British Con- 
 stitution. As for the several colonies, 
 these the Revolution transformed into 
 states, and the old royal charters were su- 
 perseded by constitutions. Beyond this 
 there was no essential change, and but lit- 
 tle alteration even in forms. Instead of 
 being appointed by the British crown, or by 
 proprietary companies or individuals, the 
 governors are chosen by the people them- 
 selves. The legislative and judicial branch- 
 es underwent very little modification. 
 
 There are now in the American Union 
 twenty-six organized states, three territo- 
 ries, and one district. The territories are 
 under the government of the President and 
 Congress of the United States, but will be- 
 come states as soon as the amount of 
 their population entitles them, in the opin- 
 ion of Congress, to be represented in the 
 National Legislature. They have a Legis- 
 lature of their own, but their governors are 
 appointed by the President. Two, namely, 
 Wisconsin and Iowa, will soon have a suf- 
 ficient population to entitle them to a place 
 among the states. And when these are ad- 
 mitted, Florida w^ill probably be so too. 
 
 Under the impression that the National 
 Government should be removed from the 
 immediate influence of any one state, the 
 District of Columbia, ten miles square, was 
 taken from Virginia and Maryland, and set 
 apart as the seat of the National Govern- 
 ment, and to it, that is, to the President, 
 Congress, and Supreme Court, it is imme- 
 diately subject. Experience has hardly 
 approved of this measure as either wise or 
 necessary. No part of the country is worse 
 governed. Congress being too much occu- 
 pied with other matters to pay much atten- 
 tion to so insignificant a territory. 
 
 The preceding-outline will suffice to give 
 the reader some idea of the government of 
 the United States, and prepare him for 
 understanding many things which might 
 otherwise be obscure in the farther course 
 of this work. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 A BRIEF GEOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE UNITED 
 STATES. 
 
 In like manner, a short account of the 
 physical character and resources of the 
 United States will be found useful to the 
 reader. 
 
 The United States lie between the par- 
 allels of 24° 27' and 54° 40' north latitude, 
 and 66° 50' and 125° west longitude from 
 Greenwich, and are bounded as follows : 
 On the east, by the Atlantic and the Brit- 
 ish Province of New-Brunswick ; on the 
 south, by the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, and 
 the Republic of Mexico ; on the west, by 
 the Pacific Ocean ; and on the north, by 
 the British possessions, from which they 
 are separated partly by the River St. Law- 
 rence and the great chain of lakes that flow 
 into, or, rather, that form a series of ex- 
 pansions of that river, and partly by a con- 
 ventional line west of the Oregon Mount- 
 ains, which line has not been determined. 
 The United States' government claims up 
 to latitude 54° 40', but this is resisted by 
 England. The 49° degree of north latitude 
 will most probably be agreed to, that being 
 the latitude of the boundary eastward of 
 those mountains to the Lake of the Woods, 
 after which it pursues a southeast direction 
 through some small lakes, and across an in- 
 tervening portage to Lake Superior, which 
 is the uppermost of the chain of lakes 
 through which the St. Lawrence flows. 
 
 A glance at the map will show that this 
 vast territory consists of three grand sec- 
 tions, the Atlantic slope, the Pacific slope, 
 and the intermediate Valley of the Missis- 
 sippi. The whole is computed by Mr. Tan- 
 ner, a distinguished American geographer, 
 to contain 2,037,165 square miles. 
 
 The outlines of the entire territory may 
 be given as follows : 
 
 Miles. 
 
 On the north, from the mouth of the St. 
 
 Croix River to the Oregon Mountains . . 3000 
 From the Oregon Mountains to the Pacific 
 
 Ocean 600 
 
 Along the Pacific, from lat. 54° 40' to lat. 42° 865 
 Along the Mexican and Texan territories, 
 
 from the Pacific to the mouth of the Sabine 
 
 River 2300 
 
 Along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida Point . 1100 
 
 Along the Atlantic Ocean 1800 
 
 Making a total outline of . . 9665 
 
 Of the 2,037,165 square miles, constitu- 
 ting, according to Mr. Tanner, the area 
 of the United States, about 400,000 are 
 found on the Atlantic slope, including East 
 Florida; 1,341,649 in the Valley of the 
 Mississippi,* and 295,516 on the Pacific 
 slope. Hence it appears that nearly two 
 thirds of the whole territory of the United 
 States lie in the Valley of the Mississippi, 
 a fact which shows the vast relative impor- 
 tance of that section of the country. 
 
 * According to Mr. Darby's estimate, the Valley of 
 the Mississippi contains 1,341,649. 
 
36 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 Upon a survey of the whole of this ter- 
 ritory, it will be found to possess physical 
 advantages such as few other countries 
 enjoy. While, with the exception of Flor- 
 ida, all parts of it comprise a large pro- 
 portion of excellent soil, many exhibit the 
 most astonishing fertility. It abounds in 
 the most valuable minerals. Iron is found 
 in several states in great abundance. At 
 various points, but particularly in the Mid- 
 dle States, there are vast deposites of coal, 
 which is easily conveyed by water carriage 
 to other parts of the country. Even gold 
 is found in considerable quantities in the 
 western parts of North Carolina, and the 
 adjacent parts of South Carolina and Geor- 
 gia, and some in Virginia and Tennessee. 
 The almost boundless forests of the inte- 
 rior furnish timber suited to all purposes. 
 Navigable rivers everywhere present fa- 
 cilities for trade. On the Atlantic slope, 
 beginning from the east and advancing 
 southwest, we find in succession the Pe- 
 nobscot, the Kennebec, the Merrlmac, the 
 Connecticut, the Hudson, the Delaware, 
 the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the Rap- 
 pahannock, the James River, the Roanoke, 
 the Neuse, the Fear, the Pedee, the San- 
 tee, the Savannah, the Altamaha, and the 
 St. John's, without reckoning many small- 
 er but important streams, navigable by 
 common boats and small steamers. Many 
 ,i0f these rivers, such as the Delaware, the 
 Potomac, the Rappahannock, the James, 
 . and the Roanoke, expand into noble estua- 
 ries before they fall into the ocean; and 
 the coast is indented, also, with many bays, 
 unrivalled in point of extent and beauty. 
 Beginning from the east, we have Portland 
 or Casco Bay, Portsmouth Bay, Newbury- 
 port Bay, Massachusetts Bay, Buzzard's 
 Bay, Narragansett Bay, New- York Bay, 
 Amboy Bay, Delaware Bay, Chesapeake 
 Bay, into which twelve wide-mouthed riv- 
 ers fall, Wilmington Bay, Charleston Bay, 
 ,&c., &c. 
 
 With the exception of part of the eastern 
 coast of Connecticut, a chain of islands, 
 some inhabited, many not, runs parallel to 
 the shore, beginning at Passamaquoddy 
 Bay, and extending to the southern ex- 
 tremity of Florida, and thence round into 
 the Gulf of Mexico, and along its coast, to 
 beyond the western limit of the United 
 States. Thus are formed some of the finest 
 channels for an extensive coasting trade, 
 such as Long Island Sound, Albemarle 
 Sound, Pamlico Sound, and many others. 
 To increase these facilities, canals and rail- 
 roads have been extended along the coast 
 from Portland in Maine, to Charleston in 
 South Carolina, and even farther. 
 
 Immediately on the seacoast of the west- 
 ern part of New-Jersey, there commences a 
 belt of sand, which extends along the whole 
 margin of the Southern States, covered with 
 an almost uninterrupted forest of pines, 
 
 and enlarging, as it advances southward, 
 from twenty to nearly a hundred miles 
 broad, the latter being its width in the state 
 of North Carolina. Between this sandy 
 tract and the Alleghany Mountains the land 
 is generally fertile, and produces various 
 crops, according to the climate, such as fine 
 wheat and the other cereal grains in New- 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Vir- 
 gia ; in which last two states tobacco is 
 also largely cultivated, cotton in the Caro- 
 linas and in Georgia ; and on the rich bot- 
 tom lands along the bays and streams of 
 the sandy tract, rice and indigo. 
 
 As we advance northward along this 
 fertile tract intervening between the sand 
 and the mountains, we gradually leave the 
 region of transition and secondary rocks, 
 and enter on that of granite, so that before 
 reaching the State of Maine, primitive 
 rocks abound everywhere, even on the sur- 
 face of the ground. 
 
 But in point of fertility the Atlantic slope 
 bears no comparison with the Valley of the 
 Mississippi, embracing a territory about six 
 times as large as that of France, and likely, 
 ere long, to be the abode of many millions 
 of the human race. Fifty years ago it con- 
 tained little more than a hundred thousand 
 inhabitants ; the population of the settled 
 part of it amounted, as we have seen, in 
 1840,* to above six millions, and this, it is 
 calculated from the data supplied in the 
 last forty years, will have increased, in 
 thirty-five years hence, to not much under 
 thirty millions. By the end of the present 
 century it will probably be not less than 
 fifty or sixty millions. 
 
 The tabular view on page 22 shows the 
 immense size of the eleven states and two 
 territories already organized in this vast 
 valley ; let us now look for a moment to 
 their natural resources. 
 
 Ohio, lying between the beautiful river 
 of that name and Lake Erie, comprises 
 40,260 square miles, and a population of 
 above a million and a half. As England 
 and Wales have 57,929 square miles, and 
 15,906,829 inhabitants, Ohio, at the same 
 ratio, would have 11,055,066. With the 
 exception of a part of it in the southeast, 
 on the Hockhocking River, there is little 
 poor land in the state. Vast forests cover 
 the greater part of it to this day. Lake 
 Erie on the north, the River Ohio on the 
 south, and several navigable streams flow- 
 ing from the interior, both to the north and 
 south, give it great natural advantages for 
 commerce ; in addition to which, two im- 
 portant artificial lines of communication, 
 made at great expense, traverse it from 
 
 The exact population of the eleven states and 
 two territories of the Valley of the Mississippi was, 
 without including Western Virginia, Pennsylvania, 
 and Flordia, in 1840, 0,376,972; in 1830 it was 
 3,342,080; in 1820 it was 2,237,454; in 1810 it was 
 1,099,180; in 1800 it was 385,647; in 1790 it was 
 only 109,888. 
 
Chap. XIII.J 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 
 
 37 
 
 Lake Erie to the Ohio. Cincinnati, its 
 commercial capital, has a population of not 
 less than fifty thousand inhabitants. 
 
 Indiana and Illinois are scarcely, if at 
 all, inferior to Ohio in natural advantages ; 
 and considering its proportion of first-rate 
 land, Michigan is, perhaps, the best state 
 in the Union. Kentucky and Tennessee 
 abound both in good land and in mineral 
 resources. 
 
 Missouri, one of the largest states in the 
 Union, possesses a vast extent of excellent 
 land, besides rich mines of iron and of lead. 
 The two territories, low^a and Wisconsin, 
 lying northward of Missouri and Illinois, 
 the former on the west, and the latter on 
 the east of the Upper Mississippi, are large 
 and fertile districts of country, abounding 
 also in lead mines. Both are evidently 
 destined to become great states. Arkan- 
 sas having a great deal of inferior, as well 
 as of fertile land, is considered one of the 
 poorest states on the Mississippi. The 
 large State of Alabama, with the exception 
 of a small part in the south, about Mobile, 
 and another part in the north, near the Ten- 
 nessee River, was, in 1815, in the occupan- 
 cy of the Creek, Chocta, and Chickasa In- 
 dians, chiefly the first of those tribes, but 
 is now rapidly increasing in population. 
 The State of Mississippi has also much 
 land of the very best quality, and although 
 its financial affairs are at present in a de- 
 plorable condition, from bad legislation, it 
 maybe expected, in a few years, to emerge 
 from its embarrassments. Humanly speak- 
 ing, it must be so, for its natural resources 
 are great. And as for Louisiana, the rich 
 alluvial soil of the banks of its rivers, and 
 its advantages for commerce, derived from 
 its position in the lowest part of the great 
 Valley of the Mississippi, must eventually 
 make it a rich and powerful state. But it 
 Avould require the perseverance shown in 
 similar circumstances by the people of 
 Holland, to defend with dikes the south- 
 ern portion of the Delta of the Mississippi, 
 and to make the whole the valuable coun- 
 try into which it might be converted. 
 
 An immense tract of almost unexplored 
 country lies to the northwest of the State 
 of Missouri and the Territories of Iowa and 
 Wisconsin, much of which is believed to 
 be fertile. What new states may yet be 
 formed there, time alone will show. 
 
 Nearly the whole of this vast valley is 
 drained by one great river and its branch- 
 es, of which no fewer than fifty-seven are 
 navigable for steamboats. Indeed, the 
 Missouri, the Arkansas, the Red River, 
 and the White River, flowing from the 
 west, and the Illinois, the Ohio, the Cum- 
 berland, and the Tennessee, from the north 
 and east, are themselves great rivers. On 
 the north the great lakes, and on the south 
 the Gulf of Mexico, form openings into 
 this vast region for the commerce of the 
 
 world. But besides these two great inlets 
 from the north and south, communication 
 with the Atlantic slope has been opened 
 up at various points of the Alleghany chain, 
 by means of substantial roads of the ordi- 
 nary construction, and also by canals and 
 railways. Thus a railway, above six hun- 
 dred miles in length, unites the town of 
 BuflTalo on Lake Erie with Boston ; a ca- 
 nal unites it with Albany, and from that 
 point the Hudson River connects it with 
 New- York. BuflTalo communicates, again, 
 with all the northern parts of Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Michigan, and Illinois, and with the 
 eastern side of the Wisconsin Territory, 
 by fifty steamboats which ply between it 
 and the ports of those regions. To all 
 these advantages we must ascribe the rap- 
 id appeai-ance of so many large cities in 
 this great Western Valley, such as New- 
 Orleans, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, 
 and Pittsburgh, to say nothing of smaller 
 towns on spots which, with the exception 
 of New-Orleans, may be said to have been 
 covered by the forest only fifty years ago. 
 I conclude this chapter by remarking 
 for a moment on the kind and wise Provi- 
 dence which kept the great Valley of the 
 Mississippi from the possession, and al- 
 most from the knowledge of the colonists 
 of the United States, for more than one 
 hundred and fifty years. By that time, 
 they had so far occupied and reduced to 
 cultivation the less fertile hills of the At- 
 lantic slope, and there had acquired that 
 hardy, industrious, and virtuous character, 
 which better fitted them to carry civiliza- 
 tion and religion into the vast plains of the 
 West. So that, at this day, the New-Eng- 
 land and other Atlantic States, while in- 
 creasing in population themselves, serve, 
 at the same time, as nurseries from which 
 the West derives many of the best plants 
 that are transferred to its noble soil. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OBSTACLES WHICH THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM 
 IN SUPPORTING RELIGION HAS HAD TO EN- 
 COUNTER IN AMERICA: 1. FROM THE ERRO- 
 NEOUS OPINIONS ON THE SUBJECT OF RE- 
 LIGIOUS ECONOMY WHICH THE COLONISTS 
 BROUGHT WITH THEM. 
 
 Some persons in Europe entertain the 
 idea, that if the " American plan" of sup- 
 porting religion, by relying, under God's 
 blessing, upon the efforts of the people, 
 rather than upon the help of the govern- 
 ment, has succeeded in that country, it has 
 been owing, in a great measure, to the fact 
 that the countiy presented an open field 
 for the experiment ; that everything was 
 new there ; that no old establishments had 
 to be pulled down ; no deep-rooted preju- 
 dices to be eradicated ; no time-honoured 
 
38 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 institutions to be modified ; but that all was 
 favourable for attempting something new 
 under the sun. Now it is hardly possible 
 to entertain an idea more remote from the 
 truth than this. 
 
 What follows will demonstrate that, so 
 far from committing religion to the spon- 
 taneous support of persons cordially inter- 
 ested in its progress, the opposite course 
 was pursued from the first almost, in all 
 the colonies. In the greater number of the 
 colonies, in fact, men looked to the civil 
 government for the support of the Chris- 
 tian ministry and worship. Now what we 
 have here to consider is not the question 
 whether they were right or wrong in doing 
 so, but the simple fact that they actually 
 did so ; and, accordingly, that, so far from 
 what has been called the Voluntary Prin- 
 ciple having had an open field in America, 
 in those very parts of the country which 
 now, perhaps, best illustrate its efficiency, 
 it had long to struggle with establishments 
 founded on the opposite system, and with 
 strong prepossessions in their favour. 
 
 In all such parts of the country many 
 obstacles were opposed to the abandon- 
 ment of the old system. Good and great 
 men made no secret of their fears that the 
 cause of religion would thus be ruined ; 
 that the churches would be forsaken by the 
 people, whose unaided eflforts would prove 
 unequal to the expense of maintaining 
 them, and that they could never be induced 
 to attempt it. In fact, as they had never 
 been accustomed to rely upon their own 
 exertions in that matter, and were not 
 aware how much they could do, they were 
 at first timid and discouraged. Another 
 obstacle lay in the unwillingness of those 
 who had enjoyed the influence and ascend- 
 ency conferred by the old system, to sur- 
 render those advantages. wSuch persons 
 were prone to believe, and naturally sought 
 to impress others with the conviction, no 
 doubt very sincerely, that their resistance 
 to the proposed change was the legitimate 
 fruit of their zeal for the cause of God, 
 and of their dread lest that cause should 
 suffer. 
 
 Other obstacles, and those not inconsid- 
 erable, had to' be encountered, all resulting 
 directly or indirectly from the old system. 
 It will be shown, in due time, that some of 
 the worst heresies in the United States 
 were originated and propagated by meas- 
 ures arising out of the old system. What 
 I mean to say is, that Truth has there en- 
 countered powerful obstacles, which we 
 have every reason to believe would not 
 have existed but for that union. Other 
 evils there might have been in the absence 
 of any such union ; but, be that as it may, 
 with the obstacles to which I refer, it could 
 not be said that the field was entirely new, 
 far less that it was open. 
 
 Still more : some of the greatest obsta- 
 
 cles which the " American plan" of sup- 
 porting religion had to overcome arose 
 from the erroneous views of the colonists 
 on the subject of religious liberty. The 
 voluntary system rests on the grand basis 
 of perfect religious freedom. I mean a 
 freedom of conscience for all ; for those 
 who believe Christianity to be true, and 
 for those who do not ; for those who prefer 
 one form of worship, and for those who 
 prefer another. This is all implied, or, 
 rather, it is fully avowed, at the first step 
 in supporting religion upon this plan. 
 
 Now it so happened — nor ought we to 
 wonder at it, for it would have been a 
 miracle had it been otherwise — that very 
 many of the best colonists who settled in 
 America had not yet attained to correct 
 ideas on the subject of religious toleration 
 and the rights of conscience. It required 
 persecution, and that thorough discussion 
 of the subject which persecution brought 
 in its train, both in the colonies and in 
 England and other European countries, to 
 make them understand the subject. And, 
 in point of fact, those who first understood 
 it had learned it in the school of persecution. 
 Such was Roger Williams ; such were Lord 
 Baltimore and the Roman Catholics who 
 settled in Maryland; such was William 
 Penn. Accordingly, the three colonies 
 that they founded, Rhode Island, Maryland, 
 and Pennsylvania, including Delaware, 
 were the first communities, either in the 
 New or the Old World, that enjoyed reli- 
 gious liberty in the fullest extent. 
 
 I am sure, indeed, that, as I have already 
 said, the founders of the first American col- 
 onies, and those of New-England in par- 
 ticular, did as much for freedom of con- 
 science as could have been expected, and 
 were in that respect in advance of the age 
 in which they lived. If they were intol- 
 erant, so were others. If they would not 
 allow Roman Catholics to live among them, 
 the most dreadful examples, be it remem- 
 bered, of Roman Catholic intolerance were 
 forced upon their attention, and that their 
 policy was merciful in the extreme com- 
 pared with that of Roman Catholic coun- 
 tries in those days. They merely refused 
 to receive them or to allow them to remain 
 among them, whereas the poor Huguenots 
 of France were not permitted so much as 
 to retire from amid their enemies. If, in 
 some of the colonies, Quakers were treat- 
 ed with great harshness and shocking in- 
 justice, what treatment did the members of 
 that sect receive at the same period in 
 England ^ If the colonists burned witches, 
 was not that done also in Scotland, Eng- 
 land, and other countries 1 
 
 I may therefore repeat, that the colonists 
 were in advance of their contemporaries 
 in their views of almost all questions rela- 
 ting to human rights, and that they main- 
 tained this advance is attested by the insti- 
 
•Chap. XIV.] 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 
 
 39 
 
 tutions that arose among them. But the 
 intolerance with which these were charge- 
 able at first, may be traced to their opin- 
 ions with regard to the relations which the 
 Church ought to sustain towards the State. 
 And their erroneous views on that subject 
 created obstacles which were with difficul- 
 ty overcome by the principle of leaving re- 
 ligion, not to the support as well as protec- 
 tion of the State, but to the hearts and hands 
 of persons who have truly received, and 
 are willing to sustain it. These remarks 
 ■will suffice to show that the field was not 
 so open to that principle in America as 
 some have thought. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OBSTACLES WHICH THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM 
 HAS HAD TO ENCOUNTER IN AMERICA : 2. 
 FROM THE NEWNESS OF THE COUNTRY, THE 
 THINNESS OF THE POPULATION, AND THE UN- 
 SETTLED STATE OF SOCIETY. 
 
 A SECOND class of obstacles which the 
 voluntary system, or, I should rather say, 
 which religion in general has had to en- 
 counter in Amei'ica, comprehends such as 
 are inseparable from its condition as a new 
 country. 
 
 From its very nature, the life of a colo- 
 nist presents manifold temptations to neg- 
 lect the interests of the soul. There is the 
 separation of himself and his family, if he 
 has one, from old associations and influ- 
 ences ; and the removal, if not from abun- 
 dant means of grace, at least from the force 
 of that public opinion which often power- 
 fully restrains from the commission of 
 open sin. Now though many of the Amer- 
 ican colonists fled from persecution and 
 from abounding iniquity, such was not the 
 case with all. Then, there is the entering 
 into new and untried situations ; the forming 
 of new acquaintances, not always of the 
 best kind ; and even that engrossment with 
 the cares and labours attending a man's re- 
 jnoval into a new country, especially in 
 the case of the many who have to earn their 
 bread by their own strenuous exertions. 
 All these things hinder the growth of pie- 
 ty in the soul, and form real obstacles to 
 its promotion in a community. 
 
 And if such hinderances had a baneful 
 effect at the outset, they have never ceased 
 to operate injuriously down to this day. 
 To say nothing of the foreigners who 
 come, year after year, to the American 
 shores on their way to the Far West, thou- 
 sands of the natives of the Atlantic slope 
 annually leave their houses to settle amid 
 the forests of that vast Western region. 
 In their case there is pecuhar exposure to 
 evil ; their removal almost always with- 
 draws them from the powerful influence 
 of neighbourhoods where true religion 
 
 more or less flourishes. Such of them as 
 are not decidedly religious in heart and 
 life, greatly risk losing any good impres- 
 sions they may have brought with them, 
 amid the engrossing cares and manifold 
 temptations of their new circumstances j 
 circumstances in which even the estab- 
 lished Christian will find much need of re- 
 doubled vigilance and prayer. 
 
 The comparative thinness, also, of the 
 population in the United States now is, 
 and must long continue to be, a great ob- 
 stacle to the progress of religion in that 
 country. I have already stated, that the 
 area of all the territory claimed by its gov- 
 ernment is somewhat more than 2,000,000 
 of square miles. Now, leaving out of view 
 the vast region on the Upper Missouri and 
 Mississippi rivers, west and north of Iowa 
 and Wisconsin, and reaching to the Ore- 
 gon Mountains ; leaving out of view also 
 the Pacific slope, and looking only to the 
 twenty-six states, three territories, and 
 one district, we have a country of some- 
 what more than 1,000,000 of square miles, 
 over which the Anglo-American race has 
 more or less diffused itself. But the whole 
 population, including the African race 
 among us, in 1840, was just 17,068,666. 
 That is, upon an average, about seventeen 
 souls to the square mile. If this population 
 were equally diff'used over the entire sur- 
 face of the organized states and territories, 
 even then it would be difficult enough to 
 establish and maintain churches and other 
 religious institutions among so sparse a 
 population. Still, perhaps, it could be done. 
 A parish of thirty-six square miles, which 
 would be large enough in point of extent, 
 would contain 612 souls. One twice as 
 large would contain 1224 souls. But al- 
 though a country would be considered well 
 supplied if it had a pastor for every 1224 
 souls, still the dispersion of these over 
 seventy-two square miles would necessa- 
 rily very much curtail the pastor's oppor- 
 tunity for doing good, and prevent the souls 
 under his charge from enjoying the full 
 influence of the Gospel. But the popula- 
 tion of the United States is far from being 
 thus equally distributed. Some of the old- 
 er states are pretty densely settled ; not 
 more, however, than is necessary for the 
 easy maintenance of churches, and of a 
 regular and settled ministry. Massachu- 
 setts, the most densely settled of them all, 
 has 102 souls to the square mile ; some 
 others, such as Connecticut and Rhode Isl- 
 and, have from seventy to eighty ; oth- 
 ers, such as New-Jersey, Delaware, Mary- 
 land, and New- York, vdll average from 
 forty to fifty. Taking the whole Atlantic 
 slope, with the exception of Florida, which 
 is but little inhabited, the average is twen- 
 ty-eight, while in the eleven states and two 
 territories in the Valley of the Mississippi, 
 it is less than ten souls to the square mile. 
 
40 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 It is manifest, therefore, that while the 
 population of a large proportion of the At- 
 lantic States, and of parts of the older ones 
 in the West, is hardly dense enough to 
 render the support of Gospel ordinances 
 easy, the difficulty of effecting this is im- 
 mensely increased in many quarters, but 
 especially in the West, by the inhabitants 
 being much more widely scattered. I shall 
 show in another place how this difficulty is, 
 in a good measure, at least, overcome ; here 
 it is enough that I point to its existence. 
 
 Personal experience alone can give any 
 one a correct idea of the difficulties attend- 
 ing the planting and supporting of church- 
 es and pastors in that vast frontier coun- 
 try in the West, where the population, 
 treading on the heels of the Indians, is, 
 year after year, advancing into the forests. 
 A few scattered families, at wide intervals, 
 are engaged in cutting down the huge 
 trees, and clearing what at first are but 
 little patches of ground. In a year or two 
 the number is doubled. In five or six 
 years the country begins to have the ap- 
 pearance of being inhabited by civilized 
 men. But years more must roll away be- 
 fore the population will be dense enough 
 to support churches at convenient distan- 
 ces from each other, and to have ministers 
 of the Gospel to preach in them every Sab- 
 bath. Yet this work must be done, and it 
 is doing to an extent which will surprise 
 many into whose hands this book may fall. 
 
 But if the thinness of the population be 
 an obstacle, how great must be that of its 
 rapid increase in the aggregate 1 I say in 
 the aggregate, for it is manifest that its in- 
 crease in the thinly-settled districts must 
 so far be an advantage. But with this in- 
 crease diffusing itself into new settlements, 
 we have a double difficulty to contend 
 with — the increase itself demanding a great 
 augmentation of churches and ministers, 
 and its continued dispersion rendering it 
 difficult to build the one and support the 
 other, even were a sufficiency of pastors 
 to be found. This difficulty would be quite 
 appalling, if long contemplated apart from 
 the vast efforts made to meet and overcome 
 it. The population of the United States 
 was, in 1790, 3,929,827 ; in 1800, 5,305,925 ; 
 in 1810, 7,239,814 ; in 1820, 9,638,131 ; in 
 1830, 12,866,920 ; and in 1840, 17,068,666.* 
 The reader may calculate for himself the 
 average annual increase during each of the 
 five decades which have elapsed since 1790. 
 But it is not so easy to ascertain the pre- 
 cise yearly increase. From 1830 to 1840 
 it was 4,201,746, being at the average rate 
 of 420,174 souls per annum. During the 
 decade from 1840 to 1850, it will unques- 
 
 * Including seamen in the government service, not 
 included in the enumerations commonly published. 
 Hence the difference between the statements in the 
 text and those the reader may meet with elsewhere. 
 But the difference is only 6100. 
 
 tionably much exceed an average of 
 500,000 per annum, unless checked by 
 some great calamity, of which there is na 
 prospect. 
 
 Now to provide churches and pastors 
 for such an increase as this is no very easy 
 matter, yet it must either be done, or, 
 sooner or later, the great bulk of the na- 
 tion, as some have predicted, will sink into 
 heathenism. How far this is likely, judg- 
 ing from what has been done and is now 
 doing, we shall see in another place. Here 
 I simply state the magnitude of the diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 Finally, the constant emigration from the 
 old states to the new, and even from the 
 older to the newer settlements in the lat- 
 ter, is a great obstacle to the progress of 
 religion in all places from which a part of 
 the population is thus withdrawn. It occa- 
 sionally happens in one or other of the At- 
 lantic States, that a church is almost broken 
 up by the departure, for the Western 
 States, of families on whom it mainly de- 
 pended for support. Most commonly, 
 however, this emigration is so gradual, that 
 the church has time to recruit itself from 
 other families, who arrive and take the 
 place of those who have gone away. Thus, 
 unless where a church loses persons of 
 great influence, the loss is soon repaired. 
 In the cities of the East, and their suburban 
 quarters especially, from the population 
 being of so floating a character, this evil 
 is felt quite as much as in the country. 
 
 But it must not be forgotten, that what 
 is an evil in the East, by withdrawing val- 
 uable support from the churches there, 
 proves a great blessing to the West, by 
 transferring thither Christian families, to 
 originate and support new churches in 
 that quarter. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OBSTACLES WHICH THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM- 
 HAS HAD TO ENCOUNTER IN AMERICA I 3. FROM 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 That the coexistence in one country 
 of two such different races as the Caucas- 
 ian and the African, standing to each other 
 in the relation of masters and slaves, 
 should retard the progress of true religion 
 there, it requires but little knowledge of 
 human nature to believe. 
 
 Slavery has been a curse in all past 
 time, and by no possibility can it be other- 
 wise. It fosters a proud, arrogant, and un- 
 feeling spirit in the master, and naturally 
 leads to servility and meanness, to deceit- 
 fulness and dishonesty, in the slave. Either 
 way it is disastrous to true religion. 
 
 But I have no intention to speak here 
 of the nature of slavery, its past history, 
 present condition, or futm-e prospects in 
 
Chap. XV.] 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 
 
 41 
 
 the United States. My object is simply to 
 show how it operates as one of the great- 
 est obstacles to the promotion of religion ; 
 and, as such, militates against the success 
 of the voluntary system there. Slavery, 
 indeed, may easily be shown to be pecu- 
 liarly an obstacle to that system. 
 
 I might mention, that the reluctance of 
 slaves to worship in the same congregation 
 with their masters is unfavourable to the 
 interests of true piety. That there is such 
 a reluctance, every one knows who has 
 had much to do with the institution of sla- 
 very. It often shows itself in the hesita- 
 tion of slaves to come to the family altar, 
 even in families which are known to treat 
 them with kindness. 
 
 This fact is easily accounted for. Hu- 
 man nature, however degraded, and whether 
 wearing a black or a white skin, has still 
 some remains of pride, or, rather, some 
 consciousness of what is due to itself, and it 
 is not wonderful that it avoids as much as 
 possible coming into contact with persons, 
 however worthy and kind they may be, 
 to whom it feels itself placed in ignoble 
 subjection. Therefore it is that the negro 
 of our Southern States prefers going to a 
 church composed of people of his own 
 colour, and where no whites appear. 
 Slaves, also, sometimes prefer places of 
 ■worship where greater latitude is allowed 
 for noisy excitement, to whatever denom- 
 ination of Christians they may belong, than 
 "would be tolerated in the religious assem- 
 blies of white people. 
 
 I am not aware that I have exaggerated, 
 as some may think, the repugnance of the 
 slaves to join in religious worship with 
 their masters. One thing is certain : that, 
 whether from such repugnance, or some 
 other cause, the slaves like better to meet 
 by themselves, wherever allowed to do so. 
 
 That the separation of the two classes 
 thus occasioned is injurious to the spiritual 
 interests of both, must be evident from a 
 moment's consideration. So long as sla- 
 very exists in the world, the Gospel enjoins 
 their appropriate duties upon both masters 
 and slaves, and they should be made to hear 
 of those duties in each other's presence. 
 This should be done kindly, but also faith- 
 fully. And no Christian master can excuse 
 himself from doing the duty which he owes 
 to his slave, in relation to his spiritual and 
 immortal interests, by saying that he per- 
 mits him to go he hardly knows whither, 
 and to be taught those things which con- 
 cern his highest happiness by he knows not 
 whom. Where, indeed, the master him- 
 self is wholly indifferent to the subject of 
 religion, as, alas ! is too often the case, it is 
 Avell that the slave is allowed and disposed 
 to seek religious instruction anywhere. 
 
 But one of the greatest evils of slavery, 
 as respects the maintenance of Christian 
 institutions, is, that it creates a state of 
 
 society extremely unfavourable to the pro- 
 viding of a sufficient number of churches 
 and pastors for the spiritual wants of all 
 classes — rich and poor, slaves and free. 
 This holds especially in the case of large 
 landed estates, with many hundred slaves 
 in the possession of a small number of rich 
 proprietors. In such circumstances, a 
 church capable of containing one or two 
 hundred . persons might, perhaps, accom- 
 modate all the masters and their families 
 within the compass of a very large parish, 
 whereas an immense edifice would be re- 
 quired for the accommodation of all their 
 slaves. Now, where this is the state of 
 things, there is danger that the landowners,, 
 being few in number, may grudge the ex- 
 pense of maintaining a church and pastor 
 at all, however well able to do so ; or that,, 
 with horses and carriages at their com- 
 mand, all the rich within one vast district 
 will join in having public worship at some 
 central point, where few, comparatively,, 
 of the slaves and labouring white popula- 
 tion will find it possible to attend. Where 
 even a few of the rich proprietors are re- 
 ligious men, there is no difficulty in having- 
 the Gospel brought, not only to their owa 
 doors, but also to those of their slaves and 
 other dependants. But where they are in- 
 different, or opposed to religion, then not 
 only does the Gospel not reach them, but 
 if it reaches their slaves, it must be with 
 great difficulty, and often very irregularly. 
 For, be it remembered, that a slave popu- 
 lation is generally too poor to contribute 
 anything worth mentioning for the support 
 of the Gospel. Blessed be God, there is a 
 way, as I shall show hereafter, by which 
 some of the evils here spoken of may be 
 mitigated ; and that is by the system of 
 itinerant preaching employed in the United. 
 States, so extensively, and so usefully, by 
 the Methodists. 
 
 Contemplating these difficulties, we shall, 
 come to the conclusion that if, in any part 
 of the United States, the support of the 
 Gospel by taxation enforced by law is bet- 
 ter adapted to the circumstances of the 
 people than the voluntary plan, it is in the 
 seaboard counties of Maryland, Virginia, 
 the Carolinas, and Georgia. Still, it will 
 be found that even there the voluntary- 
 system has not been wholly inefficient, 
 but that, through the ministry either of fixed 
 or itinerant preachers of righteousness, it 
 has carried the Gospel to the inhabitants 
 of all classes, to an extent which, under 
 such adverse circumstances, might seem 
 impracticable. 
 
 It must be noted, that while such are the 
 difficulties that oppose the maintenance of 
 a Christian ministry in the slaveholding 
 states, there is a special necessity for the 
 preaching of the Gospel there. It is em- 
 phatically by the " hearing" of the Word 
 that the slaves can be expected to come to 
 
42 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 the knowledge of salvation. A most un- 
 wise and iniquitous legislation has, in most 
 of those states, forbidden the teaching of 
 the slaves to read ! And although, doubt- 
 less, this law is not universally obeyed, and 
 here and there a good many slaves do 
 both read and teach others to do so pri- 
 vately, yet it is from the voice of the living 
 teacher that the great bulk of that class in 
 the United States must receive instruction 
 in divine things. Thanks be to God! no 
 Legislature in any state has forbidden the 
 preaching of the Gospel to those who are 
 in the bonds of slaverj^ ; and many thou- 
 sands of them, it is believed, have not 
 heard it in vain. 
 
 I conclude by stating that slavery exists 
 in thirteen states — those which form the 
 southern half of the Union — and in one 
 territory, that of Florida. It does not 
 exist in the other thirteen, nor in the two 
 important Territories of Wisconsin and 
 Iowa. The states in which it exists are 
 Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Car- 
 olina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, 
 Mississippi, and Alabama. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OBSTACLES WHICH THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM 
 HAS HAD TO ENCOUNTER IN AMERICA: 4. 
 FROM THE VAST IMMIGRATION FROM FOR- 
 EIGN COUNTRIES. 
 
 It is superfluous to say that the immigra- 
 tion from Europe of such excellent persons 
 as many of those were who founded the 
 American colonies, or who joined them in 
 the days of their infancy, could not fail to be 
 a blessing to the country. But the emigra- 
 tion to the United States at the present day 
 is of a very different character. Whatever 
 violent persecution there may have been 
 in Europe during the last seventy years has 
 been limited in extent, and of short duration, 
 so that the emigration from the Old World 
 to America, during that period, must be re- 
 ferred to worldly considerations, not to the 
 force of religious convictions leading men 
 to seek for the enjoyment of religious lib- 
 erty. In fact, to improve their worldly 
 condition, to provide a home for their chil- 
 dren in a thriving country, to rejoin friends 
 Avho had gone before them, or to escape 
 from what they deemed civil oppression in 
 Europe — such, generally, have been the 
 motives that have prompted the recent 
 emigrations to America. 'I o these we must 
 add a different class — that of men wlio 
 have left their country, as has been said, 
 *■ for their country's good ;" nor is the 
 number of such inconsiderable. 
 
 It is difficult to discover to what extent 
 emigrants have poured into the United 
 States since the Revolution, and espedially 
 
 since the close of the second war with 
 Great Britain, in 1815. Our custom-house 
 books do not sufficiently distinguish be- 
 tween emigrants properly so called, and 
 American citizens returning from abroad. 
 Again, many of the emigrants enter the 
 United States by way of Canada, those es- 
 pecially who come from the British isl- 
 ands, and no exact enumeration of these, 
 it is believed, is kept on the frontier. Sixty 
 thousand foreigners, it has been supposed, 
 have annually entered the United States 
 for several years past with the view of 
 settling there. According to the report 
 of the Secretary of State, 70,509 foreigners 
 arrived in 1S39, of whom 34,213 were from 
 Great Britain, and 30,014 from the Conti- 
 nent of Europe ; the remainder were from 
 South America, Texas, the West Indies, 
 &c. This is probably too low an estimate. 
 From tables published in England, it ap- 
 pears that from 1825 to 1837 inclusive, no 
 fewer than 300,259 left Great Britain and 
 Ireland for the United States, and also 
 that the number had increased every year 
 until 1836, when it reached 37,774. In 
 1837 the number was 36,770. 
 
 It is quite certain, I think, that the emi- 
 grants from the Continent of Europe, con- 
 sisting almost entirely of Germans, from 
 Germany proper and Alsace, Swiss, and 
 French, are nearly if not quite as numer- 
 ous as those from the British islands ; and 
 if so, the total number of emigrants to the 
 United States, from all quarters, must be 
 nearer 70,000 than 60,000. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that 
 all tlie foreigners who come to the United 
 States are emigrants. Many come only 
 to make a longer or shorter stay, as mer- 
 chants and traders, and some, after having 
 arrived with the intention of remaining, 
 become dissatisfied, and return to their na- 
 tive country. In short, it is impossible to 
 discover, with any degree of accuracy, the 
 real yearly augmentation of the population 
 of the United States arising from immigra- 
 tion. I am inclined to believe that it is 
 sometimes greatly overrated, and that it 
 does not much exceed 60,000, or, at most, 
 70,000. 
 
 Now, although among these emigrants 
 there are many respectable people, and 
 some who bring with them no inconsider- 
 able amount of property, duty compels me 
 to say, that very many of tliem are not 
 only very poor, but ignorant, also, and de- 
 praved. Of those from Ireland, very many 
 are intemperate, and ill qualified to succeed 
 in a new country. Should the Temperance 
 cause, indeed, continue to prosper in Ire- 
 land as it has done for some years past 
 under Father Matthew's efforts, we may 
 hope for an improvement in the " Irish im- 
 portation." Of the Germans, likewise, a 
 great many are poor, and some are of im- 
 provident and depraved habits ; although, 
 
Ohap. XVI.] 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 
 
 43 
 
 in the mass, tliey are much superior to the 
 Irish in point of frugality and sobriety. 
 Many of the Germans have of late years 
 brought with them considerable sums of 
 money, and though a good many are Ro- 
 man Catholics, yet the majority are Prot- 
 estants. A large proportion of them now 
 come from the kingdoms of Wurtemberg 
 and Bavaria, and from the Duchy of Baden ; 
 •whereas, in former times, they came chief- 
 ly from the eastern and northern parts of 
 Germany. 
 
 Now, although, no doubt, the mortality 
 among these emigrants from Europe, caus- 
 ed by exposure, anxiety, fatigue, and dis- 
 eases incident to a strange climate, is far 
 greater than among native Americans, yet 
 the yearly accession of so many people, 
 ignorant in a degree of the nature of our 
 institutions, about half of them unable to 
 speak English, and nearly half of them, also, 
 Roman Catholics, must impose a heavy 
 responsibility, and a great amount of la- 
 bour upon the churches in order to provide 
 them with the means of grace. Everything 
 possible must be done for the adults among 
 them, but hope can be entertained chiefly 
 for the young. These grow up speaking 
 the language and breathing the spirit of 
 their adopted country, and thus the process 
 of assimilation goes steadily on. In a 
 thousand ways the emigrants who are, as 
 it were, cast upon our shores, are brought 
 into contact with a better religious influ- 
 ence than that to which many of them 
 have been accustomed in the Old World. 
 Every year some of them are gathered 
 into our churches, while, as I have said, 
 their children grow up Americans in their 
 feelings and habits. All this is especially 
 true of the emigrants who, meaning to 
 make the country their home, strive to 
 identify themselves with it. There are 
 others, however, and particularly those 
 who, having come to make their fortunes 
 as merchants and traders, calculate upon 
 returning to Europe, that never become 
 American in feeling and spirit. From such 
 no aid is to be expected in the benevolent 
 eff'orts made by Christians to promote good 
 objects among us. 
 
 I have been struck with the fact that,, 
 genei-ally speaking, our religious societies 
 receive their most steady support from our 
 Anglo-American citizens. The emigrants 
 from the British realm, English, Welsh, 
 Scotch, and Irish, rank next in the interest 
 they take in our benevolent enterprises, 
 and in readiness to contribute to their sup- 
 port. The Germans rank next, the Swiss 
 next, and the French last. There is most 
 infidelity among the French, yet it prevails 
 also, to a considerable degree, among the 
 Swiss and Germans, among the better-in- 
 formed classes of whom it is, alas ! too oft- 
 en to be found. There is no want of infi- 
 delity and indifference to religion among 
 
 emigrants from the British islands, but they 
 are chiefly to be found among the lowest 
 class of them. 
 
 Thus, as I remarked before, while the 
 emigration from Europe to the United 
 States brings us no inconsiderable number 
 of worthy people, it introduces also a large 
 amount of ignorance, poverty, and vice. 
 Besides this, it is difficult to supply with 
 religious institutions, and it takes long to 
 Americanise, if I may use the expression, 
 in feeling, conduct, and language, those 
 multitudes from the Continent of Europe 
 who cannot understand or speak English. 
 Many of the Germans, in particular, in con- 
 sequence of the impossibility of finding a 
 sufficient number of fit men to preach in 
 German, were at one time sadly destitute of 
 the means of grace in their dispersion over 
 the country. But within the last fifteen 
 years a brighter prospect has opened upon 
 that part of our population, as I shall have 
 to show in its place. 
 
 I have not charged upon the ordinary 
 emigration to the shores of America the 
 great amount of crime in the United States, 
 which may be traced to the escape thither 
 of criminals from Europe; for these can- 
 not, with propriety, be regarded as consti- 
 tuting a part of that emigration. Never- 
 theless, it is the case that much of the 
 crime committed in America, from that of 
 the honourable merchant who scruples not 
 to defraud the custom-house, if he can, 
 down to the outrages of the man who dis- 
 turbs the streets with his riots, is the work 
 of foreigners. 
 
 It maybe said, I am sure, with the strict- 
 est truth, that in no country is a foreigner 
 who deserves well treated with more re- 
 spect and kindness than in America; in no 
 country will he find less diff'erence be- 
 tween the native and the adopted citizen ; 
 in no country do men become more readily 
 assimilated in principle and feeling to the 
 great body of the people, or more fully re- 
 alize the fact that they form a constituent 
 part of the nation. 
 
 I have now finished the notice which I 
 intended to take of some of the obstacles 
 which the voluntary system has had to en- 
 counter in the United States. I might men- 
 tion others were it necessary ; but I have 
 said enough to show that it is a mistake to 
 suppose that it has had an open field and 
 an easy course there. I am far from say- 
 ing that if the experiment were to be made 
 in an old country, where the population is 
 established and almost stationary — where 
 it is homogeneous and indigenous — there 
 would not be other obstacles to encounter, 
 greater, perhaps, than those to be found 
 among us, and in some respects peculiar 
 to America. I only wish these difficul- 
 ties not to be lost sight of as we advance 
 in this work, and that they should be ap- 
 preciated at their just value when we 
 
44 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IT. 
 
 come to speak of subjects upon which they 
 bear. 
 
 Such are some of the topics which I 
 thought it of consequence to treat before- 
 hand, that the reader might be prepared for 
 
 a better comprehension of the grand sub- 
 ject of this work. Upon the direct consid- 
 eration of that subject we are now ready 
 to enter. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE COLONIAL ERA. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. FOUNDERS OF NEW-ENGLAND. 
 
 I HAVE already remarked, that if we would 
 understand the civil and political institu- 
 tions of the United States of America, we 
 must trace them from their earliest origin 
 in Anglo-Saxon times, through their vari- 
 ous developments in succeeding ages, until 
 they reached their present condition in our 
 own days. 
 
 In like manner, if we would thoroughly 
 understand the religious condition and 
 economy of the United States, we must 
 begin with an attentive survey of the char- 
 acter of the early colonists, and of the 
 causes which brought them to America. 
 
 Besides, as has been well observed,* a 
 striking analogy may be traced between 
 natural bodies and bodies politic. Both re- 
 tain in manhood and old age more or less 
 of the characteristic traits of their infancy 
 and youth. All nations bear some marks 
 of their origin, the circumstances amid 
 which they were born, and which favoured 
 their early development, and left an im- 
 pression that stamps their whole future 
 existence. 
 
 We begin our inquiry, therefore, into the 
 religious history and condition of the Uni- 
 ted States, by portraying, as briefly as 
 possible, the religious character of the first 
 colonists, who may be regarded as the 
 /ounders of that commonwealth. In doing 
 this, we shall follow neither the chronolo- 
 gical nor the geographical ordtsr, but shall 
 first speak of the colonists of New-England ; 
 next, of those of the South ; and, finally, of 
 those of the Middle States. This gives us 
 the advantage at once of grouping and of 
 contrast. 
 
 How wonderful are the events that some- 
 times flow from causes apparently the most 
 inadequate, and even insignificant ! The 
 conquest of Constantinople by the 'J'urks, 
 in 1453, seemed to be only one of the ordi- 
 nary events of war, and yet it led to the 
 revival of letters among llio higher classes 
 of society throughout Europe. The inven- 
 
 * See M. de Tocqueville, " Democratic en Ame- 
 Tique," Premiere Partie, tomn i., chap. i. Also 
 Lang's " Religion and Education in America," chap, 
 1., page 11. 
 
 tion of the art of printing by an obscure 
 German, two years later, gave immense 
 facilities for the diffusion of knowledge 
 among all classes of people. The discov- 
 ery of America by a Genoese adventurer, 
 towards the close of the same century 
 (A.D. 1492), produced a revolution in the 
 commerce of the world. A poor monk in 
 Germany, preaching (A.D. 1517) against 
 indulgences, emancipated whole nations 
 from the domination of Rome. And the 
 fortuitous arrival of a young French law- 
 yer who had embraced tlie Faith of the 
 Reformation at an inconsiderable city in 
 Switzerland, situated on the banks of the 
 Rhone, followed by his settling there, and 
 organizing its ecclesiastical and civil insti- 
 tutions, was connected, in the mysterious 
 providence of Him who knows the end 
 from the beginning, and who employs all 
 events to advance His mighty purposes, 
 with the establishment of free institutions 
 in England, their diff"usion in America, and 
 their triumph in other lands. 
 
 The way had long been preparing for the 
 Reformation in England by the opinions 
 avowed by Wicliffe and his followers, and 
 by the resistance of the government to the 
 claims and encroachments of the ecclesi- 
 astical authorities. The light, too, which 
 had begun to appear in Germany, cast its 
 rays across the North Sea, and men were 
 ere long to be found in Britain secretly 
 cherishing the doctrines maintained by Lu- 
 ther. At length an energetic, but corrupt 
 and tyrannical prince, after having been 
 rewarded for writing against Luther, by 
 receiving from the pope the title of " De- 
 fender of the Faith," thought fit to revenge 
 the refusal of a divorce from his first wife 
 by abolishing the papal supremacy in his 
 kingdom, and transferring the headship of 
 the Church, as well as of the State, to him- 
 self. But Henry VIII. desired to have no 
 reformation either in the doctrines or the 
 worship of the Church ; and in his last 
 years he revoked the general permission 
 which he had granted for the reading of the 
 Scriptures, being all that he had ever done 
 in favour of the Reformation among the 
 people, and confined that privilege to the 
 nobles and merchants. A tyrant at once 
 in spiritual and temporal matters, he pun- 
 ished every deviation from the ancient 
 
Chap. I.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 45 
 
 Bsages of the Church, and every act of 
 non-compliance with his own arbitrary 
 ordinances. 
 
 The reign of Edward VI. (1547-1553) 
 forms a most important era in the histo- 
 ry of England. Partly through the influ- 
 ence of the writings of Calvin, which had 
 been circulated to a considerable extent in 
 that country ; partly through that of his 
 public instructions, which had been fre- 
 quented at Geneva by many young English 
 students of divinity ; but still more by the 
 lectures of those two eminent Continental 
 divines, Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer, 
 who had been invited to England, and made 
 professors of theology at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, many persons had been prepared 
 for that refonuation in the Church which 
 then actually took place under the auspi- 
 ces of Cranmer, and was carried to the 
 length, in all essential points, at which it 
 is now established by law. Hooper, and 
 many other excellent men, were appointed 
 to the most influential offices in the Church, 
 imd much progress was made in resuscita- 
 ting true piety among both the clergy and 
 the people. 
 
 But the Protestants of England soon be- 
 came divided into two parties. One, head- 
 ed by Cranmer, then Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, consisted of such as were op- 
 posed to great changes in the discipline 
 and government of the Church, and wished 
 to retain, to a certain degree, the ancient 
 forms and ceremonies, hoping thereby to 
 conciliate the people to the Protestant faith. 
 To all the forms of the Romish Church the 
 other party bore an implacable hatred, and 
 insisted upon the rejection of even a cere- 
 mony or a vestment that was not clearly 
 enjoined by the Word of God. Wishing to 
 see the Church purified from every human 
 invention, they were therefore called Puri- 
 tans, a name given in reproach, but by 
 which, in course of time, they were not 
 averse to being distinguished. With them 
 the Bible was the sole standard, alike for 
 doctrines and for ceremonies, and with it 
 they would allow no decision of the hierar- 
 chy, or ordinance of the king, or law of Par- 
 liament, to interfere. On that great found- 
 ation they planted their feet, and were en- 
 couraged in so doing by Bucer, Peter Mar- 
 tyr, and Calvin himself.* The Church- 
 men, as their opponents were called, de- 
 sired, on the other hand, to diflTer as little 
 as possible from the ancient forms, and 
 readily adopted things indiff"erent ; but the 
 Puritans could never sever themselves too 
 widely from every usage of the Romish 
 Church. For them the surplice and the 
 square cap were things of importance, for 
 they were the livery of superstition, and 
 tokens of the tr iumph of prescription over 
 
 * Strype's Memorials, vol. ii., chap, ixviii. Hal- 
 lam's Constitutional History of England, vol. i., p. 
 140. 6 , , K 
 
 the Word of God — of human over divine 
 authority ; and though then but a small mi- 
 nority, even thus early there was evidently 
 a growing attachment to their doctrines iu 
 the popular mind."^ 
 
 During the bloody reign of Edward VI. 's 
 successor, Mary, that is, from 1553 to 1558, 
 both parties of Protestants were exposed 
 to danger, but especially the Puritans. 
 Thousands fled to the Continent, and found 
 refuge chiefly in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 
 Emden, Wesel, Basel, Marburg, Strasburg, 
 and Geneva. At Frankfort the dispute be- 
 tween the two parties was renewed with 
 great keenness ; even Calvin in vain at- 
 tempted to allay it. In the end, most of 
 the Puritans left that city and retired to 
 Geneva, where they found the doctrine, 
 worship, and discipline of the Church to ac- 
 cord with their sentiments. While resi- 
 ding there, they adopted for their own use 
 a liturgy upon the plan suggested by the 
 great Genevese reformer, and there also 
 they translated the Bible into English. f 
 Persecution, meanwhile, prevailed in Eng- 
 land. Cranmer, to whom the queen in 
 her early years had owed her life, Hooper, 
 Rogers, and other distinguished servants 
 of Christ, suffered death. Many of the 
 clergy again submitted to the Roman See. 
 
 On the death of Queen Mary, many of 
 the exiled Puritans returned, with their 
 hatred to the ceremonies and vestments 
 inflamed by associating them with the cru- 
 elties freshly committed at home, and by 
 what they had seen of the simple worship 
 of the Reformed Churches abroad. But 
 they struggled in vain to effect any sub- 
 stantial change. Ehzabeth, who succeed- 
 ed her sister Mary in 1558, would hear of 
 no modifications of any importance in doc- 
 trine, discipline, or worship, so that in all 
 points the Church was almost identically 
 the same as it had been under Edward VI. 
 While Elizabeth desired to conciliate the 
 Romanists, the Puritans denounced all con- 
 cessions to them, even in things indifferent. 
 
 * The Puritans have been often and severely 
 blamed for what some have been pleased to call their 
 obstinacy in regard to things comparatively indiifer- 
 ent. But it has been well remarked by President 
 Quincy, in his Centennial Address at Boston, that 
 " the wisdom of zeal for any object is not to be 
 measured by the particular nature of that object, but 
 by the nature of the principle, which the circumstan- 
 ces of the times, or of society, have identified with 
 such object." 
 
 t This version was first published in 1560. So 
 highly was it esteemed, particularly on account of 
 its notes, that it passed through thirty editions. To 
 both the translation and notes King James had a 
 special dislike, alleging that the latter were full of 
 " traitorous conceits." In the conference at Hampton 
 Court, "he professed that he could never yet see a 
 Bible well translated in English, but worst of all his 
 majesty thought the Geneva to be. " This version 
 was the one chiefly used by the first emigrants to 
 New-England, for that of King James, published in 
 1611, had not then passed into general use. — 
 Strype's Annals. Barlow's Sum and Substance of the 
 Conference at Hampton Cowt, 
 
46 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IP. 
 
 Tliough by profession a Protestant, she 
 was much attached to many of the distin- 
 guishing doctrines and practices of the pa- 
 pacy, and slie bore a special hatred to the 
 Puritans, not only because of their differ- 
 ing so much from her in their religious 
 views, but also because of the sentiments 
 they hesitated not to avow on the subject 
 of civil liberty. The oppression of the 
 government was driving them, in fact, to 
 scrutinize the nature and limits of civil 
 and ecclesiastical authority, and to ques- 
 tion the right of carrying it to the extent 
 to which the queen and the bishops were 
 determined to push it. The popular voice 
 vpas becoming decidedly opposed to a rig- 
 orous exaction of conformity with the roy- 
 al ordinances respecting the ceremonies. 
 Parliament itself became imbued with the 
 same spirit, and showed an evident dis- 
 position to befriend the Puritans, whose 
 cause began to be associated with that of 
 civil and religious liberty. The bishops, 
 however, and most of the other dignified 
 clergy, supported the views of the queen. 
 Whitgift, in particular, who was made 
 Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583, vigor- 
 ously enforced conformity. The Court of 
 High Commission compelled many of the 
 best ministers of the Established Church 
 to relinquish their benefices, and to hold 
 private meetings for worship as they best 
 could, very inferior and v/orthless men be- 
 ing generally put into their places. 
 
 Still, the suppression of the Puritans was 
 found a vain attempt. During Elizabeth's 
 long reign their numbers steadily increas- 
 ed. The services they rendered to the 
 country may be estimated by the verdict 
 of an historian who has been justly char- 
 ged with lying in wait, through the whole 
 course of his history, for an opportunity of 
 throwing discredit upon the cause of both 
 religion and liberty, and who bore to the 
 Puritans a special dislike. Mr. Hume says, 
 " The precious spark of liberty had been 
 kindled and was preserved by the Puritans 
 alone."* 
 
 As a body, the Puritans studiously avoid- 
 ed separation from the Established Church. 
 What they desired was reform, not schism. 
 But towards the middle of Elizabeth's reign, 
 a party arose among them tliat went to 
 an extreme in their oppo.sition to the 
 " Churchmen,*' and refused to hold com- 
 munion with a Ciuirch whose ceremonies 
 and government they condemned. These 
 were the Independents, or Brownists, as 
 they were long improperly called, from 
 the name of one who was a leading person 
 among them for a time, but wlio afterward 
 left them and ended his days in the Estab- 
 lished Church. The congregation which 
 Brown had gathered, after sharing his ex- 
 ile, was broken up and utterly dispersed. 
 
 ♦ Hume's History of England, vol. iii., p. 76. 
 
 But the principles which, for a time, he 
 had boldly advocated, were destined to sur- 
 vive his abandonment of them in England, 
 as well as to flourish in a far-distant re- 
 gion, at that time almost unknown. 
 
 From that time forward the Puritans be- 
 came permanently divided into two bodies 
 — the Nonconformists, constituting a large 
 majority of the body, and the Separatists. 
 The former saw evils in the Established 
 Church, and refused to comply with them, 
 but, at the same time, acknowledged its 
 merits, and desired its reform ; the latter 
 denounced it as an idolatrous institution,, 
 false to Truth and to Christianity, and, as 
 such, fit only to be destroyed. Eventually 
 the two parties became bitterly opposed 
 to each other ; the former reproached the 
 latter with precipitancy ; the latter retorted 
 the charge of a base want of courage. 
 
 The accession of King James gave new 
 hopes to the Puritans, but these were soon, 
 completely disappointed. That monarch,, 
 though brought up in Presbyterian princi- 
 ples in Scotland, no sooner crossed the 
 border than he became an admirer of the 
 prelacy, and, although a professed Calvin- 
 ist, allowed himself to become the easy 
 tool of the latitudinarian sycophants who 
 surrounded him. Having deceived the Pu- 
 ritans, he soon learned to hate both them 
 and their doctrines. His pedantry having 
 sought a conference with their leaders at 
 Hampton Court, scenes took place there 
 which were as amusing for their display 
 of the dialectics of the monarch as they 
 were unsatisfactory to the Puritans in their 
 results. " I will have none of that liberty 
 as to ceremonies ; I will have one doc- 
 trine, one discipline, one religion in sub- 
 stance and in ceremony. Never speak, 
 more on that point, how far you are bound 
 to obey."* And verily it was a point on 
 which such a monarch as James I. did not 
 wish to hear anything said. The confer- 
 ence lasted three days. The king would 
 bear no contradiction. He spoke much, . 
 and was greatly applauded by his flatter- 
 ers. The aged Whitgift said, " Your maj- 
 esty speaks by the special assistance of ' 
 God's Spirit." And Bishop Bancroft ex- 
 claimed, on his knees, that his heart melt- 
 ed for joy " because God had given Eng- 
 land such a king as, since Christ's time, 
 has not been."! 
 
 The Parliament was becoming more and 
 more favourable to the doctrines of the Pu-- 
 ritans ; but the hierarchy maintained its 
 own views, and was subservient to the 
 
 * In the second day's conference his majesty spoke 
 of the Puritans with little ceremony. "1 will make 
 them conform, or I will harry them out of the land, 
 or else worse." " Only burn them, that's all." — 
 Barlow^s iSuni and Substance of the Conference at 
 Hampton Court, p. 71, 83. 
 
 t Barlow's Sum and Substance of the Conference 
 at Hampton Court, p. 93, 94. Lingard, ix., p. 32. 
 Neai's History of the Puritans, iii., p. 45. 
 
Chap. II.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 47 
 
 wishes of the monarch. Conformity was 
 rigidly enforced by Whitgift's successor, 
 Bancroft. In 1604, three hundred Puritan 
 ministers are said to have been silenced, 
 imprisoned, or exiled. But nothing could 
 check the growth of their principles. The 
 Puritan clergy and the people became ar- 
 rayed against the Established Church and 
 the King. The latter triumphed during 
 that reign, but very different was to be the 
 issue in the following. So hateful to the 
 court were the people called Brownists, 
 Separatists, or Independents, that eff'orts 
 were made, with great success, to root 
 them out of the country. Some remains 
 of them, however, outUved for years the 
 persecutions by which they were assault- 
 ed. 
 
 In the latter years of Ehzabeth, a scat- 
 tered flock of these Separatists began to 
 be formed in some towns and villages of 
 Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and the ad- 
 jacent borders of Yorkshire, under the pas- 
 toral care of John Robinson, a man who 
 has left behind him a name admitted, even 
 by his bitterest enemies, to be without re- 
 proach. This little church was watched 
 and beset day and night by the agents of 
 the court, and could with difficulty find op- 
 portunities of meeting in safety. They 
 met here or there, as they best could, on 
 the Sabbath, and thus strove to keep alive 
 the spirit of piety which united them. 
 They had become " enlightened in the 
 Word of God," and were led to see, not 
 only that " tlie beggarly ceremonies were 
 monuments of idolatry," but also " that 
 the lordly power of the prelates ought not 
 to be submitted to." Such being their sen- 
 tiniients, no efforts, of course, would be 
 spared to make their lives miserable, and, 
 if possible, to extirpate them. 
 
 At last, seeing no prospect of peace in 
 their native land, they resolved to pass 
 over to Holland, a country which, after 
 having successfully struggled for its own 
 independence and for the maintenance of 
 the Protestant faith, now presented an 
 asylum for persons of all nations when 
 persecuted on account of their religion. 
 After many difficulties and delays, a pain- 
 fully interesting account of which may be 
 found in their annals, they reached Am- 
 sterdam in 1608. There they found many 
 of their brethren who had left England for 
 the same cause with themselves. The 
 oldest part of these exiled Independents 
 was the church under the pastoral care of 
 Francis Johnson. It had emigrated from 
 London about the year 1592. There was 
 also a fresh accession composed of a Mr. 
 Smith's people. Risk of collision with 
 these induced Mr. Robinson and his flock 
 to retire to Leyden, and there they estab- 
 lished themselves. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE FOUNDERS OF 
 NEW-ENGLAND. PLYMOUTH COLONV. 
 
 The arrival of Mr. Robinson's flock in 
 Holland was destined to be the beginning 
 only of their wanderings. " They knew 
 that they were pilgrims, and looked not 
 much on those things, but lifted up their 
 eyes to heaven their dearest country, and 
 quieted their spirits,"* " They saw many 
 goodly and fortified cities, strongly walled 
 and guarded with troops and armed men. 
 Also, they heard a strange and uncouth 
 language, and beheld the diff'erent man- 
 ners and customs of the people, with 
 strange fashions and attires ; all so far 
 difl'ering from that of their plain country 
 villages, wherein they were bred and born, 
 and had so long lived, as it seemed they 
 were come into a new world. But those 
 were not the things they much looked on, 
 or that long took up their thoughts ; for 
 they had other work in hand," and " saw 
 before long poverty coming on them like 
 an armed man, with whom they must 
 buckle and encounter, and from whom 
 they could not fly. But they were armed 
 with faith and patience against him and all 
 his encounters ; though they were some- 
 times foiled, yet by God's assistance they 
 prevailed and got the victory." 
 
 On their removal to Leyden, as they had 
 no opportunity of pursuing the agricultu- 
 ral life they had led in England, they were 
 compelled to learn such trades as they 
 could best earn a livelihood by for them- 
 selves and their families. Brewster, a 
 man of some distinction, who had been 
 chosen their ruling elder, became a print- 
 er. Bradford, afterward their governor 
 in America, and their historian, acquired 
 the art of dying silk. All had to learn 
 some handicraft or other. But, notwith- 
 standing these difficulties, after two or 
 three years of embarrassment and toil, 
 they " at length came to raise a compe- 
 tent and comfortable living, and continued 
 many years in a comfortable condition, en- 
 joying much sweet and delightful society, 
 and spiritual comfort together in the ways 
 of God, under the able ministry and pru- 
 dent government of Mr. John Robinson 
 and Mr. William Brewster, who was an as- 
 sistant unto him in the place of an elder, 
 unto which he was now called and chosen 
 by the church ; so that they grew in knowl- 
 edge, and other gifts and graces of the Spir- 
 it of God ; and lived together in peace, and 
 love, and holiness. And many came unto 
 them from divers parts of England, so as 
 they grew a great congregation."! As for 
 
 * See Governor Bradford's History of Plymouth 
 Colony. 
 
 t Governor Bradford's History of New-England, 
 It has been calculated from data to be found in oth- 
 er histories of that colony, that so much had Mr. 
 
48 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 Mr. Robinson, we are told that the people 
 had a great affection for him, and that " his 
 love was great towards them, and his care 
 was always bent for their best good, both 
 for soul and body. For, besides his singu- 
 lar abilities in divine things, wherein he 
 excelled, he was able also to give direc- 
 tion in civil aflfairs, and to foresee dangers 
 and inconveniences ; by which means he 
 was every way as a common father unto 
 them." Not only so : besides writing sev- 
 eral books and preachiug thrice a week to 
 his own flock, Mr. Robinson entered warm- 
 ly into the Arminian controversy, which 
 was raging during his residence at Leyden, 
 and disputed often with Episcopius and oth- 
 er champions of the Arminian side.* 
 
 Although they had begun to enjoy some 
 degree of comfort in Holland, still they 
 did not feel themselves at home there. 
 Accordingly, they began to agitate the 
 question of removing to some part of 
 America. Their reasons for thinking of 
 such a step, as stated in the words of 
 their own historian, gives us new proof 
 of the extraordinary character of this sim- 
 ple-hearted and excellent flock. 
 
 I. " And, first, they found, and saw by 
 experience, the hardness of the place and 
 country to be such, as few in comparison 
 would come to them, and fewer that would 
 bide it out and continue with them. For 
 many that came to them could not endure 
 the great labour and hard fare, with other 
 inconveniences which they underwent and 
 were contented witli. But though they 
 loved their persons, and approved their 
 cause, and honoured their sufferings, yet 
 they left them, as it were, weeping, as Or- 
 pah did her mother-in-law Naomi ; or as 
 those Romans did Cato in Utica, who de- 
 sired to be excused and borne with, though 
 they could not all be Catos.f For many, 
 though they desired to enjoy the ordinan- 
 ces of God in their purity, and the liberty 
 of the Gospel with them, yet, alas ! they 
 admitted of bondage witli danger of con- 
 science, rather than endure those hard- 
 ships ; yea, some preferred and chose pris- 
 ons in England rather than Uberty in Hol- 
 land, with those afflictions. But it was 
 thought that if a better and easier place of 
 living could be had, it would draw many, 
 and take away these discouragements ; 
 yea, their pastor would often say that 
 many of those that both writ and preach- 
 ed against them, if they were in a place 
 
 Robinson's church increased, that it had three hun- 
 dred " communicants" before any of them embarked 
 for America. 
 
 * Besides the testimony of Winslow in his " Brief 
 Narrative," which might be suspected of being par- 
 tial, we have tliat of the celebrated Professor Horn- 
 beck, in his " 8uinma Controversiarum Rehgionis," 
 respecting Mr. Robinson, whom he calls " Vir ille 
 (Johannes Robinsonus), gratus nostris, dum vixit, 
 fuit, et theologis Leidensibus familiaris et honoratus." 
 
 t See Plutarch's Life of Cato the Younger. 
 
 where they might have liberty and live 
 comfortably, they would then practise as 
 as they did. 
 
 II. " They saw that, although the people 
 generally bore all their difficulties very 
 cheerfully and with a resolute courage, be- 
 ing in the best of their strength, yet old 
 age began to come on some of them ; and 
 their great and continual labours, with 
 other crosses and sorrows, hastened it be- 
 fore the time ; so as it was not only prob- 
 ably thought, but apparently seen, that 
 within a few years more they were in dan- 
 ger to scatter by necessity pressing them, 
 or sink under their burdens, or both ; and, 
 therefore, according to the divine proverb, 
 that ' a wise man seeth the plague when it 
 cometh, and hideth himself,'* so they, like 
 skilful and beaten soldiers, were fearful ei- 
 ther to be entrapped or surrounded by their 
 enemies, so as they should neither be able 
 to fight nor fly ; and, therefore, thought it 
 better to dislodge betimes to some place 
 of better advantage and less danger, if any 
 could be found. 
 
 III. "As necessity was a taskmaster 
 over them, so they were forced to be such 
 not only to their servants, but, in a sort, to 
 their dearest children ; the which, as it did 
 a little wound the tender hearts of many a 
 loving father and mother, so it produced, 
 also, many sad and sorrowful eflfects. For 
 many of their children, that were of best 
 dispositions and gracious inclinations, hav- 
 ing learned to bear the yoke in their youth, 
 and willing to bear part of their parents' 
 burden, were oftentimes so oppressed with 
 their heavy labours, that although their 
 minds were free and willing, yet their bod- 
 ies bowed under the weight of the same, 
 and became decrepit in their early youth ; 
 the vigour of nature being consumed in the 
 very bud, as it were. But that which was 
 more lamentable, and of all sorrows most 
 heavy to be borne, was, that many of their 
 children, by these occasions, and the great 
 licentiousness of the youth in the country, 
 and the manifold temptations of the place, 
 were drawn away by evil examples into ex- 
 travagant and dangerous courses, getting 
 tlie reins on their necks, and departing from 
 their parents. Some became soldiers, oth- 
 ers took them upon far voyages by sea, 
 and others some worse courses, tending to 
 dissoluteness and the danger of their souls, 
 to the great grief of their parents and dis- 
 honour of God ; so that they saw their 
 posterity would be in danger to degenerate 
 and be corrupted. 
 
 IV. "Lastly (and which was not the 
 least), a great hope and hiward zeal they 
 had of laying some good foundation, or at 
 least to make some way thereunto, for the 
 propagating and advancing the Gospel of 
 the kingdom of Christ in these remote 
 
 * Quoted from the Geneva version. 
 
Chap. II.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 49 
 
 parts of the world ; yea, though they should 
 be but as stepping-stones unto others for 
 performing of so great a work." 
 
 Besides these reasons, mentioned by 
 Governor Bradford in his History of Plym- 
 outh Colony, the three following are ad- 
 duced by Edward Winslow, who also was 
 one of its founders : 1. Their desire to hve 
 imder the protection of England, and to 
 retain the language and the name of Eng- 
 lishmen. 2. Their inability to give their 
 children such an education as they had 
 themselves received. And, 3. Their grief 
 at the profanation of the Sabbath in Hol- 
 land. 
 
 Such were the considerations that indu- 
 ced the Pilgrims to send over to England 
 a deputation, with the view of ascertaining 
 what kind of reception their project might 
 meet with from the king, and whether the 
 London Company, or, as it was most com- 
 monly called, the Virginia Company, would 
 sanction their settling as a colony on any 
 part of its possessions in America. With 
 all his detestation of the Independents, the 
 king felt rather gratified than otherwise at 
 the prospect of extending colonization, 
 that being an object in which he had long 
 felt an interest. Many years before this 
 he had encouraged colonization in the 
 Highlands and Western Islands of Scot- 
 land, and the North of Ireland has long 
 been indebted for a prosperity and securi- 
 ty, such as no other part of that island has 
 enjoyed, to the English and Scotch planta- 
 tions which he had been at great pains to 
 form on lands laid waste during the deso- 
 lating warfare of his predecessor, Eliza- 
 beth, with certain Irish chieftains in those 
 parts.* To extend the dominions of Eng- 
 land he allowed to be " a good and honest 
 motion." On his inquiring what trade 
 they expected to find in the northern part of 
 Virginia,! being that in which they thought 
 of settling, they answered, " Fishing ;" to 
 which the monarch replied, with his usual 
 asseveration, " So God have my soul, 'tis 
 an honest trade ; 'twas the apostles' own 
 calling."! But as the king wished to con- 
 sult the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
 Bishop of London, the delegates were rec- 
 ommended not to press the matter, but to 
 trust to his connivance rather than to look 
 for his formal consent. This they resolv- 
 ed to do, rightly concluding that, " should 
 there be a purpose to wrong us, though 
 we had a seal as broad as the house-floor, 
 there would be found means enough to 
 recall it." 
 
 The Virginia Company showed the most 
 favourable dispositions. They said " the 
 thing was of God," and granted a large 
 patent, which, however, proved of no use. 
 
 * See Robertson's History of Scotland, chap. viii. 
 ■f The reader will remember that the whole Atlan- 
 tic coast was then called Virginia by the English. 
 t Edward Winslow's Brief Narrative. 
 D 
 
 One of them, to help the undertaking, lent 
 the sum of jC300, without interest, for three 
 years, and this was afterward repaid. 
 This advance must have been a seasonable 
 encouragement, for a hard bargain had to 
 be struck with some London merchants, or 
 " adventurers," as they are called by the 
 colonial historians, in order to raise what 
 farther money was required. At length 
 two ships, the Speedwell of sixty, and the 
 Mayflower of a hundred and eighty tons, 
 were engaged, and everything else arran- 
 ged for the departure of as many as the 
 ships could accommodate. Those went 
 who first offered themselves, and Brewster, 
 the ruling elder, was chosen their spiritual 
 guide. The other leading men were John 
 Carver, William Bradford, Miles Standish, 
 and Edward Winslow. Mr. Robinson stay- 
 ed behind, along with the greater part of 
 the flock, with the intention of joining 
 those who first went at some future time, 
 should such be the will of God. A solemn 
 fast was observed. Their beloved pastor 
 afterward delivered a farewell charge, 
 which must be regarded as a remarkable 
 production for those times.* 
 
 * This charge is related in Edward Winslow's 
 " Brief Narrative." It is here subjoined in the lan- 
 guage in which it is given by that author, from 
 whom alone it became known to the world: 
 
 " We are now ere long to part asunder, and the 
 Lord knoweth whether ever he should live to see 
 our faces again. But whether the Lord had appoint- 
 ed it or not, he charged us before God and his bless- 
 ed angels to follow him no farther than he followed 
 Christ; and if God should reveal anything to us by 
 any other instrument of His, to be as ready to receive 
 it as ever we were to receive any truth by his min- 
 istry ; for he was very confident the Lord had more 
 truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word. 
 He took occasion, also, miserably to bewail the state 
 and condition of the Reformed Churches, who were 
 come to a period in religion, and would no farther go 
 than the instruments of their reformation. As, for 
 example, the Lutherans, they could not be drawn to 
 go beyond what Luther saw ; for whatever part of 
 God's will He had farther imparted and revealed 
 unto Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. 
 And so also, saith he, you see the Calvinists, they 
 stick where he left them, a misery much to be la- 
 mented ; for though they were precious shining lights 
 in their limes, yet God hath not revealed his whole 
 will to them ; and were they now living, saith he, 
 they would be as ready and willing to embrace far- 
 ther light as that they had received. Here, also, he 
 put us in mind of our church covenant, at least that 
 part of it whereby we promise and covenant with 
 God and one another, to receive whatsoever light 
 or truth shall be made known to us from his written 
 Word ; but, withal, exhorted us to take heed what we 
 received for truth, and well to examine and compare 
 it, and weigh it with other scriptures of truth before 
 we received it. For saith he, it is not possible the 
 Christian world should come so lately out of such 
 thick antichristian darkness, and that full perfection 
 of knowledge should break forth at once. 
 
 " Another thing he commended to us was, that we 
 should use all means to avoid and shake off the name 
 of Brownist, being a mere nickname and brand to 
 make religion odious, and the professors of it, to the 
 Christian world. And to that end, said he, I should 
 be glad if some godly minister would go over with 
 you before my coming ; for, said he, there will be no 
 difference between the unconformable [nonconform- 
 
50 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IL 
 
 All thingsbeingnow ready, the emigrants, 
 after being " feasted at the pastor's house, 
 for it was large," by those who were to 
 remain behind, and having been " refreshed 
 after their tears by the singing of psalms," 
 set out for Delft-haven, where the ships 
 then lay. There they were again " feast- 
 ed," and prayer having been made, they 
 were accompanied on board by their 
 friends, but " were not able to speak to one 
 another for the abundance of sorrow to 
 part." The wind being favourable, they 
 were soon on their way. 
 
 They left Holland on the 22d of July, 
 1620, followed by the respect of the peo- 
 ple among whom they had lived. Wins- 
 low tells us that the Dutch, on learning 
 that they were about to leave their coun- 
 try, urged them much to settle in Zealand, 
 or, if they preferred America, to seek a 
 home for themselves on the Hudson, with- 
 in the territory discovered by the naviga- 
 tor who gave his name to that river while 
 in their service, and which they therefore 
 claimed, and had resolved to colonize. But 
 the liberal inducements then offered to the 
 emigrants could not alter their purpose of 
 settling in a country which should be un- 
 der the government of their native land. 
 
 A few days brought them safely to South- 
 ampton, in England. On learning that the 
 captain of the smaller of the two vessels 
 was unwilling to prosecute so long a voy- 
 age in her, after having put back, first to 
 Dartmouth and then to Plymouth, they 
 were compelled to send the Speedwell, 
 with part of the company, to London, and 
 it was not until the 6th of September that 
 the Mayflower finally sailed with a hun- 
 dred passengers. The voyage proved long 
 and boisterous. One person died and a 
 child was born, so that the original num- 
 ber reached the coast of America. On the 
 11th of November they entered the har- 
 bour of Cape Cod, and after having spent 
 fully a month in looking about for a place 
 that seemed suitable for a settlement, they 
 
 in^. Imt who had not actually separated from the 
 Churcli] ministers and you, when they come to the 
 practice of the ordinances out of the kingdom. And 
 so advised us by all means to endeavour to close with 
 the godly parly of the kingdom of England, and rath- 
 er to study union tiian division, viz., how near we 
 might possibly, without sin, close with them, than in 
 the least measure to effect division or separation from 
 them. And be not loulh to take another pastor or 
 teacher, saith he ; for that flock that lialh two shep- 
 herds is not endangered, but secured by it. " 
 
 Such is the remarkable farewell address, as report- 
 ed by Winslovv. " Words," says Prince in his " An- 
 nals," speaking of it, "almost astonishing in that age 
 of low and universal bigotry which then prevailed in 
 the English nation; wherein this truly great and 
 learned man seemed to be the only divine who was 
 capable of rising into a noble freedom of thinking 
 and practising in religious matters, and even of ur- 
 ging such an equal liberty on his own people. He 
 labours to take them off from their attachment to 
 him, that they might be more entirely free to search 
 and follow the Scriptures." 
 
 fixed, at last, on the spot now bearing the- 
 name of the town where they had received 
 the last hospitalities of England. There- 
 they landed on the 11th of December, old 
 style, or the 22d of December, according- 
 to the new ; and to this day the very rock 
 on which they first planted their feet at. 
 landing is shown to the passing stranger 
 as a cherished memorial of that interesting- 
 event. On that rock commenced the col- 
 onization of New-England. 
 
 On the day of the arrival of the May- 
 flower in Cape Cod harbour, the following 
 document was signed by all the male heads 
 of famihes, and unmarried tnen not attach- 
 ed to fainihes represented by their respect- 
 ive heads. 
 
 " In the name of God, Amen. We, 
 whose names are underwritten, the loyal 
 subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King 
 James, by the grace of God, of Great Brit- 
 ain, France, and Ireland, king, defender of 
 the faith, &c., having undertaken, for the 
 glory of God, and advancement of the 
 Christian faith, and honour of our king- 
 and country, a voyage to plant the first 
 colony in the northern parts of Virginia, 
 do. by these presents, solei-nnly and mutu- 
 ally, in the presence of God, and one of 
 another, covenant and combine ourselves 
 together into a civil body politic, for our 
 better ordering and preservation, and fur- 
 therance of the ends aforesaid, and by vir- 
 tue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame 
 such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, 
 constitutions, and offices, from time to 
 time, as shall be thought most meet and 
 convenient for the general good of the col- 
 ony ; unto which we promise all due sub- 
 mission and obedience. In witness where- 
 of, we have hereunder subscribed our 
 names, at Cape Cod, the 1 1 th of Novem- 
 ber, in the year of the reign of our sover- 
 eign loW, King James, of England, France, 
 and Ireland the eighteenth, and of vScot- 
 land the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1G20." 
 
 Here may be said to have been the first 
 attempt made by an American colony to 
 frame a constitution or fundamental law — 
 the seminal principle, as it were, of all 
 that wonderful series of efforts which have 
 been put forth in the New World towards 
 fixing the foundations of independent, vol- 
 untary self-government. John Carver was 
 chosen governor of the colony, and to as- 
 sist him in administering its affairs, a coun- 
 cil of five, afterward increased to seven 
 members, was appointed. 
 
 After selecting what they considered to 
 be the best spot for a settlement, as the 
 ship's boat could not come close to the 
 water's edge, they suffered much in their 
 health by having to wade ashore. The 
 few intervals of good weather they could 
 catch, between snow and rain, they spent 
 in erecting houses ; but before the first sum- 
 mer came round, nearly half their numljer 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 51 
 
 had fallen victims to consumptions and fe- 
 vers, the natural effects of the hardships 
 to which they had been exposed. What 
 must have been the distress they suffered 
 during that long winter, passed beneath 
 unknown skies, with a gloomy, unbroken 
 forest on the one hand, and the dreary 
 ocean on the other ! 
 
 But with the return of spring came 
 health, and hope, and courage. The colo- 
 ny took root. The ground it occupied had 
 been cleared for it by the previous destruc- 
 tion, by pestilence, of the tribe of Indians 
 which had occupied it. Of course, tlie col- 
 onists could not buy land which there was 
 nobody to sell. They soon made the ac- 
 quaintance of the neighbouring tribes, ac- 
 quired their friendship, and entered into 
 treaty with them. Their numbers were in 
 course of time increased by successive ar- 
 rivals of emigrants, until, in 1630. they ex- 
 ceeded 300. After the second year they 
 raised grain not only to supply all their own 
 wants, but with a surplus for exportation.* 
 They soon had a number of vessels em- 
 ployed at the fisheries. They even planted 
 a colony on the Kennebec, in Maine, and 
 extended their trade to the Connecticut 
 River, before the close of the first ten years 
 of their settlement, and before any other 
 Enghsh colony had been formed on the 
 coast of Northern Virginia, or New-Eng- 
 land, the name given it by Captain Smith 
 in 1614, and by which it was ever after to 
 be distinguished. 
 
 The governor and council were chosen 
 every year. At first, and for above eigh- 
 teen years, " the people" met, as in Athens 
 of old, for the discussion and adoption of 
 laws. But as the colony extended, and 
 towns and villages rose along the coasts and 
 in the interior, the " Democratic" form of 
 government gave place to the " Republi- 
 can," by two delegates being chosen from 
 each township to form "the General Court," 
 or Legislature of the commonwealth. 
 
 For some time they had no pastor or 
 preaching elder, but Mr. Brewster led their 
 
 * During the first two or three years they suffered 
 greatly at times for want of food. Sometimes thoy 
 jsubsisted on half allowance for months. They were 
 once saved from famishing by the benevolence of 
 some fishermen off the coast. " I have seen men," 
 eays Winslow, "stagger by reason of faintness for 
 •want of food." " Tradition declares, that at one 
 time the colonists vvere reduced to a pint of corn, 
 which, being parched and distributed, gave to each 
 individual only live kerne's: but tradition falls far 
 Short of reality ; for three or four months together 
 they had no corn whatever. When a few of their 
 old friends arrived to join them, a lobster, or a piece 
 of fish, without bread or anything else but a cup of 
 fair spring water, was the best dish which the hos- 
 pitality of the whole colony could afford. Neat cat- 
 tle were not introduced till the fourth year of the 
 settlement. Yet, during all this season of self-deni- 
 al and suffering, the cheerful confidence of the Pil- 
 grims in the mercies of Providence remained unsha- 
 ken." — Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. ]., 
 p. 315. 
 
 public devotions until they came to have a 
 regular minister. Their affairs as a church 
 were conducted with the same system and 
 order that marked their civil economy. 
 
 Such is a brief account of the founding 
 of Plymouth Colony, the earliest of all that 
 were planted in New-England. Placed on 
 a sandy and but moderately productive part 
 of the coast, and commanding a very lim- 
 ited extent of inland territory from which 
 to derive the materials of commerce and 
 wealth, it could not be expected to be- 
 come a great and important colony, like 
 others of which I have yet to speak. But 
 it was excelled by none in the moral 
 worth of its founders. All professing god- 
 liness, they almost without exception, as 
 far as we know, did honour to that profes- 
 sion. True religion was with them the 
 first of all possessions. They feared God, 
 and He walked among them, and dwelt 
 among them, and His blessing rested upon 
 them. The anniversary of their disembar- 
 cation at Plymouth has long been regular- 
 ly celebrated upon the yearly return of the 
 2-2d of December, in prose and in verse, in 
 oration and in poem : a patriotic and reli- 
 gious duty, to which have been consecrated 
 the highest efforts of many of the noblest 
 and purest minds ever produced by the 
 country to whose colonization they led the 
 way. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. — FOUNDERS OF NEW-ENGLAND. — COL- 
 ONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 The first English settlements in America 
 arose, it will be remembered,* from James 
 I.'s investing two Companies, the one form- 
 ed at London, the other at Bristol and oth- 
 er towns in the West of England, each with 
 a belt of territory extending from the At- 
 lantic to the Pacific Ocean ; the one lying 
 between the 34th and 38th, the other be- 
 tween the 41st and 48th degrees of north 
 latitude. Both Companies were formed in 
 a purely commercial spirit ; each was to 
 have its own council, but the Royal Coun- 
 cil was to have the superintendence of their 
 whole colonial system. The London Com- 
 pany was dissolved, we have seen, after an 
 existence of eighteen years. The other 
 accomplished nothing beyond giving en- 
 couragement to sundry trading voyages to 
 the coast of the country made over to it by 
 its charter. 
 
 At length, at the repeated instance of 
 Captain Smith, the Western Company 
 sought a renewal of their patent, with ad- 
 ditional powers, similar to those of the 
 London Company's second charter in 1609, 
 
 * Book i., chap. iv. 
 
52 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 with the view of attempting an extensive 
 plan of colonization ; and, notwithstanding 
 opposition from the Parliament and the 
 country at large, they succeeded in their 
 request. On November 3d, 1G20, the king 
 granted a charter to forty of his subjects, 
 among whom were members of his house- 
 hold and government, and some of the 
 wealthiest and most powerful of the Eng- 
 lish nobility, conveying to them in abso- 
 lute property, to be disposed of and admin- 
 istered as they might think proper, the 
 whole of that part of North America which 
 stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 between the 40th and 48th degrees of north 
 latitude, under the title of " The Council 
 estabhshed at Plymouth, in the County of 
 Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, 
 and governing New-England, in America." 
 Under the auspices of a vast trading corpo- 
 ration, invested with such despotic powers, 
 the colonization of New-England com- 
 menced. While this charter was in course 
 of being granted, the Pilgrims were fast 
 approaching the American coast. No val- 
 id title had given them, as yet, any legal 
 right to set their feet upon it, but this they 
 obtained a few years after from the newly- 
 formed Plymouth Company. 
 
 From its very commencement the new 
 company began to lavish away grants of 
 the immense territory which had been 
 conveyed to it, so that during the fifteen 
 years of its existence it covered with 
 its patents the whole country now com- 
 prising Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, 
 Maine, and the vast region westward of 
 these as far as the Pacific Ocean. Such 
 was the utter disregard shown in those 
 grants for anything like clear and precise 
 boundaries, that we cannot so much won- 
 der at the number of lawsuits that arose 
 from them, as that these were ever termi- 
 nated. To Mason and Gorges were grant- 
 ed the territories now forming the States 
 of New-Hampshire and Maine ; to Sir 
 "William Alexander, the country between 
 the River St. Croix and the mouth of the 
 St. Lawrence, notwithstanding that it was 
 all well known to be claimed by the French, 
 who had even planted a colony upon it, 
 called by them Acadie, but ultimately des- 
 tined to receive the name of Nova Scotia. 
 
 But the most important grant made by 
 the Plymouth Company, often called in 
 history the Council for New-ICngland, was 
 one conveying the Massachusetts territory 
 to a body organized in England in 1628, for 
 the purpose of at once providing an asy- 
 lum for persons suffering for conscience' 
 sake in the Old World, and of extending 
 the kingdom of Christ in the New, by 
 founding a colony on a large scale. With 
 this view, six Dorchester gentlemen bought 
 from the company a bell of land stretching 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between 
 three miles south of Charles River and 
 
 Massachusetts Bay, and three miles north 
 of every part of the River Merrimac. Of 
 these six, three, namely, Humphrey, Endi- 
 cot, and Whetcomb, retained their shares ; 
 while the other three sold theirs to Win- 
 throp, Dudley, Johnson, Pynchon, Eaton, 
 Saltonstall, and Bellingham, so famous in 
 colonial history, besides many others, men 
 of fortune and friends to colonial enter- 
 prise. Thus strengthened, this new com- 
 ip<iny sent out two hundred colonists under 
 Endicot, a man every way fitted for such 
 an enterprise — courageous, cheerful, and 
 having firmness of purpose and warmth of 
 temper, softened by an austere benevo- 
 lence. These arrived in Massachusetts 
 Bay in September, 1628, and settled at Sa- 
 lem, where several members of the Plym- 
 outh colony had already established them- 
 selves. 
 
 The news of this event still farther aug- 
 mented the now growing interest felt in 
 England on the subject of colonizing Amer- 
 ica. In the painful circumstances in which 
 the Puritans were placed, they could not 
 fail to have their attention drawn to the 
 continued prosperity of the Plymouth set- 
 tlement, and naturally rejoiced to hear of a 
 land towards the setting sun where they 
 might enjoy a tranquillity to which they 
 had long been strangers in the land of their 
 fathers. Such was the interest felt through- 
 out the kingdom, that not only in London, 
 Bristol, and Plymouth, but at Boston, and 
 other inland towns, influential persons were 
 found ready to risk their fortunes in the 
 cause. Efforts were made to procure the 
 royal sanction for the patent granted by 
 the Plymouth Company to that of Massa- 
 chusetts, and a royal charter in favour of 
 the latter, after much trouble and expense, 
 passed the seals on the 4th of March, 1629. 
 
 This charter, bearing the signature of 
 Charles I., was evidently granted under 
 the idea that the persons whom it incorpo- 
 rated were to be rather a trading commu- 
 nity than a civil government. They were 
 constituted a body pohtic, by the name of 
 " The Governor and Company of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay in New-England." The ad- 
 ministration of its affairs was committed 
 to a governor, deputy-governor, and thir- 
 teen assistants, elected by the sharehold- 
 ers. The freemen were to meet four 
 times a year, or nftener if necessary, and 
 were empowered to pass laws for the reg- 
 ulation of tlieir afiairs, without any provis- 
 ion rendering the royal assent indispensa- 
 ble to the validity of their acts. Strictly 
 considered, the patent simply conferred 
 the rights of English subjects, without any 
 enlargement of religious liberty. It em- 
 powered, but did not require the governor 
 to administer the oaths of supremacy and 
 allegiance. The persons in whose favour 
 it was granted were still members of the 
 Church of England— not Independents or 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 53 
 
 Separatists — and probably neither the gov- 
 ernment, nor the first patentees, foresaw 
 how wide a departure from the economy 
 of that Church would result from the emi- 
 gration that was about to take place under 
 its provisions. 
 
 It is surprising that a charter which con- 
 ferred unlimited powers on the corpora- 
 tion, and secured no rights to the colonists, 
 should have become the means of estab- 
 lishing the freest of all the colonies. This 
 was partly owing to its empowering the 
 corporation to fix what terms it pleased 
 for the admission of new members. The 
 corporation could increase or change its 
 members with its own consent, and not 
 being obliged to hold its meetings in Eng- 
 land, it was possible for it to emigrate, 
 and thus to identify itself with the colo- 
 ny which it was its main object to found. 
 This was actually done. As the corpora- 
 tion was entirely composed of Puritans, it 
 was not difficult, by means of resignations 
 and new elections, to choose the govern- 
 or, deputy-governor, and assistants, from 
 among such as were willing to leave Eng- 
 land as colonists. 
 
 The first object of the new company, on 
 obtaining a royal charter, was to re-enforce 
 the party which had gone out with Endi- 
 cot and settled at Salem. The re-enforce- 
 ment consisted of 200 emigrants, under 
 the pastoral care of the Rev. Francis Hig- 
 ginson, an eminent Nonconformist minis- 
 ter, who was delighted to accept of the in- 
 vitation to undertake that charge. By 
 their arrival, which happened in June, the 
 colony at Salem was increased to 300 per- 
 sons ; but diseases and the hardships inci- 
 dent to new settlements cut off, during the 
 following winter, eighty of that number, 
 who died only lamenting that they were 
 not allowed to see the future glories of the 
 colony. Among these was their beloved 
 pastor, Mr Higginson, whose death was a 
 great loss to the little community. 
 
 The year following, namely, 1630, was 
 a glorious one for the colonization of New- 
 England. Having first taken every pre- 
 paratory measure required for self-trans- 
 portation, the corporation itself embark- 
 ed, accompanied by a body of from 800 to 
 900 emigrants, among whom were sev- 
 eral persons of large property and high 
 standing in society. John Winthrop, one 
 of the purest characters in England, had 
 been chosen governor. Taken as a whole, 
 it is thought that no single colony could 
 ever be compared with them. One may 
 form some idea of the elevated piety that 
 pervaded the higher classes among the Pu- 
 ritans of that day from the language of tlie 
 younger Winthrop : " I shall call that my 
 country," said he to his father, " where I 
 may most glorify God, and enjoy the pres- 
 ence of ray dearest friends. Therefore 
 herein I submit myself to God's will and 
 
 yours, and dedicate myself to God and the 
 company with the whole endeavours both 
 of body and mind. The ' Conclusions' which 
 you sent down are unanswerable ; and it 
 cannot but be a prosperous action which is 
 so well allowed by the judgments of God's 
 prophets, undertaken by so religious and 
 wise worthies in Israel, and indented to 
 God's glory in so special a service."* 
 
 Governor Winthrop had a fine estate 
 which he sacrificed. Many others sacri- 
 ficed what were considered good estates 
 in England in those days. One of the 
 richest of the colonists was Isaac Johnson, 
 " the father of Boston." As a proof of his 
 being a man of wealth, it may be men- 
 tioned that, by his will, his funeral expen- 
 ses were limited to £-250. His wife, the 
 Lady Arabella, was a daughter of the Earl 
 of Lincoln. In her devotedness to the 
 cause of Christ, " she came from a para- 
 dise of plenty into a wilderness of wants. "f 
 They were almost without exception god- 
 ly people, and when they embarked for 
 America were members of the Church of 
 England, being that in which they had been 
 born and brought up. Though of the par- 
 ty that were opposed to what they consid- 
 ered Romish superstitions and errors, still 
 cleaving in their conscientious convictions 
 to the National Church ; and though they 
 could not in all points conform to it, yet 
 they had not separated from it, but sought 
 the welfare of their souls in its ministra- 
 tions, whenever they possibly could hope 
 to find it there. They lamented what they 
 regarded as its defects, but not in a spirit 
 of bitter hostility. This very plainly ap- 
 pears from the following letter addressed 
 to the members of the Church of England, 
 by Governor Winthrop and others, imme- 
 diately after their embarcation, and when 
 they were about to bid a long farewell to 
 their native shores. It is conceived in a 
 noble spirit : 
 
 " The humble request of his majesty's 
 loyal subjects, the Governor and the Com- 
 pany, late gone for New-England, to the 
 rest of their brethren in the Church of 
 England. 
 
 " Reverend Fathers and Brethren — The 
 general rumour of this solemn enterprise, 
 wherein ourselves, with others, through the 
 providence of the Almighty, are engaged, 
 as it may spare us the labour of imparting 
 our occasion unto you, so it gives us the 
 more encouragement to strengthen our- 
 selves by the procurement of the prayers 
 and blessings of the Lord's faithful ser- 
 vants ; for which end we are bold to have 
 recourse unto you, as those whom God 
 hath placed nearest his throne of mercy, 
 which, as it aff"ords you the more oppor- 
 tunity, so it imposeth the greater bond upon 
 you to intercede for his people in all their 
 
 ♦ Winthrop's Journal, i., p. 359, 360. 
 t Judge Story's Centeniual Discourse. 
 
54 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 straits ; we beseech you, therefore, by the 
 mercies of the Lord Jesus, to consider us 
 as your brethren, standing in very great 
 need of your help, and earnestly imploring 
 it. And howsoever your charity may have 
 met with some occasion of discourage- 
 ment, through the misreport of our inten- 
 tions, or through the disaffection or indis- 
 cretion of some of us, or, rather, among 
 us — for we are not of those that dream of 
 perfection in this world — yet we desire you 
 would be pleased to take notice of the 
 principles and body of our company, as 
 those who esteem it our honour to call the 
 Church of England, from whence we rise, 
 our dear mother, and caimot part from our 
 native country, where she specially resi- 
 deth, without much sadness of heart, and 
 many tears in our eyes ; ever acknowl- 
 edging that such hope and part as we have 
 obtained in the common salvation, we have 
 received in her bosom, and sucked it from 
 her breasts ; we leave it not, therefore, as 
 loathing that milk wherewith we were 
 nourished there, but, blessing God for the 
 parentage and education, as members of 
 the same body, shall always rejoice in her 
 good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sor- 
 row that shall ever betide her ; and while 
 we have breath, sincerely desire and en- 
 deavour the continuance and abundance of 
 her welfare, with the enlargement of her 
 bounds in the kingdom of Christ Jesus. 
 
 " Be pleased, therefore, fathers and 
 brethren, to help forward this work now in 
 hand, which, if it prosper, you shall be the 
 more glorious ; howsoever, your judgment 
 is with the Lord, and your reward with 
 your God. It is a usual and laudable ex- 
 ercise of your charity to commend to the 
 prayers of your congregations the neces- 
 sities and straits of your private neigh- 
 bours : do the like for a church springing 
 out of your own bowels. We conceive 
 much hope that this remembrance of us, if 
 it be frequent and fervent, will be a most 
 prosperous gale in our sails, and provide 
 such a passage and welcome for us from 
 the God of the whole earth, as both we 
 which shall find it, and yourselves, with 
 the rest of our friends who shall hear of it, 
 shall be much enlarged to bring in such 
 daily returns of thanksgivings as the speci- 
 alities of His providence and goodness may 
 justly challenge at all our hands. You 
 are not ignorant that the Spirit of God 
 stirred up the Apostle Paul to make con- 
 tinual mention of the Church of Philippi 
 (which was a colony from Rome) ; let the 
 same Spirit, we beseech you, put you in 
 mind, that are the Lord's remembrancers, to 
 pray for us without ceasing (who are a 
 weak colony from yourselves), making 
 continual request for us to God in all your 
 prayers. 
 
 " What we entreat of you that are the 
 ministers of God. that we also crave at 
 
 the hands of all the rest of our brethren, 
 that they would at no time forget us in 
 their private solicitations at the throne of 
 grace. 
 
 " If any there be who, through want of 
 clear intelligence of our course, or tender- 
 ness of affection towards us, cannot con- 
 ceive so well of our way as we could desire, 
 we would entreat such not to despise us ; 
 nor to desert us in their prayers and affec- 
 tions, but to consider rather that they are 
 so much the more bound to express the 
 bowels of their compassion towards us, re- 
 membering always that both nature and 
 grace doth ever bind us to relieve and res- 
 cue with our utmost and speediest power 
 such as are dear to us, when we conceive 
 them to be running uncomfortable hazards. 
 
 " What goodness you shall extend to us 
 on this or any other Christian kindness, we, 
 your brethren in Christ Jesus, shall labour 
 to repay in what duty we are or shall be 
 able to perform, promising, so far as God 
 shall enable us, to give Him no rest on your 
 behalf, wishing our heads and hearts may 
 be as fountains of tears for your everlasting 
 welfare, when we shall be in our poor cot- 
 tages in the wilderness, overshadowed with 
 the spirit of supplication, through the mani- 
 fold necessities and tribulations which may 
 not altogether unexpectedly, nor, we hope, 
 unprofitably befall us. And so commend- 
 ing you to the grace of God in Christ, we 
 shall ever rest." 
 
 The ships that bore Winthrop and his 
 companions across the Atlantic reached 
 Massachusetts Bay in the following June 
 and July. After having consoled the dis- 
 tresses and relieved the wants of the Salem 
 colonists, the newly-arrived emigrants set 
 about choosing a suitable place for a settle- 
 ment ; a task which occupied the less time, 
 as the bay had been well explored by pre- 
 ceding visiters. The first landing was made 
 at the spot where Charlestown now stands. 
 A party having gone from that place up 
 the Charles River to Watertown, there 
 some of them resolved to settle ; others 
 preferred Dorchester; but the greater num- 
 ber resolved to occupy the peninsula upon 
 which Boston now stands, the settlement 
 receiving that name from part of the colo- 
 nists having come from Boston in England. 
 For a while they were lodged in cloth tents 
 and wretched huts, and had to endure all 
 kinds of hardship. To complete their tri- 
 als, disease made its attacks, and carried 
 off 200 of them at least before December. 
 About a hundred lost heart, and went back 
 to England. Many who had been accus- 
 tomed in their native land to ease and 
 plenty, and to all the refinements and lux- 
 uries of cultivated life, were now compelled 
 to struggle with unforeseen wants and dif- 
 ficulties. Among those who sank under 
 such hardships, and died, was the Lady 
 Arabella Johnson. Her husband, too, "fthe 
 
<3hap. Ill] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 55 
 
 greatest furtherer of the plantation," was 
 carried off" by disease ; but " he died will- 
 ingly and in sweet peace," making " a most 
 -godly end."* These trials and aflSictions 
 were borne with a calm reliance on the 
 goodness of God, nor was there a doubt 
 felt but that in the end all would go well. 
 They were sustained by a profound belief 
 -that God was with them, and by bearing in 
 mind the object of their coming to that 
 wilderness. 
 
 Amid all this gloom, light began to break 
 in at last. Health returned, and the blanks 
 caused by death were filled up by partial 
 arrivals of new emigrants from England 
 in the course of the two following years. 
 The colony becoming a little settled, meas- 
 ures were taken to introduce a more popu- 
 lar government, by extending the privile- 
 ges of the charter, which had established a 
 sort of close corporation. By it all funda- 
 mental laws were to be enacted by general 
 meetings of the freemen, or members of 
 the company. One of the first steps, ac- 
 cordingly, was to convene a General Court 
 at Boston, and admit above a hundred of 
 the older colonists to the privileges of the 
 corporation ; and from that they gradually 
 went on, until, instead of an aristocratic 
 government conducted by a governor, dep- 
 uty-governor, and assistants, holding office 
 for an indefinite period, these functionaries 
 'were elected annually, and the powers of 
 legislation were transferred from general 
 courts of all the freemen joined with the 
 assistants, to a new legislature, or " general 
 court," consisting of two branches, the as- 
 eistants constituting the upper, and deputies 
 from all the " towns" forming the lower 
 branch. Within five years from the found- 
 ation of the colony, a Constitution was 
 drawn up, which was to serve as a sort of 
 Magna Charta, embracing all the funda- 
 mental principles of just government ; and 
 in fourteen years the colonial government 
 was organized upon the same footing as 
 that on which it rests at the present day. 
 
 But with these colonists the claims of 
 religion took precedence of all other con- 
 cerns of pubhc interest. The New- Eng- 
 land Fathers began with God, sought his 
 blessing, and desired, first of all, to pro- 
 mote his worship. Immediately after 
 landing they appointed a day for solemn 
 fasting and prayer. The worship of God 
 was commenced by them not in temples 
 built with hands, but beneath the wide- 
 spreading forest. The Rev. Mr. Wilson, 
 the Rev. Mr. Philips, and other faithful 
 ministers, had come out with them ; and 
 for these, as soon as the aff'airs of the col- 
 ony became a little settled, a suitable pro- 
 vision was made. 
 
 In the third year of the settlement there 
 came out, among other fresh emigrants. 
 
 Governor Winthrop's Journal. 
 
 two spiritual teachers, who were after- 
 ward to exercise a most extensive and 
 beneficial influence in the colonies. One 
 of these was the eminently pious and zeal- 
 ous Cotton, a man profoundly learned in 
 the Holy Scriptures, as well as in the wri- 
 tings of the fathers and the schoolmen ; in 
 the pulpit rather persuasive than eloquent, 
 and having a wonderful command oyer the 
 judgments and hearts of his hearers. The 
 other was Hooker, a man of vast endow- 
 ments, untiring energy, and singular be- 
 nevolence ; the equal of the Reformers, 
 though of less harsh a spirit than that 
 which marked most of those great men. 
 These and other devoted servants of God 
 were highly appreciated, not only for their 
 works' sake, but also for their great per- 
 sonal excellences. 
 
 Before long the colony began to extend, 
 in all directions, from Boston as a centre 
 and capital ; and as new settlements were 
 made, additional churches were also plant- 
 ed ; for the New-England fathers felt that 
 nothing could be really and permanently 
 prosperous without religion.* Within five 
 years a considerable population was to be 
 found scattered over Dorchester, Roxbu- 
 ry, Watertown, Cambridge, Charlestown, 
 Lynn, and other settlements. Trade was 
 spreading wide its sails ; emigrants were 
 arriving from Europe ; brotherly inter- 
 course was opened up with the Plymouth 
 colony, by the visits of Governor Win- 
 throp and the Rev. Mr. Wilson. Friendly 
 treaties were made not only with the 
 neighbouring Indian tribes, the Nipmucks 
 and Narragansetts, but also with the more 
 distant Mohigans and the Pequods in Con- 
 necticut. God was emphatically honoured 
 by the great bulk of the people, and every- 
 thing bore the aspect of prosperity and 
 happiness. Such was the origin of the 
 colony of Massachusetts Bay — a colony 
 destined to exercise a controlling influence 
 over all the other New-England Planta- 
 tions. 
 
 * Several of these new and feeble churches actu- 
 ally supported two ministers, one called the " Pas- 
 tor," and the other the " Teacher." The distinction 
 between these offices is not very easily expressed, 
 and must have been more difficult to maintain in 
 practice. Thomas Hooker, in his " Survey of the 
 Summe of Church Discipline," &c., declares the 
 scope of the pastor's office to be " to work upon the 
 will and the affections ;" that of the doctor or teach- 
 er, " to infonne the judgment, and to help forward 
 the work of illumination in the minde and under- 
 standing, and thereby to make way for the truth, 
 that it may be settled and fastened on the heart." 
 The former was to " wooe and win the soul to the 
 love and practice of the doctrine which is according 
 to godlinesse ;" the latter, to dispense " a word of 
 knowledge." I need hardly say that this duphcate 
 of the ministerial office, though much liked by the 
 early colonists, did not long survive their day. 
 
56 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IT, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. FOUNDERS OF NEW-ENGLAND. — COL- 
 ONIES OF CONNECTICUT, RHODE ISLAND, 
 
 NEW-HAMPSHIRE, AND MAINE. GENERAL 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 Plymouth* colony had been planted only 
 three. years when it began to have off- 
 shoots, one of which, in 1623, settled at 
 Windsor, on the rich alluvial lands of the 
 Connecticut, led thither, however, more by 
 the advantages of the spot as a station for 
 trading in fur, than by the nature of the 
 soil. The report of its fertility having, at 
 length, reached England, the Earl of War- 
 wick bought from the Council for New- 
 England, as we have seen that the Plym- 
 outh Company was sometimes called, the 
 whole Valley of the Connecticut, which 
 purchase was, the year following, trans- 
 ferred to Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brooke, 
 and .Tohn Hampden. Two years later, 
 the Dutch, who, in right of discovery, 
 claimed the whole of the Connecticut ter- 
 ritory, sent an expedition from their set- 
 tlement at Manhattan up the River Con- 
 necticut, and attempted to make good their 
 claim by erecting a blockhouse, called 
 Good Hope, at Hartford. In 1635, the 
 younger Winthrop, the future benefactor 
 of Connecticut, came from England with 
 a commission from the proprietors to build 
 a fort at the mouth of the river, and this 
 he did soon after. Yet, even before his 
 arrival, settlers from the neighbourhood 
 of Boston had established themselves at 
 Hartford, Windsor, and Weathersfield. 
 Late in the fall of that year, a party of 
 sixty persons, men, women, and children, 
 set out for the Connecticut, and suffered 
 much from the inclement weather of the 
 winter that followed. In the following 
 June, another party, amounting to about a 
 hundred in number, including some of the 
 best of the Massachusetts Bay settlers, left 
 Boston for the Valley of the Connecticut. 
 They were under the superintendence of 
 Hayes, who had been one year governor 
 of Boston, and of Hooker, who, as a 
 preacher, was rivalled in the New World 
 by none but Cotton, and even Cotton he 
 excelled in force of character, kindliness 
 of disposition, and magnanimity. Settling 
 at the spot where Hartford now stands, 
 they founded the colony of Connecticut. 
 They, too, carried the ark of the Lord with 
 them, and made religion the basis of their 
 institutions. Three years sufficed for the 
 framing of their political government. 
 First, as had been done by the Plymouth 
 
 * Plymouth in America is often called New 
 Plymouth by early writers, in s[ieaking of New-Eng- 
 land. I prefer the name by which exclusively the 
 town is now known. The context will always en- 
 able the reader to distinguish it from Plymouth in 
 England. 
 
 colony, they subscribed a solemn compact, 
 and then drew up a Constitution on the 
 most liberal principles. The magistrates 
 and Legislature were to be chosen every 
 year by ballot, the "towns" were to return 
 representatives in proportion to their pop- 
 ulation, and all members of the " towns," 
 on taking the oath of allegiance to the 
 commonwealth, were to be allowed to vote 
 at elections. Two centuries have since 
 passed away, but Connecticut still rejoices 
 in the same principles of civil polity. 
 
 But before this colony had time to com- 
 plete its organization, the colonists had to 
 defend themselves and all that was dear to 
 them against their neighbours, the Pe- 
 quods. This was the first war that broke 
 out between the New-England settlers and 
 the native tribes, and it must be allowed 
 to have been a just one on the part of the 
 former, if war can ever be so. The Pe- 
 quods brought it upon themselves by the 
 commission of repeated murders. In less 
 than six weeks, hostilities were brought to 
 a close by the annihilation of the tribe. 
 Two hundred only were left alive, and 
 these were either reduced to servitude by 
 the colonists, or incorporated among the 
 Mohigans and Narragansetts. 
 
 The colony of New-Haven was founded 
 in 1638 by a body of Puritans, who, like 
 all the rest, were of the school of Calvin, 
 and whose religious teacher was the Rev. 
 John Davenport. The excellent Theoph- 
 ilus Eaton was their first governor, and 
 continued to be annually elected to that 
 office for twenty years. Their first Sab- 
 bath, in the yet cool month of April, was 
 spent under a branching oak, and there 
 their pastor discoursed to them on the Sa- 
 viour's " temptation in the wilderness." 
 After spending a day in fasting and pray- 
 er, they laid the foundation of their civil 
 government by simply covenanting that 
 " all of them would be ordered by the rules 
 which the Scriptures held forth to them." 
 A title to their lands was purchased from 
 the Indians. The following year, these 
 disciples of " Him who was cradled in a 
 manger" held their first Constituent As- 
 sembly in a barn. Having solemnly come 
 to the conclusion that the Scriptures con- 
 tain a perfect pattern of a commonwealth, 
 according to that they aimed at construct- 
 ing theirs. Purity of religious doctrine and 
 discipline, freedom of religious worship, 
 and the service and glory of God, were 
 proclaimed as the great ends of the enter- 
 prise. God smiled upon it, so that in a 
 few years the colony could show flourish- 
 ing settlements rising along the Sound, 
 and on the opposite shores of Long Isl- 
 and . 
 
 While the colonization of Connecticut 
 was in progress, that of Rhode Island com- 
 menced. Roger Williams, a Puritan min- 
 ister, had arrived in Boston the year im- 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 57 
 
 mediately following its settlement by Win- 
 throp and his companions ; but he soon 
 advanced doctrines on the rights of con- 
 science, and the nature and limits of hu- 
 man government, which were unaccepta- 
 ble to the civil and religious authorities of 
 the colony. For two years he avoided 
 coming into collision with his opponents 
 by residing at Plymouth ; but having been 
 invited to become pastor of a church in 
 Salem, where he had preached for some 
 time after his first coming to America, 
 he was ordered, at last, to return to Eng- 
 land ; whereupon, instead of complying, 
 he sought refuge among the Narragansett 
 Indians, then occupying a large part of the 
 present State of Rhode Island. Having 
 ever been the steady friend of the Indians, 
 ~and defender of their rights, he was kind- 
 ly received by the aged chief, Canonicus, 
 and there, in 1636, he founded the city and 
 plantation of Providence. Two years af- 
 terward, the beautiful island called Rhode 
 Island, in Narragansett Bay, was bought 
 from the Indians, by John Clarke, William 
 Coddington, and their friends, when obli- 
 ged to leave the Massachusetts colony, in 
 consequence of the part which they had 
 taken in the " Antinomian controversy," 
 as it was called, and of which we shall have 
 occasion to speak. These two colonies of 
 Providence and Rhode Island, both founded 
 on the principle of absolute religious free- 
 dom, naturally presented an asylum to all 
 who disliked the rigid laws and practices 
 of the Massachusetts colony in religious 
 matters ; but many, it must be added, fled 
 thither only out of hatred to the stern mo- 
 rality of the other colonies. Hence Rhode 
 Island, to this day, has a more mixed pop- 
 ulation, as respects religious opinions and 
 practices, than any other part of New-Eng- 
 land. There is, however, no inconsidera- 
 ble amount of sincere piety in the state, 
 but the forms in which it manifests itself 
 are numerous. 
 
 As early as 1623, small settlements were 
 made, under the grant to Mason, on the 
 banks of the Piscataqua, in New-Hamp- 
 shire; and, in point of date, both Ports- 
 mouth and Dover take precedence of Bos- 
 ton. Most of the New-Hampshire settlers 
 came direct from England ; some from the 
 Plymouth colony. Exeter owed its found- 
 ation to the abandonment of Massachusetts 
 by the Rev. Mr. Wheelwright and his im- 
 mediate friends, on the occasion of the 
 "Antinomian controversy." 
 
 The first permanent settlements made 
 on " the Maine," as the continental part of 
 the country was called, to distinguish it 
 from the islands — and hence the name of 
 the state — date as early, it would appear, 
 as 1626. The settlers were from Plym- 
 outh, and no doubt carried with them the 
 religious institutions cherished in that ear- 
 liest of all the New-England colonies. 
 
 Within twenty years from the planting of 
 the colony at Plymouth, all the other chief 
 colonies of New-England were founded, 
 their governments organized, and the coast 
 of the Atlantic, from the Kennebec River in 
 Maine almost to the Hudson in New- York, 
 marked by their various settlements. Off- 
 shoots from these original stocks gradually 
 appeared, both at intervening points near 
 the ocean, and at such spots in the interior 
 as attracted settlers by superior fertility of 
 soil or other physical advantages. From 
 time to time, little bands of adventurers 
 left the older homesteads, and wandered 
 forth in search of new abodes. Carrying 
 their substance with them in wagons, and 
 driving before them their cattle, sheep, 
 and hogs, these simple groups wended 
 through the tangled forest, crossed swamps 
 and rivers, and traversed hill and dale, un- 
 til some suitable resting-place appeared; 
 the silence of the wilderness, meanwhile, 
 was broken by the lowing of their cattle 
 and the bleating of their sheep, as well as 
 by the songs of Zion, with which the pil- 
 grims beguiled the fatigues of the way. 
 Everywhere nature had erected bethels 
 for them, and from beneath the overshad- 
 owing oak, morning and night, their ori- 
 sons ascended to the God of their salva- 
 tion. Hope of future comfort sustained 
 them amid present toils. They were 
 cheered by the thought that the extension 
 of their settlements was promoting also 
 the extension of the kingdom of Christ. 
 
 This rapid advance of the New-England 
 settlements, during the first twenty years 
 of their existence, must be ascribed, in a 
 great measure, to the troubled condition 
 and lowering prospects of the mother- 
 country during the same period. The de- 
 spotic principles of Charles I. as a mon- 
 arch, still more, perhaps, the religious in- 
 tolerance of Archbishop Laud and his par- 
 tisans, so fatally abetted by the king, drove 
 thousands from England to the colonies, 
 and hurried on the Revolution that soon fol- 
 lowed at home. The same oppressive and 
 bigoted policy, indeed, that was convulsing 
 Great Britain, threatened the colonies also ; 
 but in 1639, just as they were on the eve 
 of an open collision, the government of 
 that country found itself so beset with dif- 
 ficulties at home, that New-England, hap- 
 pily for its own sake, was forgotten. 
 
 Nor does the prosperity of the colonial 
 settlements, during those twenty years, 
 seem less remarkable than their multipli- 
 cation and extension over the country. 
 The huts in which the emigrants first found 
 shelter gave place to well-built houses. 
 Commerce made rapid advances. Large 
 quantities of the country's natural produc- 
 tions, such as furs and lumber, were ex- 
 ported ; grain was shipped to the West 
 Indies, and fishing employed many hands. 
 Ship-building was carried to such an ex- 
 
58 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 tent, that, within twenty-five years from 
 the first settlement of New-England, ves- 
 sels of 400 tons were constructed there. 
 Several kinds of manufactures, even, be- 
 gan to take root in the colonies. 
 
 It is calculated that 21,200 emigrants 
 had arrived in New-England alone before 
 the Long Parliament met. " One hundred 
 and ninety-eight ships had borne them 
 across the Atlantic, and the whole cost 
 of the plantations had been 1,000,000 of 
 dollars ; a great expenditure and a great 
 emigration for that age ; yet, in 1832, more 
 than 50,000 persons arrived at the single 
 port of Quebec in one summer, bringing 
 with them a capital exceeding 3,000,000 
 of dollars."* 
 
 A great change, in this respect, took 
 place during the next twenty years, em- 
 bracing the period of the civil war, and 
 the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell and 
 his son. Not only were there few arri- 
 vals of emigrants during that interval, but 
 some fiery spirits in the colonies returned 
 to the mother-country, eager to take part in 
 the contest waging there. This, indeed, 
 some of the leading men in New-England 
 were earnestly pressed to do by letters 
 from both houses of Parliament, but they 
 were unwilling to abandon the duties of the 
 posts they occupied in the New World. 
 Upon the whole, from 1640 to 1660 the 
 population of New-England rather dimin- 
 ised than augmented. 
 
 But while such, during the early years 
 ■of their existence, was the temporal pros- 
 perity of these colonies, not less was their 
 spiritual. In 1647, New-England had for- 
 ty-three churches united in one commu- 
 nion ; in 1650, the number of churches was 
 fifty-eight, that of communicants 7750 ; 
 and in 1674, there were more than eighty 
 English churches of Christ, composed of 
 known pious and faithful professors only, 
 dispersed through the wilderness. Of these, 
 twelve or thirteen were in Plymouth col- 
 ony, forty-seven in Massachusetts and the 
 province of New-Hampshire, nineteen in 
 Connecticut, three in Long Island, and 
 one in Martha's Vineyard. f Well might 
 one of her pious historians say, " It con- 
 cerneth New-England always to remem- 
 ber that she is a religious plantation, and 
 not a plantation of trade. The profession 
 of purity of doctrine, worship, and disci- 
 pline, is written upon lier forehead. "J 
 
 The New-England colonists may have 
 been " the poorest of the people of God in 
 the whole world," and they settled in a 
 jugged couutry, the poorest, in fact, in 
 natural resources of all the United States' 
 territories ; nevertheless, their industry 
 
 * Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i., 
 p. 415. 
 
 t Prince's Christian History. Emerson's History 
 «f the First Church. 
 
 t Prince, in his Christian History, p. 66. 
 
 and other virtues made them increase in 
 wealth, and transformed their hills and 
 valleys into a delightful land. Their com- 
 merce soon showed itself in all seas ; their 
 manufactures gradually gained ground, 
 notwithstanding the obstacles created by 
 the jealousy of England, and, with the in- 
 crease of their population, they overspread 
 a large extent of the space included in 
 their charters. 
 
 Many, indeed, affect to sneer at the 
 founders of New-England ; but the sneers 
 of ignorance and prejudice cannot detract 
 from their real merits. Not that we would 
 claim the praise of absolute wisdom for 
 all that was done by the " New-England 
 Fathers." Some of their penal laws were 
 unreasonably and unjustly severe, some 
 were frivolous ; some were even ridicu- 
 lous.* Some of their usages were dicta- 
 ted by false views of propriety. Nor can 
 it be denied that they were intolerant to 
 those who diff"ered from them in religion ; 
 that they persecuted Quakers and Baptists, 
 and abhorred Roman Catholics. But all 
 this grew out of the erroneous views which 
 they, in common with almost all the world 
 at that time, entertained on the rights of 
 human conscience and the duties of civil 
 government, in cases where those rights 
 are concerned. We shall see, likewise, 
 that they committed some most serious 
 mistakes, resulting from the same errone- 
 ous views, in the civil establishments of 
 religion adopted in most of tlie colonies. 
 Notwithstanding all this, they will be found 
 to have been far in advance of other na- 
 tions of their day. 
 
 With respect to their treatment of the 
 native tribes, they were led into measures 
 which appear harsh and unjust by the fact 
 of their laws being modelled upon those of 
 the Jews. Such, for example, was their 
 making slaves of those Indians whom they 
 made prisoners in war. There were cases, 
 also, of individual wrong done to the In- 
 dians. Yet never, I believe, since the 
 world began, have colonies from civilized 
 nations been planted among barbarous 
 tribes with so httle injustice being perpe 
 trated upon the whole. The land, in al- 
 most all cases where tribes remained to 
 dispose of it, was taken only on indemni- 
 fication being given, as they fully recog- 
 nised the right of the natives to the soil. 
 The only exceptions, and these were but 
 
 * A great deal of misrepresentation and falsehood 
 has been published bv ignorant and prejudiced per- 
 sons at the expense of the New-England Puritans. 
 For example, pretended specimens of what are call- 
 ed " the I5lue Laws of Connecticut" have apjieared in 
 the journals of certain European travellers, and have 
 been received by credulous transatlantic readers as 
 perfectly authentic. Yet the greater part of these 
 so-called " laws" are the sheerest fabrications ever 
 palmed upon the world, as is shown by Professor 
 Kingsley in a note appended to his Centennial Dis- 
 course, delivered at New-Haven a few years ago. 
 
€hap. IV.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 59 
 
 few, were the cases in which the hazards 
 of war put them in possession of some 
 Indian territory. N-or were they indiffer- 
 ent to the spiritual interests of those poor 
 people. We shall yet see that for these 
 they did far more than was done by any 
 other colonies on the whole American con- 
 tinent, and I shall explain why they did 
 not do more. 
 
 Let us now, in conclusion, contemplate 
 for a moment the great features that mark 
 the religious character of the founders of 
 New-England, leaving our remarks on their 
 religious economy to be introduced at an- 
 other place. 
 
 First, then, theirs was a religion that 
 made much of the Bible ; I should rather 
 say, that to them the Bible was every- 
 thing. They not only drew their religious 
 principles from it, but according to it, in a 
 great degree, they fashioned their civil 
 laws. They were disposed to refer every- 
 thing " to the Law and to the Testimony." 
 And although they did not always interpret 
 the Scriptures aright, yet no people ever 
 revered them more, or studied them more 
 carefully. With them the famous motto 
 of Chillingworth had a real meaning and 
 application : The Bible is the religion ok 
 Protestants. 
 
 Second. The religion of the founders of 
 New-England was friendly to the diffusion 
 of knowledge, and set a high value on 
 learning. Many of their pastors, especial- 
 ly, were men of great attainments. Not a 
 few of them had been educated at the Uni- 
 versities of Oxford and Cambridge, in Eng- 
 land, and some had brought with them a 
 European reputation. John Cotton, John 
 Wilson, Thomas Hooker, Dunster, and 
 Chauncey, which last two were Presidents 
 of the University at Cambridge, Thomas 
 Thatcher, Samuel Whiting, John Sherman, 
 John Elliot, and several more of the early 
 ministers, were men of great learning. All 
 were well instructed in theology, and thor- 
 oughly versed in Hebrew, as well as in 
 Greek and Latin. Some, too, such as 
 Sherman, of Watertown, were fine mathe- 
 matical scholars. They were the friends 
 and correspondents of Baxter, and Howe, 
 and Selden, and Milton, and other lumina- 
 ries among the Puritans of England. Their 
 regard for useful learning they amply pro- 
 ved, by the establishment of schools and 
 academies for all the youth of the colonies, 
 as well as for their own children. Only eight 
 years after the first settlement of Massa- 
 chusetts colony, they founded, at a great 
 expense for men in their circumstances, 
 the University of Harvard, at Cambridge, 
 near Boston, an institution at which, for a 
 period of more than sixty years, the most 
 distinguished men of New-England receiv- 
 ed their academical education. 
 
 Third. Their religion was eminently fit- 
 ted to enlarge men's views of the duty of 
 
 living for God and promoting liis kingdom 
 in the world. They felt that Christianity 
 was the greatest boon that mankind can 
 possess ; a blessing which they were bound 
 to do their utmost to secure to their pos- 
 terity. In going to a new continent they 
 were influenced by a double hope, the en- 
 largement of Christ's kingdom by the con- 
 version of heathen tribes, and the found- 
 ing of an empire for their own children, 
 in which His rehgion should gloriously 
 prevail. Their eyes seemed to catch some 
 glimpses of Messiah's universal reign, 
 when " all nations shall be blessed in him, 
 and call him blessed." 
 
 Fourth. Their religion prompted to great 
 examples of self-denial. Filled with the 
 idea of an empire in which true rehgion 
 might live and flourish, and satisfied from 
 what they had seen of the Old World that 
 the Truth was in bondage there, they sigh- 
 ed for a land in which they might serve 
 God according to his blessed Word. To 
 secure such a privilege to themselves and 
 their children, they were willing to go into 
 a wilderness, and to toil and die. This was 
 something worth making sacrifices for, and 
 much did they sacrifice to obtain it. Though 
 poor in comparison with many others, still 
 they belonged to good families, and might 
 have lived very comfortably in England ; 
 but they preferred exile and hardship, in 
 the hope of securing spiritual advantages 
 to themselves and their posterity. 
 
 Fifth. There was a noble patriotism in 
 their religion. Some of them had long 
 been exiled from England ; others had 
 found their mother-country a very unkind- 
 ly home, and yet England was still dear to 
 them. With them it was not " Farewell, 
 Babylon! farewell, Rome!" but, "Fare- 
 well, dear England !'"* Though contemp- 
 tuously treated by James I. and Charles I., 
 yet they spoke of being desirous of " en- 
 larging his majesty's dominions." The 
 Plymouth settlers did not wish to remain 
 in Holland, because " their posterity would 
 in a few generations become Dutch, and 
 lose their interest in the English nation ; 
 they being desirous to enlarge his majes- 
 ty's dominions, and to live under their nat- 
 ural prince." And much as they had suf- 
 fered from the prelacy of the Estabhshed 
 Cliurch, unnatural stepmother as she had 
 been to them, nothing could extinguish the 
 love that they felt for her, and for the many 
 dear children of God whom she retained 
 in her communion. 
 
 Sixth, and last. Their religion was fa- 
 vourable to liberty of conscience. Not 
 that they were all sufficiently enlightened 
 to bring their laws and institutions into 
 perfect accordance with that principle at 
 the outset ; but even then they were, in 
 this respect, in advance of the age in which 
 
 * See Mather's Magnalia, b, iii., c. i., s. 12. 
 
60 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IL 
 
 they lived, and the spirit of that religion 
 which had made them and their fathers, in 
 England, the defenders of the rights of the 
 people, and their tribunes, as it were, 
 against the domination of the throne and 
 the altar, caused them, at last, to admit ihe 
 claims of conscience in their full extent. 
 
 The Fathers of New-England were no 
 mean men, whether we look to themselves 
 or to those with whom they were associ- 
 ated in England — the Lightfoots, the Gales, 
 the Seldens, the Miltons, the Bunyans, the 
 Baxters, the Bates, the Howes, the Char- 
 nocks, the Flavels, and others of scarcely 
 inferior standing among the two thousand 
 who had laboured in the pulpits of the Es- 
 tablished Church, but whom the Restora- 
 tion cast out. 
 
 Such were the men who founded the 
 New-England colonies, and their spirit still 
 survives, in a good measure, in their de- 
 scendants after six generations. With the 
 exception of a few thousands of recently- 
 arrived Irish and Germans in Boston, and 
 other towns on the seaboard, and of the 
 descendants of those of the Huguenots 
 who settled in New-England, that country 
 is wholly occupied by the progeny of the 
 English Puritans who first colonized it. 
 But these are not the whole of their de- 
 scendants in America ; for besides the 
 2,234,202 souls forming the population of 
 the six New-England States in 1840, it is 
 supposed that an equal, if not a still greater 
 number, have emigrated to New- York, the 
 northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illi- 
 nois, and into all parts of Michigau and 
 "Wisconsin, carrying with them, in a large 
 measure, the spirit and the institutions of 
 their glorious ancestors. Descendants of 
 the Puritans are also to be found scattered 
 over all parts of the United States, and 
 many of them prove a great blessing to 
 the neighbourhoods in which they reside. 
 
 How wonderful, then, was the mission 
 of the founders of New-England ! How 
 gloriously accomplished ! How rich in its 
 results ! 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COL- 
 ONISTS. FOUNDERS OF THE SOUTHERN 
 
 STATES. 
 
 Widely different in character, I have al- 
 ready remarked, were the early colonists 
 of the Southern from those of the Northern 
 States. If New-England may be regarded 
 as colonized by the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 with its simpler manners, its equal insti- 
 tutions, and its love of liberty, the South 
 may be said to have been colonized by 
 men very much Norman in blood, aristo- 
 cractic in feeling and spirit, and pretend- 
 ing to superior dignity of demeanour and 
 
 elegance of manners. Nor has time yet 
 effaced this original diversity. On the con- 
 trary, it has been increased and confirmed 
 by the continuance of slavery in the South, 
 which never prevailed much at any time 
 in the North, but has immensely influenced 
 the tone of feeling and the customs of the 
 Southern States. 
 
 If the New-England colonies are charge- 
 able with having allowed their feelings to 
 become ahenated from a throne from 
 which they had often been contemptu- 
 ously spurned, with equal truth might 
 those of the South be accused of going to 
 the opposite extreme, in their attachment 
 to a line of monarchs alike undeserving of 
 their love, and incapable of appreciating 
 their generous loyalty. 
 
 We might carry the contrast still farther. 
 IfNew-Englandwas the favourite asylum of 
 the Puritan Roundhead, the South became, 
 in its turn, the retreat of the " Cavalier," 
 upon the joint subversion of the altar and 
 the throne in his native land. And if the re- 
 ligion of the one was strict, serious, in the 
 regard of its enemies unfriendly to innocent 
 amusements, and even morose, the other 
 was the religion of the court, and of fash- 
 ionable life, and did not require so uncom- 
 promising a resistance " to the lust of the 
 flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of 
 Ufe." 
 
 Not that from this parallelism, which is 
 necessarily general, the reader is to infer 
 that the Northern colonies had exclusive 
 claims to be considered as possessing a 
 truly religious character. All that is meant 
 is to give a general idea of the different 
 aspects which religion bore in the one and 
 the other. 
 
 Virginia was the first in point of date, as 
 we have already stated, of all the colonies. 
 Among its neighbours in the South it 
 was what Massachusetts was in the North 
 — the mother, in some sense, of the rest, 
 and the dominant colony. Not that the 
 others were planted chiefly from it, but be- 
 cause, from the prominence of its posi- 
 tion, the amount of its population, and 
 their intelligence and wealth, it acquired 
 from the first a preponderating influence 
 which it retains as a state to this day. 
 
 The records of Virginia furnish indubita- 
 ble evidence that it was meant to be a 
 Christian colony. The charter enjoined 
 that the mode of worship should conform 
 to that of the Established Church of Eng- 
 land. In 1619, for the first time, Virginia 
 had a Legislature chosen by the people ; 
 and by an act of that body, the Episcopal 
 Church was, properly speaking, establish- 
 ed. In the following year the number of 
 boroughs erected into parishes was eleven, 
 and the number of pastors five, the popula- 
 tion at the time being considerably under 
 3000. In 1621-22, it was enacted that the 
 clergy should receive from their parishioa* 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 61 
 
 «rs 1500 pounds of tobacco and sixteen 
 barrels of corn each as their yearly salary, 
 estimated to be worth, in all, jC-200. Every 
 male colonist of the age of sixteen or up- 
 ward was required to pay ten pounds of 
 tobacco and one bushel of corn. 
 
 The Company under whose auspices Vir- 
 ginia was colonized seems to have been 
 influenced by a sincere desire to make the 
 plantation a means of propagating the 
 knowledge of the Gospel among the Indi- 
 ans. A. few years after the first settlement 
 was made, in the body of their instructions 
 they particularly urged upon the governor 
 and Assembly "the using of all probable 
 means of bringing over the natives to a 
 love of civilization, and to the love of God 
 and his true religion." They recommend- 
 ed the colonists to hire the natives as la- 
 bourers, with the view of familiarizing them 
 to civilized life, and thus to bring them 
 gradually to the knowledge of Christianity, 
 that they might be employed as instru- 
 ments " in the general conversion of their 
 countrymen, so much desired." It was 
 likewise recommended " that each town, 
 borough, and hundred should procure, by 
 just means, a certain number of Indian 
 children, to be brought up in the first ele- 
 ments of literature ; that the most toward- 
 ly of these should be fitted for the college, 
 in building of which they purposed to pro- 
 ceed as soon as any profit arose from the 
 estate appropriated to that use ; and they 
 earnestly required their earnest help and 
 furtherance in that pious and important 
 •work, not doubting the particular blessing 
 of God upon the colony, and being assured 
 of the love of all good men upon that ac- 
 count."* 
 
 Even the first charter assigns as one of 
 the reasons for the grant, thai the contem- 
 plated undertaking was " a work which 
 may, by the providence of Almighty God, 
 hereafter tend to the glory of His Divine 
 Majesty, in the propagating of the Chris- 
 tian religion to such people as yet live in 
 darkness and miserable ignorance of the 
 true knowledge and worship of God."f 
 
 The Company seem early to have felt 
 the importance of promoting education in 
 the colony. Probably at their solicita- 
 tion, the king issued letters to the bishops 
 throughout England, directing collections 
 to be made for building a college in Vir- 
 ginia. The object was at first stated to be 
 " the training up and educating infidel (hea- 
 then) children in the true knowledge of 
 God."t Nearly £"1500 had already been 
 collected, aud Henrico had been selected 
 as the best situation for the building, when. 
 
 * Burk'.s " History of Virginia," p. 225, 226. 
 
 t 1 Ciiarter.— 1. Hazzard's State Papers, 51. This 
 work of the late Mr. H. contains all the charters 
 granted by the sovereigns of England for promoting 
 colonization in America. 
 
 i Stilh's "History of Virginia," p. 162, 163. 
 
 at the instance of their treasurer. Sir Ed- 
 win Sandys, the Company granted 10,000 
 acres to be laid off for the new " Univer- 
 sity of Henrico ;" the original design being 
 at the same time extended, by its being re- 
 solved that the institution should be for the 
 education of the English as well as the 
 Indians. Much interest was felt through- 
 out England in the success of this under- 
 taking. The Bishop of London gave jClOOO 
 towards its accomplishment, and an anon- 
 ymous contributor jC500 exclusively for 
 the education of the Indian youth. It had 
 warm friends in Virginia also. The min- 
 ister of Henrico, the Rev. Mr. Bargave, 
 gave his library, and the inhabitants of the 
 place subscribed jC1500 to build a hostel- 
 ry for the entertainment of strangers and 
 visiters.* Preparatory to the college or 
 university, it was proposed that a school 
 should be established at St. Charles's City, 
 to be called the East India School, from 
 the first donation towards its endowment 
 having been contributed by the master and 
 crew of an East Indiaman on its return to 
 England. 
 
 But the whole project received its death- 
 blow by the frightful massacre perpetrated 
 by the Indians on the 22d of March, 1622, 
 when, in one hour, 347 men, women, and 
 children were slaughtered, without distinc- 
 tion of sex or age, and at a time, too, when 
 the Indians professed perfect friendship. 
 For four years, nevertheless, they had 
 been maturing their plan, had enlisted thir- 
 ty tribes in a plot to extirpate the English, 
 and might have succeeded in doing so but 
 for the fidelity of a converted Indian named 
 Chanco. The minds of the colonists were 
 still farther estranged from the idea of 
 providing a college for the Indian youth by 
 the long and disastrous war that followed. 
 At a much later date a college for the ed- 
 ucation of the colonial youth was estab- 
 lished at Williamsburg, which was for a 
 long time the capital of the colony.f 
 
 * Holmes's Annals, p. 173 
 
 t This was the College of William and Mary, es- 
 tablished in 1693, and, in the order of time, the sec- 
 ond that was founded in the colonies. It owed its 
 existence, under God, to the great and long-contin- 
 ued exertions of the Rev. Dr. Blair. It ought to be 
 mentioned, that in the former part of the last centu- 
 ry a number of Indian youths were educated at it. 
 The celebrated Robert Boyle presented it with a 
 sum of money to be applied to the education of the 
 Indian tribes. At first, efforts were made to procure 
 for this purpose children who had been taken in 
 war by some victorious tribe; but during the admin- 
 istration of Sir Alexander Spottswood, which com- 
 menced in 1710, that plan was relinquished for a far 
 better. The governor went in person to the tribes 
 in the interior to engage them to send their children 
 to the school, and had the gratification of seeing 
 some arrive from a distance of four hundred miles in 
 compliance with his request. He also, at his own , 
 expense, established and supported a preparatory 
 school on the frontiers, at which Indian lads might 
 be prepared for the college without being too far re- 
 moved from their parents. — See Beverly's " History 
 of Virginia." 
 
62 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IF. 
 
 In proportion as the population began 
 to spread along the large and beautiful 
 streams that flow from the Alleghany 
 Mountains into the Chesapeake Bay, more 
 parishes were legally constituted, so that 
 in 172-2 there were fifty- four, some very 
 large, others of moderate extent, in the 
 twenty-nine counties of the colony. Their 
 size depended much on the number of 
 titheable inhabitants within a certain dis- 
 trict. Each parish had a convenient 
 church built of stone, brick, or wood, and 
 many of the larger ones had also chapels 
 of ease, so that the places of public wor- 
 ship were not less than seventy in all. To 
 each parish church there was a parsonage 
 attached, and likewise, in almost all cases, 
 a glebe of 250 acres and a small stock of 
 cattle. But not more than about half, 
 probably, of these established churches 
 were provided with ministers ; in the rest 
 the services were conducted by lay read- 
 ers, or occasionally by neighbouring cler- 
 gymen. When the war of the Revolution 
 commenced there were ninety-five parish- 
 es, and at least a hundred clergymen of 
 the Established Church. 
 
 We shall yet have occasion to speak of 
 the Church establishment in Virginia, and 
 its influence upon the interests of reli- 
 gion, as well as of the character of the 
 clergy there during the colonial period. I 
 cannot, however, forbear saying, that al- 
 though the greater number of the estab- 
 lished ministers seem, at that epoch, to 
 have been very poorly qualified for their 
 great work, others were an ornament to 
 their calling. I may mention as belong- 
 ing to early times the names of the Rev. 
 Robert Hunt and the Rev. Alexander Whit- 
 aker. The former of these accompanied 
 the first settlers, preached the first Eng- 
 lish sermon ever heard on the American 
 continent, and by his calm and judicious 
 counsels, his exemplary conduct, and his 
 faithful ministrations, rendered most im- 
 portant services to the infant colony. The 
 latter was justly styled " the Apostle of 
 Virginia." At a later period, we find, 
 among other worthies, the Rev. James 
 Blair, whose indefatigable exertions in the 
 cause of religion and education rank him 
 among the greatest benefactors of Ameri- 
 ca. Nor were there laymen wanting 
 among those who had the cause of God at 
 heart. Morgan Morgan, in particular, was 
 greatly blessed in his endeavours to sus- 
 tain the spirit of piety, by founding church- 
 es and otherwise, more especially in the 
 nortliern part of tlie Great Valley. In la- 
 ter times Virginia has produ(;ed many illus- 
 trious men, nijt only in tlie Episcopal, but 
 in almost every other denoinjnation of 
 Christians. 
 
 In point of intolerance, the Legislature of 
 Virginia equalled, if it did not exceed, that 
 of Massachusetts. Attendance at parish 
 
 worship was at one time required under 
 severe penalties ; nay, even the sacrament- 
 al services of the Church were rendered 
 obligatory by law. Dissenters, Quakers, 
 and Roman Catholics were prohibited 
 from settling in the province. People of 
 every name entering the colony, without 
 having been Christians in the countries 
 they came from, were condemned to sla- 
 very. Shocking barbarity ! the reader wilt 
 justly exclaim ; yet these very laws prove 
 how deep and strong, though turbid and 
 dark, ran the tide of religious feeling among 
 the people. As has been justly remarked, 
 " If they were not wise Christians, they 
 were at least strenuous religionists." 
 
 I have said enough to show that, in the 
 colonization of Virginia, religion was far 
 from being considered as a matter of no 
 importance ; its influence, on the contrary, 
 was deemed essential to national as well 
 as individual prosperity and happiness. 
 
 Maryland, we have seen, though origi- 
 nally a part of Virginia, was planted by 
 Lord Baltimore, as a refuge for persecu- 
 ted Roman Catholics. When the first of 
 its colonists landed in 1634, under the gui- 
 dance of Leonard Calvert, son of that no- 
 bleman, on an island in the Potomac, they 
 took possession of the province "for their. 
 Saviour," as well as for " their lord the 
 king." They planted their colony on the 
 broad basis of toleration for all Christian, 
 sects, and in this noble spirit the govern- 
 ment was conducted for fifty years. Think' 
 what we may of their creed, and very dif- 
 ferent as was this policy from what Ro- 
 manism elsewhere might have led us to 
 expect, we cannot refuse to Lord Balti- 
 more's colony the praise of having estab- 
 lished the first government in modern 
 times, in which eiUire toleration was 
 granted to all denominations of Chris- 
 tians ; this too, at a time when the New- 
 England Puritans could hardly bear with 
 one another, much less with " papists ;" 
 when the zealots of Virginia held both 
 " papists" and " Dissenters" in nearly equal 
 abhorrence ; and when, in fact, toleration- 
 was not considered in any part of the Prot- 
 estant world to be due to Roman Catholics. 
 After being tluis avowed at the outset, tol- 
 eration was renewed in 1649, when, by the 
 death of Charles I., the government in 
 I'higland was about to pass into the hands 
 of the extreme opponents of the Roman 
 (catholics. " And whereas the enforcing 
 of the conscience in matters of religion," 
 such is tlie language of their statute, 
 " hath frecjuently fallen out to be of dan- 
 gerous consequence in those common- 
 wealths where it has been practised, and 
 for the more quiet and peaceable govern- 
 ment of this province, and the better to 
 preserve mutual love and amity among the 
 inhabitants, no person within this province 
 professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONI STS. 
 
 6S> 
 
 be any way troubled, molested, or discoun- 
 tenanced for his or her religion, or in the 
 free exercise thereof." Meanwhile, Prot- 
 estant sects increased so much, that the 
 political power of the state passed, at 
 length, entirely out of the hands of its 
 founders, and before the war of the Rev- 
 olution, many churches had been planted 
 in it by Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and 
 Baptists. 
 
 North Carolina was first colonized by 
 stragglers from Virginia settling on the 
 rivers that flow into Albemarle Sound, 
 and among these were a good many Qua- 
 kers, driven out of Virginia by the intoler- 
 ance of its laws. This was about the mid- 
 dle of the seventeenth century. Puritans 
 from New-England, and emigrants from 
 Barbadoes, followed in succession ; but 
 the Dissenters from Virginia predomina- 
 ted. Religion for a long while seems to 
 have received but little attention. Will- 
 iam Edmunson and George Fox visited 
 their Quaker friends among the pine groves 
 of Albemarle in 1672, and found a " tender 
 people." A Quarterly Meeting was es- 
 tablished, and thenceforward that religious 
 body may be said to have organized a spir- 
 itual government in the colony. But it 
 was long before any other made much 
 progress. No Episcopal minister was 
 settled in it until 1703, and no church built 
 until 1705. 
 
 The Proprietaries, it is true, who obtain- 
 ed North as well as South Carolina from 
 Charles II., professed to be actuated by a 
 ''laudable and pious zeal for the propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel ;" but they did nothing 
 to vindicate their claim to such praise. In 
 their " Constitutions" they maintained, that 
 religion and the profession of it were in- 
 dispensable to the well-being of the state 
 and privileges of citizenship; vain words, 
 as long as no measures were taken to pro- 
 mote what they thus lauded. But we shall 
 yet see that, little as true religion owed in 
 North Carolina to the first settlers, or to 
 the Proprietaries, that state eventually ob- 
 tained a large population of a truly reli- 
 gious character, partly from the emigra- 
 tion of Christians from France and Scot- 
 land, partly from the increase of Puritans 
 from New-England. 
 
 South Carolina began to be colonized in 
 1670 by settlers shipped to the province by 
 the Proprietaries, and from that time for- 
 ward it received a considerable accession 
 of emigrants almost every year. Its cli- 
 mate was represented as being the finest 
 in the world : under its almost tropical 
 sun flowers were said to blossom every 
 month of the year : orange groves were 
 to supplant those of cedar, silk-worins 
 were to be fed on inulberry-trees intro- 
 duced from the south of France, and the 
 choicest wines were to be produced. 
 Ships arrived with Dutch settlers from 
 
 New-York, as well as with emigrants 
 from England. The Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 when committed to the Tower in 1681, 
 begged for leave to exile himself to Car- 
 olina. 
 
 Nor were they Churchmen only who 
 emigrated thither from England. Many 
 Dissenters, disgusted with the unfavoura- 
 ble state of things in that country, went 
 out also, carrying with them intelligence, 
 industry, and sobriety. Joseph Blake, in 
 particular, brother of the gallant admiral 
 of that name, having inherited his broth- 
 er's fortune, devoted it to transporting his 
 persecuted brethren to America, and con- 
 ducted thither a company of them from 
 Somersetshire. Thus the booty taken 
 from New Spain helped to people South 
 Carolina.* A colony from Ireland, also, 
 went over, and were soon merged among 
 the other colonists. 
 
 Such was the character of what might 
 be called the substratum of the popula- 
 tion in South Carolina. The colonists 
 were of various origin, but many of them 
 had carried thither the love of true reli- 
 gion, and the number of such soon in- 
 creased. 
 
 Georgia, of all the original thirteen col- 
 onies, ranks latest in point of date. The 
 good Oglethorpe, one of the finest speci- 
 mens of a Christian gentleman of the Cav- 
 alier school, one who loved his king and 
 his Church, led over a mixed people to 
 settle on the banks of the Savannah. Poor 
 debtors, taken from the prisons of England, 
 formed a strange medley with godly Mo- 
 ravians from Herrnhut in Germany, and 
 brave Highlanders from Scotland. To 
 Georgia, also, were directed the youthful 
 steps of those two wonderful men, John 
 and Charles Wesley, and the still more el- 
 oquent Whitefield, who made the pine for- 
 ests that stretch from the Savannah to the 
 Altamaha resound with the tones of their 
 fervid piety. In Georgia, too, was built 
 the " Orphan House," for the erection of 
 which so much eloquence was poured 
 forth, both in England and in the Atlantic 
 cities of her American colonies, by the 
 last-named herald of the Gospel, but which 
 was not destined to fulfil the expectations 
 of its good and great founder. 
 
 Thus we find that religion was not the 
 predominating motive that led to the col- 
 onization of the vSouthern States, as was 
 the case with New-England; and yet it 
 cannot be said to have been altogether 
 wanting. It is remarkable, that in every 
 charter granted to the Southern colonies, 
 "the propagation of the Gospel" is men- 
 tioned as one of the reasons for the plant- 
 ing of them being undertaken. And we 
 shall see that that essential element of a 
 people's prosperity ultima tely received a 
 
 * Bancroft's "History of the United Jitates," vol. 
 ii., p. 172, 173. 
 
64 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 vast accession of stren^h from the emi- 
 grants whom God was preparing to send 
 from the Old World to those parts of the 
 New. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. FOUNDERS OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 We now proceed to give some account 
 of the intermediate states between New- 
 England and those in the South, compri- 
 sing New- York, New-Jersey, Delaware, 
 and Pennsylvania. We begin with New- 
 York, which, as we have seen, was first 
 colonized by the Dutch. 
 
 " The spirit of the age," says an eloquent 
 author,* to whom we have often referred, 
 " was present when the foundations of New- 
 York were laid. Every great European 
 event affected the fortunes of America. Did 
 a state prosper, it sought an increase of 
 wealth by plantations in the West: Was 
 a sect persecuted, it escaped to the New 
 World. The Reformation, followed by col- 
 lisions between English Dissenters and the 
 Anglican hierarchy, colonized New-Eng- 
 land. The Reformation, emancipating the 
 United Provinces, led to European settle- 
 ments on the Hudson. The Netherlands 
 <livide with England the glory of having 
 planted the first colonies in the United 
 States : they also divide the glory of hav- 
 ing set the example of public freedom. If 
 England gave our fathers the idea of a pop- 
 ular representation, Holland originated for 
 them the principle of federal union." 
 
 It was the Dutch, we remarked, who first 
 discovered the Rivers Hudson and Connec- 
 ticut, and probably the Delaware also. In 
 1614, five years after Henry Hudson had 
 sailed up the first of those streams, and to 
 which he gave his name, they erected a 
 few huts upon Manhattan Island, where 
 now stands the city of New- York. 
 
 The first attempts to establish trading 
 stations, for they hardly could be called 
 settlements, were made by the merchants 
 of Amsterdam. But when the Dutch West 
 India Company was formed, in I62I, it ob- 
 tained a monopoly of the trade with all 
 parts of the Atlantic coast claimed by Hol- 
 land in North America. Colonization on 
 the Hudson River does not appear to have 
 been the main object of that Company. 
 The territory of New Netherlands was not 
 even named in the charter, nor did the 
 States-General guaranty its possession 
 and protection. Trade with the natives in 
 skins and furs was, in fact, the primary and 
 almost exclusive object. 
 
 But in a few years, as the families of the 
 Company's factors inc reased, what was at 
 
 ♦ Mr. Bancroft's " History of the United States," 
 vol. ii., p. 256. 
 
 first a mere station for traders, gradually 
 bore the appearance of a regular plantation ; 
 and New Amsterdam, on Manhattan Isl- 
 and, began to look like some thriving town, 
 with its little fleet of Dutch ships almost 
 continually lying at its wharves. Settle- 
 ments were also made at the west end of 
 Long Island, on Staten Island, along the 
 North River up to Albany, and even be- 
 yond that, as well as at Bergen, at various 
 points on the Hackensack, and on the Rar- 
 itan, in what was afterward New-Jersey. 
 
 Harmony at this time subsisted between 
 the Dutch and their Puritan neighbours, not- 
 withstanding the dispute about their respec- 
 tive boundaries. In 1627, we find the Gov- 
 ernor of New Netherlands, or New jBeZ^iiim, 
 as the country was sometimes called, pay- 
 ing a visit of courtesy and friendship to the 
 Plymouth colony, by which he was receiv- 
 ed with " the noise of trumpets." A treaty 
 of friendship and commerce was proposed. 
 " Our children after us," said the Pilgrims, 
 " shall never forget the good and courte- 
 ous entreaty which we found in your coun- 
 try, and shall desire your prosperity for- 
 ever." 
 
 The colony, as it extended, gradually 
 penetrated into the interior of East Jersey, 
 and along the shores of the Delaware. 
 Still, receiving neither protection nor en- 
 couragement from the fatherland, and aban- 
 doned to the tender mercies of alow-mind- 
 ed commercial corporation, its progress 
 was not what might have been expected. 
 It had not always wise governors. The 
 infamous Kieft, neglecting to conciliate the 
 Indians, allowed the settlers on Staten Isl- 
 and to be destroyed by the savages of New- 
 Jersey ; and having, in a most wanton at- 
 tack upon a tribe of the friendly Algon- 
 quins, massacred many of them in cold 
 blood, the colony lay for two whole years 
 (1643-1645) exposed to attack at all points, 
 and was threatened with absolute ruin. 
 From the banks of the Raritan to the bor- 
 ders of the Connecticut, not a " bowery" 
 (farm) was safe. "Mine eyes," says an 
 eyewitness, " saw the flames of their 
 towns, and the flights and hurries of men, 
 women, and children, the present removal 
 of all that could to Holland !" In this war 
 the celebrated Anne Hutchinson, one of the 
 most extraordinary women of her age, 
 was murdered by the Indians, together with 
 all her family, with but one exception. 
 
 Next to this disastrous war, the colony 
 was most retarded by the want of a popu- 
 lar form of government, and by the deter- 
 mination of the West India Company not 
 to concede one. 
 
 The first founders of New Netherlands 
 were men of a bold and enterprising turn, 
 whose chief motive in leaving Holland was, 
 no doubt, the acquisition of wealth. But 
 educated in the National Dutch Church, 
 they brought with them a strong attach- 
 
Chap. VI.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 65 
 
 jnent to its doctrines, worship, and govern- 
 ment ; and liowever deeply interested in 
 their secular pursuits, they unquestionably 
 took early measures to 'have the Gospel 
 preached purely among them, and to have 
 the religious institutions of their fatherland 
 planted and maintained in their adopted 
 country. A church was organized at New 
 Amsterdam, now New-York, not later, 
 probably, than 1619 ; and there was one at 
 Albany as early, if not earlier. The first 
 minister of the Gospel settled at New- 
 York was the Rev. Everardus Bogardus. 
 
 The Dutch language was exclusively 
 .used in the Dutch churches until 1764, be- 
 ing exactly a century after the colony had 
 fallen into the hands of the English. As 
 soon as that event took place, the new gov- 
 ernor made great efforts to introduce the 
 language of his own country, by opening 
 schools in which it was taught. This, to- 
 gether with the introduction of the English 
 Episcopal Church, and the encouragement 
 it received from Governor Fletcher, in 1693, 
 made the new language come rapidly into 
 use. The younger colonists began to urge 
 that, for a part of the day at least, English 
 should be used in the churches ; or that 
 new churches should be built for those who 
 commonly spoke that tongue. At length, 
 after much opposition from some who 
 dreaded lest, together with the language of 
 their fathers, their good old doctrines, lit- 
 urgy, catechisms, and all should disappear, 
 the Rev. Dr. Laidlie, a distinguished Scotch 
 minister who had been settled in an Eng- 
 lish Presbyterian church at Flushing, in 
 Holland, connected with the Reformed 
 Dutch Church, was invited to New- York, 
 in order to commence Divine service there 
 in English. Having accepted this call, he 
 ■was, in 1764, transferred to thai city, and 
 in his new charge his labours were long 
 and greatly blessed. From that time the 
 Dutch language gradually disappeared, so 
 that hardly a vestige of it now remains. 
 
 The population of New Netherlands, 
 when it fell into the hands of the English, 
 is supposed to have been about ten thou- 
 sand, or half as many as that of New- 
 England at the same date. There has been 
 a sliglit emigration to it from Holland ever 
 since, too small, however, to be regarded 
 as of any importance. But all the emi- 
 grants from Dutch ports to America were 
 not Hollanders. The Reformation had 
 made the Dutch an independent nation, and 
 the long and bitter experience they had had 
 of oppression led them to offer an asylum 
 to the persecuted Protestants of England, 
 Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany.* 
 
 * This has often been made an occasion of re- 
 proach and ridicule by men of more wit than grace 
 or sense." 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, in their " Maid of the Inn," 
 introduce one of their characters as saying, 
 
 " I am a schoolmaster, sir, and would fain 
 
 Among others who thus came by way of 
 Holland to America was Robert Living- 
 ston, ancestor of the numerous and distin- 
 guished family of that name to be found in 
 various parts of America, but particularly 
 in the State of New-York, and son of that 
 pious and celebrated minister, the Rev. 
 John Livingston, of Scotland, who, after 
 being eminently blessed in his labours in 
 his native country, was, in 1663, driven by 
 persecution into Holland, where he spent 
 the remainder of his life as minister of the 
 Scotch Church at Rotterdam. 
 
 Several causes retarded the progress of 
 religion among the Dutch colonists in 
 America. One was the unsettled state of 
 the country, caused by actual or dreaded 
 hostilities with the Indians ; another lay in 
 the churches being long unnecessarily de- 
 pendant for their pastors on the classis, or 
 presbytery, of Amsterdam ; a body which, 
 however well disposed, was at too remote 
 a distance to exercise a proper judgment 
 in selecting such ministers as the circum- 
 stances of the country and the people re- 
 quired ; a third is to be found in the lateness 
 of the introduction of the English tongue 
 into the public services of the churches ; it 
 ought to have occurred at least fifty years 
 sooner. 
 
 Notwithstanding these hinderances, the 
 blessed Gospel was widely and success- 
 fully preached and maintained in the colo- 
 ny, both when under the government of 
 Holland and afterward. Its beneficial in- 
 fluence was seen in the strict and whole- 
 some morals that characterized the com- 
 munity, and in the progress of education 
 among all classes, especially after the 
 adoption of a more popular form of govern- 
 ment. Many faithful pastors were either 
 sent over from Holland, or raised up at 
 later periods in the colony, and sent over 
 to Holland for instruction in theology. 
 Among the former 1 may mention the 
 Rev. T. J. Frelinghuysen, who came from 
 Holland in 1720, and settled on the Raritan. 
 As an able, evangelical, and eminently suc- 
 cessful preacher, he proved a great bless- 
 ing to the Reformed Dutch Church in 
 America. He left five sons, all ministers, 
 and two daughters, who were married to 
 ministers.* In confirmation of this state- 
 ment, we may add the testimony of the 
 
 Confer with you about erecting four 
 New sects of religion at Amsterdam.'' 
 
 And Andrew Marvell, in his " Character of Hol- 
 land," writes : 
 
 '■ Sure, when religion did itself embark. 
 
 And from the East would westward steer its bark. 
 
 It struck ; and splitting on this unknown ground, 
 
 Each one thence pillaged the first piece he found. 
 
 Hence Amsterdam, Turk, Christian, Pagan, Jew, 
 
 Staple of sects, and mint of schism, grew ; 
 
 That bank of conscience, where not one so strange 
 
 Opinion, but finds credit and exchange. 
 
 In vain for Catholics ourselves we bear ; 
 
 The Universal Church is oiUy there." 
 
 * Christian Magazine, quoted in Dr. Gunn's Me- 
 moirs of Dr. Livingston, p. 87. 
 
«6 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IT. 
 
 Eev. Gilbert Tennent, who, in a letter to 
 Mr. Prince, of Boston, says, " The labours 
 of Mr. Frelinghuysen, a Dutch minister, 
 were much blessed to the people of New- 
 Brunswick and places adjacent, especially 
 about the time of his coming among them. 
 When I came, which was about seven 
 years after, I had the pleasure of seeing 
 much of the fruits of his ministry : dive© 
 of his hearers, with whom I had opportu- 
 nity of conversing, appeared to be con- 
 verted persons, by their soundness in prin- 
 ciple, Christian experience, and pious prac- 
 tice ; and these persons declared that his 
 ministrations were the means thereof."* 
 Among the latter was the late J. H. Liv- 
 ingston, D.D., who died in 1825, after being 
 for a long time one of the most distin- 
 guished ministers in the United States. 
 On his return from Holland, he was for 
 many years a pastor in New- York, and 
 thereafter divinity professor in the Theo- 
 logical Seminary of the Reformed Dutch 
 Church at New-Brunswick, in the State of 
 New-Jersey. He was one of those who, 
 though born to fill a lai-ge space in the his- 
 tory of the Church, yet spend their lives in 
 the calm and unostentatious discharge of 
 the duties of their calling. The impress of 
 his labours and character will long be felt 
 in the Church of which he was so distin- 
 guished an ornament. 
 
 The descendants of the Dutch are nu- 
 merous, and widely dispersed in America. 
 They constitute a large proportion of the 
 inhabitants of the southern part of the State 
 of New- York and eastern part of New- 
 Jersey, besides forming a very consider- 
 able body in the north and west of the 
 former of these states. But they are to 
 be found also in larger or smaller numbers 
 in all parts of the confederacy. Though 
 often made the butts of ridicule for their 
 simplicity,! slowness of movement, and 
 
 * Prince's Christian History. I may add, that 
 the Mr. Frelinghuysen spoken of in the le.xt was the 
 ancestor of three brothers of the same name, who 
 have adorned the profession of the law in the present 
 generation, one of whom, the Hon. Theodore Fre- 
 linghuysen, was for several years a distinguished 
 member of the Senate of the United States, and is 
 now Chancellor of the University of New-York. 
 
 t Their Yankee neighbours, as the New-England 
 people are called, tell a thousand stories showing 
 the simplicity of the Dutch. One of the best whicli 
 I have heard is that respecting a wealthy Dutch 
 farmer, in the State of New-York, who had erected 
 a church in his neighbourhood at his own expense, 
 and was advised (probably by some very sensible 
 Yankee) to attach a lightning-rod to it. But he re- 
 ceived the suggestion with displeasure, as if God 
 would set lire to his own house ! Another is as fol- 
 lows : Shortly after the arrival of the Rev. Dr. Laid- 
 lie, and thecommencemoutof his labours, he was thus 
 accosted by some excellent old people, at the close 
 of a prayer-meeting one evening, in which he had 
 most fervently addressed the throne of grace : " Ah, 
 Domine ! (the title which the Dutch, in their affec- 
 tion, give to their pastors) we offered up many an 
 earnest prayer in Dutch for your coming among us ; 
 and truly the Lord has heard us in English, and sent 
 you to us." 
 
 dislike to innovation of every kind, yet, 
 taken as a whole, they have been uniformly 
 a religious and virtuous people, and consti- 
 tute a most valuable part of the American 
 nation. Some of them have found a place 
 among our most illustrious statesmen. 
 Emigrants from the country of Grotius and 
 John DeWitt have furnished one President 
 and three Vice-presidents to the Republic 
 which they have done so much to establish 
 and maintain. They have preserved to 
 this day the Church planted by their fore- 
 fathers in America ; but although a very 
 respectable part of them still adhere to it, 
 a greater number have joined the Episcopal 
 Church, and many belong to other denom- 
 inations. 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. — FOUNDERS OF NEW-JERSEY. 
 
 Hollanders from New Amsterdam were 
 the first European inhabitants of New-Jer- 
 sey, and, during the continuance of the 
 Dutch dominion in America, it formed part 
 of New Netherlands. The first settlement 
 was at Bergen, but the plantations extended 
 afterward to the Hackensack, the Passaic, 
 and the Raritan. It is probable that a few 
 families had settled even on the Delaware, 
 opposite Newcastle, before the cession of 
 the country to the English in 1664. 
 
 But the Dutch were not the only colonists 
 of New-Jersey. A company of the same 
 race of English Puritans that had colonized 
 New-England left the eastern end of Long 
 Island in 1664, and established themselves 
 at Elizabethtown. They must have been 
 few in number, for four houses only were 
 found there the following year, on the ar- 
 rival of Philip Carteret, as governor of the 
 province. Woodbridge, Middletown, and 
 Slirewsbury were founded about the same 
 time by settlers from Long Island and 
 Connecticut. Newark was founded in 1667 
 or 1668, by a colony of about thirty fami- 
 lies, chiefly from Brandon in Connecticut. 
 
 Colonists from New- Haven bouglit land 
 on both sides of the Delaware, and fifty 
 families were sent to occupy it, but their 
 trading establishments were broken up, and 
 the colony dispersed, in consequence of 
 the Dutch claiming the country. There 
 are extant memorials, however, in the rec- 
 ords of Cumberland and Cape May coun- 
 ties, that colonies from New-England es- 
 tablished themselves in these, not very long 
 after the province changed its masters. 
 The middle parts were gradually occupied 
 by Dutch and New-England settlers in their 
 progress westward, and also by a consider- 
 able number of Scotch and Irish emigrants 
 —all Protestants, and most of them Pres- 
 byterians. 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 67 
 
 It will be remembered that, by the gift of 
 his brother, Charles II., the Duke of York 
 became " Proprietary" of all that part of 
 America ceded by the Dutch to the English 
 in 1664. That same year the duke sold 
 New-Jersey to Sir George Cai-teret and 
 Lord Berkeley, in honour of the former of 
 whom it took the name that it bears to this 
 day. They immediately appointed a gov- 
 ernor, and gave the colonists a popular form 
 of government. The Legislature, however, 
 soon became the organ of popular disaf- 
 fection : few were willing to purchase a 
 title to the soil from the Indians, and to 
 pay quit-rents to the proprietaries besides. 
 After some years of severe struggles be- 
 tween the colonists and their governors. 
 Lord Berkeley became tired of the strife, 
 and in 1674 sold the moiety of New-Jer- 
 sey to Quakers for jGIOOO, John Fenwick 
 acting as agent in the transaction for Ed- 
 ward Byllinge and his assigns. Fenwick 
 left England the following year, accompa- 
 nied by a great many families of that per- 
 secuted sect, and formed the settlement of 
 Salem, on the Delaware. Lands in West 
 Jersey were now offered for sale by the 
 Quaker company, and hundreds of colonists 
 soon settled upon them. In 1676 they ob- 
 tained from Carteret the right, so far as he 
 was concerned, to institute a government 
 of their own in West Jersey, and proceeded, 
 the year following, to lay the groundwork 
 in the " Concessions," as their fundamental 
 deed was called. Its main feature was, 
 that " it put the power in the people." 
 Forthwith great numbers of English Qua- 
 kers flocked to West Jersey, with the view 
 of permanently settling there. A title to 
 the lands was purchased from the Indians, 
 at a council held under the shade of the 
 forest, at the spot where the town of Bur- 
 lington now stands ; there the tawny chil- 
 dren of the wood conveyed to the men of 
 peace the domain which they desired. 
 " You are our brothers," said the sachems, 
 " and we will live like brothers with you. 
 We will make a broad path for you and us 
 to walk in. If an Englishman falls asleep 
 in this path, the Indian shall pass him by 
 and say, He is an Englishman ; he is 
 asleep ; let him alone. The path shall be 
 plain ; there shall not be in it a stump to 
 hurt the feet."* And they kept their word. 
 In November, 1681, Jennings, who act- 
 ed as governor for the Proprietaries, con- 
 vened the first Quaker Legislature ever 
 known to have met. The year following, 
 by obtaining the choice of their own chief 
 ruler, the colonists completed the meas- 
 ure of their self-government. In the year 
 following that, again, William Penn and 
 eleven others bought East New-Jersey 
 from Carteret's heirs, and from that time 
 a Quaker emigration set into that division 
 of the province, but never to such a de- 
 " Smith's " History of New-Jersey." 
 
 gree as to change the general character 
 of the inhabitants. The population, upon 
 the whole, remained decidedly Puritan, 
 though combining the elements of a Scotch, 
 Dutch, and New-England Presbyterianism. 
 It was much otherwise with West New- 
 Jersey. With the exception of a few 
 churches planted here and there by other 
 denominations, and standing like islands 
 in this sea of the religion of George Fox, 
 Salem, Gloucester, and Burlington coun- 
 ties were peopled almost entirely with 
 Quakers, and their religion flourishes there 
 to this day. 
 
 After about twelve years of embarrass- 
 ment, commencing with the Revolution 
 of 1688 in England, the Proprietaries of 
 both East and West New-Jersey surren- 
 dered " their pretended right of govern- 
 ment" to the British crown, and in 1702, 
 both provinces, united into one, were pla- 
 ced for a time under the Governor of New- 
 York, retaining, however, their own Legis- 
 lature. The population, notwithstanding 
 the difficulties and irritation caused by po- 
 litical disputes intimately affecting their 
 interests, steadily increased. Taken as a 
 whole, few parts of America have been 
 colonized by a people more decidedly re- 
 ligious in principle, or more intelligent 
 and virtuous ; and such, in the main, are 
 their descendants at the present day. No- 
 where in the United States have the church- 
 es been supplied with a more faithful or 
 an abler ministry. New-Jersey was the 
 scene of the excellent David Brainerd's 
 labours among the Indians, during the lat- 
 ter years of his short but useful life. There, 
 too, laboured the celebrated William Ten- 
 nent, and those other faithful servants of 
 God in whose society Whitefield found so 
 much enjoyment, and whose ministrations 
 were so much blessed. There, and par- 
 ticularly in the eastern section of the prov- 
 ince, many have been witnesses of those 
 outpourings of the Holy Spirit, which we 
 shall have occasion in another place to 
 speak of. And, lastly, in New-Jersey was 
 planted the fourth, in point of date, of the 
 American colleges, commonly called Nas- 
 sau Hall, but more properly the College 
 of New-Jersey. That college has had for 
 its presidents some of the greatest divines 
 that have ever lived in America, Dickin- 
 son, Burr, the elder Edwards, Finley, With- 
 erspoon. Smith, Green, &c., and it is still 
 as flourishing as ever, although a sister in- 
 stitution has arisen at New-Brunswick, to 
 co-operate in diffusing blessings through- 
 out the state. I may add, that no state in 
 the American Union has more decidedly 
 proved the importance of having a good 
 original population, nor has any state done 
 more, in proportion to its population and 
 resources, to sustain the honour and pro- 
 mote the best interests of the American 
 nation. 
 
68 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. FOUNDERS OF DELAWARE, AT FIRST 
 
 CALLED NEW SWEDEN. 
 
 Though of all the states Delaware has 
 the smallest population, and is the least 
 but one in territorial extent, yet its history 
 is far from uninteresting. Fairly included 
 within the limits of Maryland, it never 
 submitted to- the rule of Lord Baltimore's 
 colony ; subjected for a time to the domin- 
 ion of the Quaker province of William 
 Penn, from that it emancipated itself in 
 time to be justly ranked among the origi- 
 nal Thirteen States, which so nobly achiev- 
 ed their independence. 
 
 This small province was claimed by the 
 Dutch in right of discovery, as well as the 
 country on the other side of Delaware 
 River and Bay ; and in 1631, a colony un- 
 der De Vries actually left the Texel for 
 the south shore of that bay, and settled 
 near the present site of Lewestown, on 
 lands acquired the year before by Godyn 
 and his associates. Van Rensellaer, Bloe- 
 mart, and De Lact. That colony, consisting 
 of above thirty souls, was, in the absence 
 of De Vries, utterly destroyed by the In- 
 dians towards the close of the following 
 year ; yet its priority in point of date saved 
 it from being included in Lord Baltimore's 
 charter, and secured for subsequent set- 
 tlers the benefits of a separate colony and 
 independent state. Before, however, it 
 could be rescued from the Indians, and col- 
 onized a second time by the Dutch, it fell 
 to the possession of a Scandinavian prince. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus, justly pronounced 
 the most accomplished prince of modern 
 times, and the greatest benefactor of hu- 
 manity in the line of Swedish kings, had 
 early comprehended the advantages of for- 
 eign commerce and distant colonization. 
 Accordingly, in 1626, he instituted a com- 
 mercial company, with exclusive privile- 
 ges to trade beyond the Straits of Gibral- 
 tar, and with the right of planting colonies. 
 The stock was open to all Europe. The 
 king himself pledged 400,000 dollars from 
 the royal treasury ; the chief seat of busi- 
 ness was Gottenburg, the second city in 
 the kingdom, and the best situated for com- 
 merce in the open seas. The government 
 of the future colonies was committed to 
 a royal council, and emigrants were to be 
 invited from all Europe. The New World 
 was described as a paradise, and the hope 
 of better fortunes on its distant shores was 
 strongly excited in the Scandinavian mind. 
 The colony proposed to be planted there 
 was to be a place where " the lionour of the 
 wives and dauglUers" of those whom wars 
 and bigotry had made fugitives might be 
 safe ; a blessing to the " common man," as 
 well as to the " whole Protestant world."* 
 
 * Argonautica Gustaviana, p. 11, 16. 
 
 As opening an asylum for persecuted Prot- 
 estants of all nations, the project was well 
 worthy of the great champion of Protest- 
 ant rights. 
 
 But Gustavus Adolphus did not live to 
 carry his favourite scheme into effect. 
 When the Protestant princes of Germany 
 were compelled to defend their violated 
 religious privileges by taking up arms 
 against the emperor, they made the first 
 offer of the command of their armies to 
 Christian IV., of Denmark ; but that prince 
 proving unequal to the task, they turned 
 their regards to the youthful King of Swe- 
 den, who hesitated not to accept their 
 summons. Crossing the Baltic with his 
 small army of 15,000 faithful Swedes, 
 Finns, and Scotch, he put himself at the 
 head of the confederate troops, and with- 
 in eighteen months gained the series of 
 splendid victories that have placed him in 
 the highest rank of warrior-princes. Hav- 
 ing driven the imperial troops from the 
 walls of Leipsic to the southern extremity 
 of Germany, he fell at last on the plains 
 of Liitzen, on the 16th of October, 1632, 
 victory even there crowning his efforts, 
 while his body, covered with wounds, lay 
 undistinguished among the slain. Yet 
 even the toils and horrors of that war 
 could not make the brave young monarch 
 forget his favourite project. A few days 
 before that last fatal battle, where it has 
 been beautifully said that " humanity won 
 one of her most glorious victories, and lost 
 one of her ablest defenders," he recom- 
 mended to the people of Germany the co- 
 lonial project, which he still continued to 
 regard as " the jewel of his kingdom."* 
 
 The enterprise, however, which his pre- 
 mature death prevented Gustavus Adol- 
 phus from carrying into effect, fell into 
 the hands of his minister Oxenstiern, the 
 ablest statesman of that age. Emigrants 
 for Delaware Bay, furnished with provis- 
 ions for themselves, and with merchandise 
 for traffic with the Indians, accompanied 
 also by a religious teacher, left Sweden in 
 1638, in two ships, the Key of Calmar and 
 the Griffin. Upon their arrival, they bought 
 the lands on the Delaware from its mouth 
 up to the falls where Trenton now stands ; 
 and near the mouth of Christiana Creek 
 they built a fort, to which they gave that 
 name, in honour of their youthful queen. 
 Tidings of their safe arrival, and encour- 
 aging accounts of the country, were soon 
 carried back to Scandinavia, and naturally 
 inspired many of tlie peasantry of Sweden' 
 and Finhmd with a wish to exchange their 
 rocky, uiii)roductive soil for the banks of 
 the Delaware. More bands of emigrants 
 -soon went thither, and many who would 
 fain have gone were prevented only by 
 the difficult y of finding a passage. The 
 
 *l3^ancroft's "History of the United Slates," vol. 
 11., p. 235. 
 
Chap. IX.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 69 
 
 plantations gradually extended along the 
 Delaware, from the site of Wilmington to 
 that of Philadelphia. A fort constructed 
 of huge hemlock logs, on an island a few 
 miles below Philadelphia, defended the 
 Swedish settlements, and became the head- 
 quarters of Printz, their governor. The 
 ■whole country, as above described, was 
 called New Sweden, and the few families 
 of emigrants from New-England that hap- 
 pened to be within its boundaries, either 
 submitted to the Swedish government, or 
 else withdrew and established themselves 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Meanwhile the Dutch reasserted their 
 old claims to the country, planted a fort 
 at Newcastle, and ultimately reduced New 
 Sweden under their dominion by means of 
 an expedition of six hundred men, under 
 the famous Peter Stuyvesant, governor of 
 New Netherlands. Thus terminated, in 
 1655, the power of Sweden on the Ameri- 
 can continent, after it had lasted above 
 seventeen years. The Swedish colonists, 
 probably, did not much exceed seven hun- 
 dred, and as their descendants, in the 
 course of some generations, became wide- 
 ly scattered, and blended with emigrants 
 of a different lineage, they are supposed 
 to constitute one part in 200 of the pres- 
 ent population of the United States.* 
 
 Interesting as this colony is from its 
 early history, it becomes still more so be- 
 cause of its practical worth. The colo- 
 nists were invariably amiable and peace- 
 able in their deportment ; they maintained 
 the best terms with the Indians ; they 
 were frugal and industrious ; they were 
 attentive to the education of their children, 
 notwithstanding the want of schools and 
 the difficulty of procuring books in their 
 mother tongue ; and, above all, they were 
 careful in upholding religious institutions 
 and ordinances. Lutherans, as their kin- 
 dred in Sweden are to this day, they long 
 preserved their national liturgy and disci- 
 pline, besides keeping up a most affection- 
 ate intercourse with the churches in their 
 mother-country ; and from these they often 
 received aid in Bibles and other religious 
 books, as well as in money. Having es- 
 tablished themselves in the southern sub- 
 urbs of Philadelphia, previously to the colo- 
 nization of Pennsylvania by William Penn, 
 they have always had a church there, 
 known as the " Swedes' Church" to this 
 day, and which, with two or three more in 
 Delaware and Pennsylvania, now belongs 
 to the Protestant Episcopal communion. 
 The late Dr. Colin was the last of the long 
 line of Swedish pastors. 
 
 Taken possession of by the Dutch in 
 1655, New Sweden was, nine years after 
 that, ceded by them to the English. It 
 was then placed for some time under the 
 
 Bancroft's " History of the United States." 
 
 administration of the Governor of New- 
 York ; was afterward attached to Penn- 
 sylvania, but ultimately became first a 
 separate colony, and then an independent 
 state. Meanwhile, its population, composed 
 of the descendants of Swedes, of Quakers 
 who accompanied William Penn, of set- 
 tlers from New-England, and of Scotch, 
 Irish, and a few emigrants from other 
 parts of Europe, steadily increased. Re- 
 ligion has ever. had a happy, ajid not an in- 
 considerable influence, in this little com- 
 monwealth. It would, no doubt, have been 
 greater still had slavery never existed in 
 it. But though Delaware is a slavehold- 
 ing state, it scarcely deserves the name, 
 from the number of slaves being so small. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. — FOUNDERS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 The history of William Penn, the Qua- 
 ker philosopher and lawgiver, is very gen- 
 erally known. The son of a distinguished 
 English admiral, heir to a fortune consid- 
 ered large in those days, accustomed from 
 his youth to mingle in the highest circles, 
 educated at the University of Oxford, rich 
 in the experience and observation of man- 
 kind acquired by much travel, and versed 
 in his country's laws, he seemed fitted for 
 a very different course from that which he 
 considered to be marked out for him in af- 
 ter life. He inherited from his parents a 
 rooted aversion to the despotism of a hie- 
 rarchy, and having, when a student at Ox- 
 ford, ventured to attend the preaching of 
 George Fox, he was for this offence ex- 
 pelled from the university. After his ex- 
 pulsion, from a desire to make himself ac- 
 quainted with the doctrines and spirit of 
 the French Reformed churches, he spent 
 some time at Saumur, one of their chief 
 seats of learning, and there he attended 
 the prelections of the gifted and benevo- 
 lent Amyrault. From that time he return- 
 ed to England, and in 1666 visited Ire- 
 land, where he heard Thomas Loe preach 
 on " the faith that overcomes the world," 
 whereupon he was immediately filled with 
 peace, and decided upon following out his 
 future plans of benevolence. In the au- 
 tumn of that year he was imprisoned for 
 conscience' sake. " Religion," said he to 
 the Irish viceroy, " is my crime and my 
 innocence ; it makes me a prisoner to mal- 
 ice, but my own free man." On returning 
 to England, he became the butt of unmeas- 
 ured ridicule from the witlings of the court, 
 which was that of one of the most disso- 
 lute monarchs that ever lived. Driven 
 penniless from his father's house, he found 
 compassion where it takes up its last 
 abode, if it ever leaves this world, in a 
 
70 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 mother's heart. Her bounty kept him above 
 want, while he was preparing, in God's 
 providence, to become an author, and a 
 preacher of the doctrines of peace to prin- 
 ces, priests, and people. Experience of 
 persecution had prepared him for the great 
 mission of succouring those who suffer 
 from the same cause. He could truly say, 
 
 " Haud ignarus mali miseris succurrere disco." 
 
 He had become a member- of the ever- 
 " suffering kingdom" of righteousness. 
 
 William Penn's personal interests, in the 
 course of Providence, coincided with his 
 benevolent views in leading him to think 
 of founding the colony to which he at 
 length so assiduously devoted himself. His 
 father having a large sum due to him from 
 the crown, this not very hopeful debt he left 
 as a legacy to his son. But the son pro- 
 posed to his royal debtor an easy mode of 
 paying it : the king had only to make him 
 a grant of waste land in the New World ; 
 and the suggestion was favourably receiv- 
 ed, for the profuse and profligate Charles 
 II. had been his father's friend. On the 
 6th of March, 1681, he received a title to a 
 territory which was to extend from the 
 Delaware River five degrees of longitude 
 westward, and from the 39° to the 42° N. 
 latitude. The whole of this, with the ex- 
 ception of a few previous grants, of no 
 great extent, made by the Duke of York, 
 "was to be his ; and thus all that remained 
 of the territory claimed by the Dutch, but 
 which they had been compelled to cede to 
 the English, became not a place of refuge 
 merely, but the absolute property and sure 
 abode of a sect which had probably been 
 loaded with as much contempt and ridicule 
 as had ever fallen to the lot of any portion 
 of the human race. Their peculiar dress 
 and modes of speech, no doubt, so far invi- 
 ted this treatment, while their principles 
 secured impunity to such as meanly chose 
 to attack with such weapons what they 
 deemed absurdity and fanaticism. 
 
 Nor was it only for the persecuted 
 " Friends" in England that William Penn 
 founded his colony ; it was to be open also 
 to members of the same society in Ameri- 
 ca. Incredible as it may appear, they 
 were persecuted in New-England by the 
 very men who themselves had been driven 
 thither by persecution. Twelve Quakers 
 were banished from Massachusetts by or- 
 der of the (Jeneral Court in lfi56, and four 
 of these, who had returned, were actually 
 executed in 1669. That same year an act 
 was passed by the Legislature of Virginia, 
 to the effect " that any commander of any 
 shipp, or vessell, bringing into the coUonie 
 any person or persons called Quakers, is 
 to be fined JGIOO; and all Quakers appre- 
 hended in the collonie are to be imprisoned 
 till they abjure this countrie, or give secu- 
 ritie to depart from it forthwith. If they 
 
 return a third time, they are to be punished 
 as felons."* 
 
 After making all necessary arrange- 
 ments, Penn left England for his ample 
 domain in America, and arrived there on 
 the 27th of October, 1682. Having landed 
 at Newcastle, he went from that to Ches- 
 ter, and thence, by boat, up the Delaware, 
 to the spot, where now stands the city of 
 Philadelphia. His first care was to ac- 
 quire, by fair purchase, a title from the In- 
 dians to as much land, at least, as might 
 be required for his projected colony, and 
 this transaction took place at a famous 
 council, held under a large elm-tree at 
 Shakamaxon, on the northern edge of 
 Philadelphia. There the hearts of the 
 congregated chiefs of the Algonquin race 
 were captivated by the simplicity and sin- 
 cerity of Penn's manners, and by the lan- 
 guage of Christian affection in which he 
 addressed them. " We will live," said 
 they, in reply to his proposals, " in love 
 with William Penn and his children, and 
 with his children's children, as long as the 
 moon and sun endure." 
 
 The year following was devoted by the 
 philosopher to the founding of a city, to be 
 called Philadelphia, between the Delaware 
 and the Schuylkill Rivers, and to the estab- 
 lishing of a government for his people. 
 Hardly could a pleasanter situation have 
 anywhere been found than that which he 
 selected for his capital, which was destined 
 to become one of the largest and finest 
 cities in America, and to be the birthplace 
 of national independence, and where union 
 among the liberated colonies was to be se- 
 cured by the framing of a Federal Consti- 
 tution for the whole. Nothing could have 
 been more popular than the constitution 
 laid down for his own colony, with the ex- 
 ception of his veto as Proprietary — which 
 he could hardly have abandoned — and an 
 acknowledgment of the supremacy of the 
 English crown and government. Council, 
 assembly, judges, and petty magistrates — 
 all were to be appointed by the colonists 
 themselves. 
 
 The first emigrants to Pennsylvania 
 were, for the most part, Quakers ; but 
 the principle of unlimited toleration, upon 
 which it was established, made it a resort 
 for people of all creeds and of none. 
 Swedes, Dutch, and New-Englanders had 
 previously established themselves within 
 its limits, and not many years had elapsed 
 Avhen the Quakers, whom Penn had spe- 
 cially contemplated as the future citizens 
 of his colony, were found to be a minority 
 among the inhabitants. This, however, has 
 not marred the harmony and tranquillity of 
 the province. No act of persecution or in- 
 tolerance has ever disgraced its statute- 
 book. The rights of the Indians were al- 
 
 * Hening's Collection of the Laws of Virginia. 
 
Chap. XL] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 71 
 
 -ways respected ; their friendship was hard- 
 ly ever interrupted. 
 
 Friends' meeting-houses, and churches 
 of other denominations, soon increased 
 with the population, which spread by de- 
 grees into the interior, and reached the 
 most western limits of the colony within 
 a century from its commencement. 
 
 It were superfluous in me to pronounce 
 any eulogium on the morality of the Qua- 
 kers. The foundations of the colony of 
 William Penn were laid in the religion of 
 the Bible, and to the blessed influence of 
 that religion it is unquestionably indebted 
 for much of the remarkable prosperity 
 which it has enjoyed. But the Quaker 
 population now forms only a small minor- 
 ity in the State of Pennsylvania, especially 
 in its central and western parts. I shall 
 yet have occasion to show what was the 
 religious character of the emigrants who 
 constituted the early population of those 
 parts. 
 
 Thus have I completed the notice of the 
 religious character of all the original colo- 
 nies, which, by setthng on the Atlantic 
 slope, may be said to have founded the 
 nation, by founding its civil and religious 
 institutions; or, rather, I should say, I have 
 spoken of the colonies that had territorial 
 limits as such, and wei'c established under 
 charters from the crown of England. I 
 have spoken of the bases — the lowest 
 strata, so to speak — of the colonization of 
 the United States. I have yet to speak of 
 the superadded colonies, wTiich dispersed 
 themselves over the others, without hav- 
 ing any territorial limits marked out to 
 them by charters, but which settled here 
 or there as individuals or groups might 
 prefer. It will be seen that this secondary, 
 but still early colonization, exerted an im- 
 mense influence upon the religious char- 
 acter of the country, and in many cases, 
 through the wonderful providence of God, 
 supplied what was wanting in the religious 
 condition of the primary or territorial col- 
 onization. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. EMIGRANTS FROM WALES. 
 
 Presbyterianism is said to have had 
 many zealous adherents in Wales in the 
 time of the Commonwealth, or from 1648 
 to 1660 ; and when the Restoration came, 
 many Welsh Presbyterians, including both 
 pastors and people, sought a refuge from 
 the persecution that ensued by emigrating 
 to America. On reaching the New World, 
 many of these wandered over the country, 
 and were glad to avail themselves of a 
 resting-place wherever it could be found. 
 But a natural predilection for their own 
 people, language, and customs, led others 
 to keep together and settle on the same 
 
 spots : a course almost indispensable in 
 the case of those who could neither under- 
 stand nor speak English. Hence we find 
 that towards the close of the seventeenth 
 century no fewer than six townships on 
 the left bank of the Schuylkill were in the 
 occupation of Welsh colonists.* 
 
 The success of those earlier emigra- 
 tions led to a steady and even copious 
 transference of the inhabitants of the Prin- 
 cipality to America, long after open perse- 
 cution had ceased to drive them from their 
 native hills and valleys. About the begin- 
 ning of the present century a colony from 
 Wales settled in the mountains of Penn- 
 sylvania, on a large tract of land which 
 they had bought before they left home, and 
 gave the name Cambria, the ancient ap- 
 pellation of Wales, to a whole county. 
 A pretty large part of their settlement lies 
 on a kind of table-land, in the centre of the 
 Alleghany Mountains, and the chief villa- 
 ges are Armagh and Ebensburg, the lat- 
 ter of which is the seat of justice for the 
 county. Two or three faithful pastors ac- 
 companied them from Wales, and to this 
 day, I believe, they conduct their religious 
 services in Welsh. There are several 
 congregations, likewise, of Welsh Baptists 
 in the State of New- York, and throughout 
 the United States not fewer than twenty- 
 five churches of Calvinistic Welsh Meth- 
 odists. 
 
 I have no means of knowing how ex- 
 tensive the emigrations from Wales, from 
 first to last, have been ; doubtless they 
 have been far from unimportant in point 
 of numbers. What, however, is of most 
 consequence is, that they have been good in 
 point of character, and have already given 
 to America many distinguished men. The 
 Rev. Mr. Davies, of whom I shall have 
 some notice to give hereafter, probably 
 the most eloquent preacher in America in 
 his day, and, at his death, president of the 
 College of New-Jersey, was, if I mistake 
 not, of Welsh ancestry. The Morris fam- 
 ily, so numerous, and in many of its mem- 
 bers so distinguished, is of Welsh origin. 
 So, also, are the Morgans. Besides these, 
 we find many persons of the name of 
 Jones, Owen, Grifliths, Evans, &c., all of 
 Welsh descent, several of whom have ris- 
 en to eminence in the Church and State. 
 I may add that Roger Williams, the found- 
 er of Rhode Island, whom I have had oc- 
 casion already to notice, was a native of 
 Wales. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 RELIGIOUS character OF THE EARLY COLO 
 
 NISTS OF AMERICA. EMIGRANTS FROM SCOT 
 
 LAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 Next to the Puritans of England we 
 * Proud's " History of Pennsylvania," vol. i., p. 221. 
 
72 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IF. 
 
 must unquestionably rank the Scotch, as 
 having largely contributed to form the re- 
 ligious character of the United States. A 
 few words, then, as to the causes that 
 have, at different times, led so many of 
 the natives of Scotland to pass over to 
 America, will not be out of place, and will 
 prepare the reader for the remarks to be 
 made on the religious character of emi- 
 grants from that part of the united king- 
 dom. 
 
 James I., before he left Scotland, when 
 called to the throne of England in 1603, as- 
 sured his countrymen of his love to their 
 Church, and of his determination to sup- 
 port it ; but no sooner had he crossed the 
 Tweed than he manifested a predilection 
 for Prelacy, and a decided aversion to 
 Presbytery, as being of an essentially re- 
 publican tendency. Flattered and caress- 
 ed by the aged Whitgift, by Bancroft, and 
 other bishops, he soon learned to hate the 
 Presbyterians of Scotland, as well as to 
 despise the Puritans of England ; nor was 
 it long before he showed a fixed purpose 
 to change, if possible, the ecclesiastical 
 government of his northern kingdom, not- 
 withstanding that prudence and natural 
 timidity deterred him from abrupt meas- 
 ures. 
 
 It was otherwise with his unfortunate 
 son. Charles I. resolved to snatch at re- 
 sults to which caution and cunning might, 
 in time, have conducted his arbitrary, but 
 timid father. He began with ordering the 
 publication of a Book of Canons, essential- 
 ly altering the constitution of the Church 
 of Scotland, and these he tried to enforce 
 by his own authority. He next caused a 
 liturgy to be drawn up and published, cop- 
 ied, in a great measure, from that of the 
 Church of England, but brought by Laud 
 into a closer agreement with the Romish 
 Missal ; and this he commanded all the 
 Scotch ministers to use on pain of suspen- 
 sion. These proceedings led, at last, to 
 open resistance on political as well as re- 
 ligious grounds ; for they involved an as- 
 sumption of powers denied to the king by 
 the Scottish Constitution, and it was seen 
 and felt that if he could introduce the Eng- 
 lish Liturgy, he might, at some future time, 
 force upon them the Romish Mass. The 
 wrong attempted in Scotland roused the 
 sympathy of England, and the upshot was, 
 as Hallam remarks, " the liberties of Eng- 
 land were preserved, but her monarchy 
 was overthrown." 
 
 But Charles H. behaved a great deal 
 worse than his father had done. When 
 that father was beheaded the son was a 
 friendless fugitive. The Scotch offered to 
 receive him as their king, and to assist 
 him in recovering tlie throne of England, 
 on his pledging himself, by oath, to main- 
 tain their Presbyterian form of Church 
 government. Tliis he engaged to do, and. 
 
 on his arriving among them, he subscribed 
 the Covenant. The Scotch, thereupon, 
 took up arms in his cause, but were de- 
 feated by Cromwell, so that Charles was 
 driven a second time to the Continent. 
 When restored, in 1660, to the crown of 
 England, he voluntarily renewed his for- 
 mer promise to the Scotch, to whom he 
 was greatly indebted for his restoration ; 
 but no sooner was he seated on the throne 
 than his oaths and promises were all for- 
 gotten. Presbyterianism was almost im- 
 mediately abolished, and Episcopacy es- 
 tablished in Scotland ; and that, too, in the 
 most repulsive form. The bishops were 
 invested by royal mandate with the ut- 
 most plenitude of prelatical power, and 
 a new law forbade speaking against the- 
 king's ecclesiastical supremacy, or the gov- 
 ernment of the Church by bishops and- 
 archbishops. A court of High Commis- 
 sion, partly composed of prelates, and arm- 
 ed with inquisitorial powers, was set up^ 
 and was followed by scenes of persecu- 
 tion and oppression, unparalleled except- 
 by the worst doings of Rome. Numbers 
 of learned and pious ministers were eject- 
 ed, and though their places were filled, for 
 the most part, by ignorant and ungodly 
 men,* the people were compelled, under 
 
 * The author would not be understood, for a mo- 
 ment, to place in the same category all the prelates, 
 and all the parish clergy, introduced into the Scot- 
 tish Established Church by the measures mentioned 
 in the text. He is well aware that among the for- 
 mer there was a Robert Leighton, who was forced, 
 however, by the atrocities of his associates, to relin- 
 quish an office which his gentle spirit would no 
 longer suffer him to hold, and a Henry Scougal 
 among the latter. Such beautiful characters were 
 enough to redeem, if that were possible, the worth- 
 lessness of a whole generation, composed of such 
 men as the gi eater number of the intruded clergy 
 are known to have been. The author could not 
 avoid referring to the arbitrary principles and horri- 
 ble cruelties of the Scottish prelates, and of the 
 statesmen who patronised them, and he has not done 
 so with the intention of casting odium on Episco- 
 pacy in general ; the odium being due to the men 
 and their principles, not to their office. Should it 
 be supposed that stronger terms than the truth of 
 history will warrant have been employed in speak- 
 ing of those men and their doings, let the reader 
 consult fiurnet's " History of his own Times;"' Dr. 
 Cook's " History of the Church of Scotland ;" or Mr. 
 Hallam's " Constitutional History of England." Let 
 two short extracts from the last of these authorities 
 suffice : 
 
 " The enormities of this detestable government 
 are far loo numerous, even in species, to be enu- 
 merated in this slight sketch, and, of course, most 
 instances of cruelty have not been recorded. The 
 privy council was accustomed to extort confessions 
 by torture ; that grim divan of bishops, lawyers, and 
 peers, sucking the groans of each undaunted enthu- 
 siast, in the hope that some imperfect avowal might 
 lead to the sacrifice of other victims, or at least war- 
 rant the execution of the present." And again : " It 
 was very po.^sible that Episcopacy might be of apos- 
 tolical institution ; but for this institution houses 
 had been burned and fields laid waste, and the Gos- 
 pel had been preached in the wilderness, and its 
 ministers had been shot in their prayers, and hus- 
 bands had been murdered before their wives, and 
 
Chap. XI] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 73- 
 
 severe penalties, to attend their worthless 
 ministrations. The ejected ministers were 
 not allowed to preach, even in the fields, 
 under pain of death. They might pray in 
 their own houses, but none of their neigh- 
 bours were allowed to attend. Even the 
 nearest relations were forbidden to afford 
 shelter to the denounced, or in any way to 
 succour them. All land-owners were re- 
 quired to give bonds that neither they nor 
 their dependants should attend " conven- 
 ticles," as the forbidden meetings were 
 called. The laws were enforced by muti- 
 lation, torture, fines, imprisonment, ban- 
 ishment, and death. Soldiers were quar- 
 tered upon defenceless families, and allow- 
 ed to harass them as they pleased; men 
 were hunted down like wild beasts, and 
 shot or gibbeted upon the highways ; and 
 this dreadful state of- things lasted nearly 
 thirty years, for the sole object of forcing 
 upon the Scotch a form of Church gov- 
 ernment which they conscientiously dis- 
 liked. Can we wonder that the Scotch 
 Presbyterians of that day detested Prel- 
 acy, as not the occasion only, but the cause 
 of iheir suff"erings \ In their experience it 
 was identified with despotism, superstition, 
 and irreligion, whereas Presbyterianism 
 was associated with the love of liberty and 
 Truth. The Scottish Parliament being 
 then so constituted and regulated as to be 
 a very imperfect exponent of the will, and 
 a very feeble advocate of the rights of the 
 nation, it was the General Assembly of the 
 Church, therefore, which the people re- 
 garded as the best guardian of their dear- 
 est interests and privileges. In the sup- 
 pression of free Assemblies, the body of 
 the nation probably felt themselves more 
 grievously wronged than had Parliament 
 itself been suppressed ; and such, upon the 
 whole, was the state of the law, and the 
 oppressive manner in which it was admin- 
 istered, that none can reasonably wonder 
 that the most loyal people to be found any- 
 where should have attempted to rid them- 
 selves of their oppressors by rising against 
 them. The attempts of this kind, how- 
 ever, whether made in England or Scot- 
 land, led only to the sacrifice of some val- 
 uable lives ; nor was it until by the Revo- 
 lution of 1688, so bloodless, yet so com- 
 plete, that the Stuarts were again removed 
 from the throne, and a belter era dawned 
 upon both kingdoms. 
 
 virgins had been defiled, and many had died by the 
 executioner, and by massacre, and in imprisonment, 
 and in exile, and slavery ; and women had been tied 
 to stakes on the seashore till the tide rose to over- 
 flow them, and some had been tortured and mutila- 
 ted ; it was a religion of the boots and the thumb- 
 screw, which a good man must be very cold-blooded 
 indeed if he did not hate, and reject from the hands 
 which oflfered it. For, after all, it is much more cer- 
 tain that the Supreme Being abhors cruelty and 
 persecution, than that he has set up bishops to have 
 superiority over presbyters." — Cons/. Hist., vol. iii., 
 p. 435, 442. 
 
 Such was the severity, however, of the 
 nation's griefs while they lasted, that it 
 seems strange that the Scotch Presbyteri- 
 ans did not abandon their country en masse. 
 But they were withheld by the hope of 
 better times — a hope that even sometimes 
 arrested plans of extensive emigration. 
 Thus, after a company of thirty-six noble- 
 men and gentlemen had contracted for a 
 large tract of land in the Carolinas, as an 
 asylum for their persecuted countrymen, 
 the project was relinqui.shed, in hopes of 
 the success of the abortive attempt for 
 which Russel and Sidney suff'ered in Eng- 
 land. Many, nevertheless, went over from 
 Scotland into Ireland — many emigrated to 
 America ; and a large proportion of the 
 former, or of their descendants, subsequent- 
 ly sought a resting-place in the New World. 
 This emigration from Scotland and Ireland, 
 after it had thus commenced in the reigns 
 of Charles II. and James 11., was contin- 
 ued, from other causes, down to the Amer- 
 ican Revolution, and consisted, almost ex- 
 clusively, of Presbyterians. It was not 
 until a later epoch that the emigration of 
 Roman Catholics from Ireland to America 
 properly commenced ; at least, until then 
 it was too inconsiderable to merit notice. 
 
 Let us now see to what parts of Ameri- 
 ca this emigration was directed, and which 
 have enjoyed most of the happy effects of 
 its moral influence. 
 
 New-England did not, on many accounts, 
 present the most attractions to Scotch em- 
 igrants. Not only were its best districts 
 already occupied, but in almost all its col- 
 onies a Church was established, between 
 which and the Presbyterian there might not 
 be all the harmony that was to be desired. 
 Some, nevertheless, did go to New-Eng- 
 land, and received a kind welcome there. 
 According to Cotton Mather, even previous 
 to 1640, 4000 Presbyterians had arrived in 
 that province, but what proportion of these 
 came from Scotland and Ireland we have 
 no means of ascertaining. At a later pe- 
 riod, Londonderry, in New-Hampshire, was 
 founded by a hundred families of Irish Pres- 
 byterians, who, having brought their pastor 
 with them, organized a Presbyterian church 
 there. Another church of that denomina- 
 tion was formed at Boston in 1729, and 
 such it remained until 1786, when it became 
 Congregational. Other Presbyterians set- 
 tled at Pelham and Palmer. 
 
 Neither was New- York, for some time 
 at least, an inviting quarter to Presbyterian 
 emigrants ; the estabhshment of the Epis- 
 copal Church in that colony towards the 
 close of the seventeenth century, and the 
 intolerance to which it led, would naturally 
 deter them from making it their choice; 
 Some, indeed, had arrived previously to 
 that epoch, and many Scotch and Irish set- 
 tled in the province in the following cen- 
 tury, particularly as the American RqvoIu- 
 
74 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IL 
 
 tion was drawing on. Between 400 and 
 500 emigrants from Scotland alone arrived 
 at New-York in 1737, and, twenty years 
 later, Scotch and Irish colonists established 
 themselves in Ulster county, and also at 
 Orange and Albany. 
 
 In 1682, William Penn, and eleven other 
 Quakers, having bought the claims of Lord 
 Carteret's heirs, associated with them- 
 selves twelve other persons, a large pro- 
 portion of whom were Scotch, with the 
 view of securing as extensive an emigra- 
 tion as possible from Scotland, as well as 
 other places. Nor were they disappoint- 
 ed ; many were induced to leave that coun- 
 try and the North of Ireland, and settle in 
 East New-Jersey, from the favourable ac- 
 counts they heard of that colony. " It is 
 judged the interest of the government," 
 said George Scot, of Pitlochie, a Scotch- 
 man of rank and influence, " to suppress 
 Presbyterian (principles altogether ; the 
 ■whole force of the law of this kingdom is 
 levelled at the effectual bearing of them 
 down. The rigorous putting of these laws 
 in execution has, in a great part, ruined 
 many of those who, notwithstanding here- 
 of, find themselves in conscience obliged 
 to retain their principles. A retreat, where 
 by law a toleration is allowed, doth at pres- 
 ent offer itself in America, and is nowhere 
 else to be found in his majesty's domin- 
 ions."* " This is the era," says Mr. Ban- 
 croft, " at which East New-Jersey, till now 
 chiefly colonized from New-England, be- 
 came the asylum of Scottish Presbyteri- 
 ans." " Is it strange," asks that author, 
 " that many Scottish Presbyterians, of vir- 
 tue, education, and courage, blending a love 
 of popular liberty with religious enthusi- 
 asm, came to East New-Jersey in such 
 "numbers as to give to the rising common- 
 wealth a character which a century and a 
 half has not effaced V'f Many of the more 
 ■wealthy of these emigrants brought with 
 them a great number of servants, and, in 
 some instances, transported whole families 
 of poor labourers, whom they placed on 
 their lands. J And in speaking of the town 
 of Freehold, in Monmouth county, one of 
 the earliest settlements in New-Jersey, the 
 Rev. William Tennent, long parstor of the 
 Presbyterian church in that place, ob- 
 serves, " The settling of that place with a 
 Gospel ministry was owing, under (Jod, to 
 the agency of some Scotch people that 
 came to it ; among whom there were none 
 so painstaking in this blessed work as one 
 Walter Ker, who in 1685, for his faithful 
 and conscientious adherence to God and 
 His Truth, as professed by the Church of 
 Scotland, was there apprehended and sent 
 to this country under a sentence of perpet- 
 ual banishment. By which it appears that 
 
 * Bancroft's " History of the United States," vol. 
 , ii., p. 411. t Ibid., vol. ii., p. 414. 
 
 t Gordon's " History of New-Jersey," p 51. 
 
 the devil and his instruments lost their aim 
 in sending him from home, where it is un- 
 likely he could ever have been so service- 
 able to Christ's kingdom as he has been 
 here. He is yet (1744) alive ; and, blessed 
 be God, flourishing in his old age, being in 
 his 88th year."* 
 
 But it was to Pennsylvania that the lar- 
 gest emigrations of Scotch and Irish, par- 
 ticularly of the latter, though at a later 
 period, took place. About the commence- 
 ment of last century they began to arrive 
 in large numbers. It is said that nearly 
 6000 Irish arrived in 1729 ; and that up to 
 the middle of the century as many as 12,000 
 came over every year. Speaking of that 
 period. Proud, in his History of Pennsyl- 
 vania, says, " They have flowed in of late 
 years from the North of Ireland in verjr 
 large numbers." They settled in the east- 
 ern and middle parts of the state, the only 
 parts then inhabited by white men. Cum- 
 berland county was filled with them. 
 
 From Pennsylvania they emigrated in 
 great numbers into the western parts of 
 Maryland, the central portions of Virginia, 
 and the western counties of North Caroli- 
 na. A thousand families are said to have 
 left the northern colonies for the last of 
 these provinces in the single year of 1764. 
 There their descendants now constitute a 
 dense homogeneous population, occupying 
 the whole western section of the stale, and 
 distinguished by the strict morality and 
 unbending principles of their forefathers. 
 P^ive or six hundred Scotch settled near 
 Fayetteville, N. C, in 1749, and there was 
 a second arrival from the same country in 
 1754, after which a steady yearly immigra- 
 tion of the same hardy and industrious 
 people was kept up for a long period. f 
 
 But, besides the emigration of Scotch and 
 Irish colonists from Pennsylvania into Ma- 
 ryland, the latter province received emi- 
 grants direct from Scotland and Ireland. 
 Colonel Ninian Beall, a native of Fifeshire, 
 who had been implicated in some of the 
 disturbances in his native country, fled first 
 to Barbadoes, and removed thence to Mary- 
 land, where he bought an immense estate, 
 including much of the ground now occupied 
 by Wasliington and Georgetown. About 
 200 of his friends and neighbours joined 
 him at his request about the year 1690, and 
 brought along with them the Rev. Nathan- 
 iel Taylor, their pastor. 
 
 In 1684, a small colony of persecuted 
 
 * The Rev. William Tennent, quoted by Dr. Hodge 
 in his "Constit\itional History of the Presbyterian 
 Church in the United States." 
 
 t The Scotch settlers near Fayetteville, in North 
 Carolina, are said to have been, almost without ex- 
 ception, from the Highlands. Gaelic is still spokea 
 by some of the old colonists, and I understand that 
 It IS used in some of the churches in that ([uarler for 
 public worship, which, 1 may add, is in every respect 
 conducted as in Scotland. — See Dr. Hodge's " Con- 
 stitutional History of the Presbyterian Chvrch," vol. i., 
 p. 66. 
 
ClHAP. XIL] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 75 
 
 Scotch settled, under Lord Cardross, in 
 South Carolina.* In 1737, multitudes of 
 husbandmen and labourers from Ireland 
 embarked for that province,! and within 
 three years before 1773 no fewer than 1600 
 emigrants from the North of Ireland settled 
 there. Indeed, of all European countries, 
 Ireland furnished South Carolina with the 
 greatest number of inhabitants;! they not 
 only settled in the interior, but also on 
 Edisto and the other islands on the coast. 
 
 Georgia, too, was partly colonized by 
 Scotch and Irish, who emigrated south- 
 westward from Pennsylvania, across Ma- 
 ryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, be- 
 sides receiving no small proportion of its 
 first settlers directly from the Highlands of 
 Scotland. 
 
 Thus it is manifest that Presbyterians 
 from Scotland and the North of Ireland 
 have largely contributed to form the reli- 
 gious character of the United States ; par- 
 ticularly in the middle and southern parts of 
 the countiy, and, by consequence, the cor- 
 responding parts of the Valley of the Mis- 
 sissippi, which have been colonized from 
 them. As the early emigrants from Scot- 
 land and Ireland were not only Protestants, 
 but decidedly religious people, they did 
 much to give a religious tone to the dis- 
 tricts in which they established themselves, 
 being those precisely that most stood in 
 need of such an influence. So that in this 
 we have another instance of the Divine in- 
 terposition in behalf of a country, whose 
 whole history is a continued illustration of 
 the mercy and the goodness of God. 
 
 I may add, in concluding this chapter, 
 that America owes to the early emigrations 
 from Scotland and Ireland not a few of the 
 men who have risen to the highest emi- 
 nence both in Church and State. The 
 Tennents, the Blairs, the Allisons were of 
 Scotch-Irish origin ; Dr. Witherspoon, one 
 of the most valuable men in America of 
 his day, both as a divine and as a states- 
 man. Dr. Nisbet, and many othei-s, were 
 from Scotland. 
 
 The son of a poor Irish emigrant, who 
 had settled in North Carolina, has been 
 President of the United States.^ The son 
 of a Scotch-Irish emigrant who had settled 
 first in Pennsylvania and removed after- 
 ward to South Carolina, has been Vice- 
 President. || 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. HUGUENOTS FROM FRANCE. 
 
 Next to the English Puritans and Scotch 
 Presbyteria ns we must rank the exiled Hu- 
 
 * Bancroft's " History of the United States," vol. 
 ii., p. 173. t Holmes's Annals, vol. ii., p. 145. 
 
 % Ramsay's " History of South Carolina," vol. i., 
 ,^. 20 ; vol. li., p. 23, 548. 
 
 <} General Andrew Jackson. 
 
 ii Hon. John C. Calhoun. 
 
 guenots, or French Reformed, as having 
 done most to form the religious character 
 of the United States. 
 
 The Reformation found its way into 
 France in the reign of Francis I., but was 
 hated by that monarch on a double account. 
 First, it placed man at once before his 
 Creator and his Judge, without the inter- 
 vention of human proxies, or the possibil- 
 ity of standing there on the ground of hu- 
 man merit. It placed the sinner at once in 
 presence of the God against whom he had 
 sinned. Second, because, in Calvin's hands, 
 the natural development of his principles 
 threatened the questioning of the rights 
 of despotic power. Hence, although the 
 king's love of literature, and his patronage 
 of learned men, led him for a time to dq^ 
 fend the chiefs of the Reformation in France 
 on account of the interest they showed in 
 the revival of letters, and his hatred of 
 the scholastic and fanatical theologians of 
 the Sorbonne, Francis distinguished him- 
 self by being almost the first ruler that put 
 a Protestant to death. His successors but 
 too closely followed his example. Perse- 
 cution, though intermitted at times, owing 
 to the pressure of circumstances, was re- 
 sumed when that pressure ceased, until 
 1598, when Henry IV. granted the Edict 
 of Nantes — a measure which was far from 
 according the full measure of Protestant 
 rights, but which was sacredly observed 
 during the remainder of that monarch's 
 reign. But during that of his successor, 
 Louis XIII., and the early years of Louis 
 XIV., that famous ordinance was no bet- 
 ter than an ill-observed truce. 
 
 Louis XIV., after having come to the 
 crown in his minority, was now approach- 
 ing his fiftieth year, and had begun to 
 feel the decline of passions which he had 
 long indulged without regard for the re- 
 straints of religion and morality, beyond 
 an habitual compliance with the outward 
 forms of the Romish Church, and occasion- 
 al fits of remorse, that were soon forgot- 
 ten amid the excitement of new pleasures. 
 In proportion as his relish for a voluptu- 
 ous life became blunted by increasing age 
 and satiety, he became more and more 
 anxious to atone in some way for long 
 years of sinful indulgence by acts of extra- 
 ordinary devotion, without altogether sac- 
 rificing, however, either his love of pleas- 
 ure or the pursuit of glory. He was thus 
 in a state of mind admirably calculated to 
 make him the tool of an order of men who 
 have acquired the highest celebrity for 
 their profound knowledge of the human 
 heart, and their consummate skill in ma- 
 king alike its strength and its weakness 
 subser\'^e the advancement of their power, 
 more especially in the case of persons 
 placed in stations of authority and influ- 
 ence. A Jesuit skilled in casuistry, and 
 a fascinating and ambitious woman, were 
 
76 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IL 
 
 bent, the one on making the king, who had 
 been brought up in moderate sentiments to- 
 wards the Reformed, and had long pro- 
 voked their enemies by his respect for the 
 Edict of Nantes, become the instrument of 
 Rome in utterly suppressing the Reforma- 
 tion in France, and, if possible, throughout 
 Europe ; the other, on making herself the 
 widowed monarch's wife. To attain these 
 ends, they played into each other's hands, 
 with an unrivalled mastery of all the arts 
 usually employed on such occasions. The 
 confessor used his influence in confirming 
 the favourite's ascendency in the king's af- 
 fections — the favourite, though educated a 
 Protestant, and under early and deep obli- 
 gations to a Protestant relation, sacrificed 
 her friends, and perhaps her convictions, 
 l^ professing an extravagant zeal for the 
 universal reign of the Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion, and by suggesting that in no way 
 could the king better atone for his past ir- 
 regularities, or promote his own glory, than 
 by labouring " for the conversion of here- 
 tics." Both succeeded, but not to the full 
 measure of their desires. Madame de 
 Maintenon was privately married to Louis 
 XIV., but never became the acknowledged 
 queen of France. The Edict of Nantes 
 was revoked, but the Reformation survives 
 in the F'rench dominions to this day. 
 
 The king had come under too many 
 solemn obligations to observe that Edict, 
 and had a conscience too httle sophistica- 
 ted by Jesuit morality in early life, to be 
 brought into a direct revocation of Prot- 
 estant privileges. The mode by which his 
 scruples were overcome was exceedinglj' 
 ingenious. His consent was first obtained 
 to a multitude of indirect methods of di- 
 minishing the numbers of the Reformed ; 
 much violence and fraud unknown to him 
 were mingled with the execution of those 
 measures, and he was then persuaded that 
 the Edict of Nantes was unnecessary, since 
 those in whose favour it had been granted 
 had ceased to exist in his dominions. Fa- 
 vours of every kind were promisd to those 
 who would recant the alleged errors trans- 
 mitted to them from their ancestors, or 
 embraced by themselves ; offices were held 
 out as the reward of such meritorious recan- 
 tations, while, on the other hand, all hope of 
 public employment, and even of public fa- 
 vour in any form, was denied to such as re- 
 fused to be converted. Not only were they 
 excluded from every post of honour or place 
 of trust, but even the guilds and trades' cor- 
 porations were closed against them. No 
 Protestant was to be allowed to marry a Ro- 
 man Catholic. Bribery was also employed, 
 and converts were purchased for gold. 
 
 Proselytism, nevertheless, went on slow- 
 ly, and deatli threatened to overtake the 
 illustrious apostle before he should see 
 his subjects united again under the crosier 
 of the successor of Peter the fisherman. 
 
 The enterprise must needs be hastened for^ 
 ward. The sacredness of the family sanc- 
 tuary is next invaded. Children of seven 
 years of age are invited to abjure the faith 
 of their parents. Protestant ministers be- 
 gin to be tormented in every way : Protest- 
 ant chapels are pulled down, or confisca- 
 ted to other uses ; Protestant schools are- 
 shut up ; Protestant funds are seized and 
 diverted from their legitimate ends ; those 
 that attempt to fly are forbidden to leave 
 France, under pain of being sent to the 
 galleys. Vain attempt ! The conversions 
 still proceed very slowly. 
 
 Next come scenes of violence. Instead 
 of Jesuit missionaries, or, rather, along 
 with those missionaries, dragoons are sent 
 into the Protestant districts, to be quarter- 
 ed on the inhabitants, and to worry them 
 into conversion. Ferocity and lust are let 
 loose under every roof, and escape is hope- 
 less. 
 
 At length the Edict of Nantes was for- 
 mally revoked. All public worship among 
 the Protestants was suppressed ; their 
 places of public worship existed no more 
 for them at least. The old Chancellor Le 
 Tellier could exclaim, "Now, Lord, lettest 
 thou thy servant depart in peace," and the 
 royal dupe believed that he had united all 
 dissenters with the Roman Church. 
 
 But what pen can describe the results of 
 this pretended union ■! Property plundered,, 
 books destroyed, children torn from their 
 parents, faithful pastors who would not 
 abandon their flocks broken on the wheel, 
 the bodies of all who died unreconciled to 
 the Church thrown to the beasts, estates 
 given up to relations who conformed to 
 the Romish Church, and protracted tortures 
 employed to extort recantations of Protest- 
 antism ! Men were even roasted at slow 
 fires, plunged into wells, and wounded with 
 knives and red-hot pincers. The loss of 
 life cannot now be computed, but it has 
 been asserted that ten thousand persons 
 perished at the stake alone, or on the gib- 
 bet and the wheel.* 
 
 In consequence of these proceedings, it 
 is believed that no fewer than half a mill- 
 ion of Protestants left France. It was in 
 vain that the frontiers were guarded. De- 
 spair was more ingenious in devising 
 means of evasion than bigotry was in its 
 endeavours to prevent it. Another half 
 million, unable to escape, remained in 
 France, yet could not be reduced to abso- 
 lute conformity with the established creed 
 and worship. Fanaticism grew weary in 
 hunting down its victims, and found nothing 
 harder to subdue than the human mind, 
 when once disenthralled by Truth. 
 
 Those Huguenots that escaped sought 
 refuge in all the Protestant countries of 
 Europe, at the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 
 * De Rulhi^re, (Euvres, v., p. 221. 
 
Chap. XII.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 77 
 
 in America, carrying with them the useful 
 arts wherever they went, and founding 
 many new manufactures in Germany, Hol- 
 land, and the British islands. An entire 
 suburb of London came to be inhabited by 
 French mechanics, and they had six church- 
 es at one time in that city. The Prince 
 of Orange took whole regiments of brave 
 refugees into his service, and retained them 
 after he became William III. of England. 
 Most affecting narratives have come down 
 to our times from the actors in those 
 scenes, and yet filial piety has not been 
 ■so diligent as it ought to have been in col- 
 lecting and preserving them. 
 
 " In our American colonies," says the 
 eloquent historian to whom I have been so 
 often indebted, " they were welcome every- 
 where. The religious sympathies of New- 
 England were awakened. Did any arrive 
 in poverty, having barely escaped with life ? 
 the towns of Massachusetts contributed 
 liberally to their support, and provided 
 them with lands ; others repaired to New- 
 York ; but a warmer climate was more in- 
 viting to the exiles of Languedoc, and 
 South Carolina became the chief resort of 
 the Huguenots. What though the attempt 
 to emigrate was, by the law of France, a 
 felony ? in spite of every precaution of the 
 police, 500,000 souks escaped from the 
 country. The unfortunate were more 
 wakeful to fly than the ministers of tyran- 
 ny to restrain. 
 
 " ' We quitted home by night, leaving the 
 soldiers in their beds, and abandoning the 
 house with its furniture,' said Judith, the 
 young wife of Pierre Manigault ; ' we con- 
 trived to hide ourselves for ten days at 
 Romans, in Dauphiny, while a search was 
 made for us ; but our faithful hostess would 
 not betray us.' Nor could they escape to 
 the seaboard except by a circuitous jour- 
 ney through Germany and Holland, and 
 thence to England, in the depths of winter. 
 "■ Having embarked at London, we were 
 sadly off. The spotted fever appeared on 
 board, and many died of the disease ; among 
 these, our aged mother. We touched at 
 Bermuda, where the vessel was seized. 
 Our money was all spent ; with great dif- 
 ficulty we procured a passage in another 
 vessel. After our arrival in Carolina, we 
 suffered every kind of evil. In eighteen 
 months, our eldest brother, unaccustomed 
 to the hard labour which we were obliged 
 to undergo, died of a fever. Since our 
 leaving France we had experienced every 
 sort of affliction — disease, pestilence, fam- 
 ine, poverty, hard labour. I have been six 
 months without tasting bread, working like 
 a slave ; and I have passed three or four 
 years without having it when I wanted it. 
 And yet,' adds the excellent woman, in the 
 spirit of grateful resignation, ' God has 
 done great things for us in enabling us to 
 bear up under so many trials.' 
 
 " This family was but one of many that 
 found a shelter in Carolina, the general 
 asylum of the Calvinist refugees. Esca- 
 ping from a land where the profession of 
 their religion was a felony, where their es- 
 tates were liable to become confiscated in 
 favour of the apostate, where the preach- 
 ing of their faith was a crime to be expiated 
 on the wheel, where their children might 
 be torn from them to be subjected to their 
 nearest Catholic relation — the fugitives 
 from Languedoc, on the Mediterranean, 
 from Rochelle, and Saintonge, and Bor- 
 deaux, the Provinces on the Bay of Biscay, 
 from St. Quentin, Poictiers, and the beau- 
 tiful valley of Tours, from St. Lo, and 
 Dieppe, men who had the virtues of the Eng- 
 lish Puritans without their bigotry, came 
 to the land to which the tolerant benevo- 
 lence of Shaftesbury* had invited the be- 
 liever of every creed. From a land that 
 had suffered its king in wanton bigotry to 
 drive half a million of its best citizens into 
 exile, they came to the land which was the 
 hospitable refuge of the oppressed ; where 
 superstition and fanaticism, infidelity and 
 faith, cold speculation and animated zeal, 
 were alike admitted without question, and 
 where the fires of religious persecution 
 were never to be kindled. There they ob- 
 tained an assignment of lands, and soon 
 had tenements; there they might safely 
 make the woods the scene of their devo- 
 tions, and join the simple incense of their 
 psalms to the melodies of the winds among 
 the ancient groves. Their church was in 
 Charleston, and thither on every Lord's 
 day, gathering from the plantations on the 
 banks of the Cooper, and taking advantage 
 of the ebb and flow of the tide, they might 
 all regularly be seen, the parents with their 
 children, whom no bigot could wrest from 
 them, making their way in light skiffs, 
 through scenes so tranquil that silence was 
 broken only by the rippling of the oars, 
 and the hum of the flourishing village at 
 the confluence of the rivers. 
 
 " Other Huguenot emigrants established 
 themselves on the south bank of the Santee, 
 in a region which has since been celebrated 
 for affluence and refined hospitality. 
 
 " The United States are full of monu- 
 ments of the emigrations from France. 
 Wlien the struggle for independence ar- 
 rived, the son of Judith Manigault intrusted 
 the vast fortune he had acquired to the ser- 
 vice of the country that had adopted his 
 mother ; the hall in Boston, where the 
 eloquence of New-England rocked the in- 
 fant Spirit of Independence, was the gift 
 of the son of a Huguenot ; when the treaty 
 
 * The " Constitutions" which Mr. Locke prepared 
 for Carolina, and to which Mr. Bancroft alludes, 
 promised, not equal rights, but " toleration" to " Jews, 
 heathens, and other dissenters," to " men of any re- 
 ligion." The Episcopal Church was to be established 
 by law. 
 
78 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 of Paris, for the independence of our coun- 
 try, was framing, the grandson of a Hugue- 
 not, acquainted from childhood with the 
 wrongs of his ancestors, would not allow 
 his jealousies of France to be lulled, and 
 exerted a powerful influence in stretching 
 the boundary of the States to the Missis- 
 sippi. In our northeastern frontier state, 
 the name of the oldest college bears wit- 
 ness to the wise liberality of a descendant 
 of tlie Huguenots. The children of the 
 Calvinists of France have reason to respect 
 the memory of their ancestors."* 
 
 The emigration of the Huguenots to 
 America is an exceedingly interesting 
 event in the history of that country. It 
 commenced earlier, and was more exten- 
 sive than is generally supposed. Even 
 previously to the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
 mew's day, some of the Protestant leaders, 
 as we have seen, whether from feeling their 
 position to be even then intolerable, or from 
 their anticipations of a still darker futurity, 
 proposed to establish a colony and a mis- 
 sion ill Brazil — the mission being the first 
 ever projected by Protestants. The Ad- 
 miral of France, the brave Coligny, who 
 was afterward a victim in the above mas- 
 sacre, entered warmly into the undertaking, 
 and Calvin urged it on with all his might, 
 and selected three excellent ministers, who 
 had been trained under his own eye at 
 Geneva, to accompany the emigrants. The 
 expedition set out in 1556, but proved pe- 
 culiarly disastrous. The commander re- 
 lapsed to the Roman Catholic faith, and 
 having put the three ministers to death, 
 returned to France, leaving the remains of 
 the colony to be massacred by the Portu- 
 guese ! Nor did better success attend two 
 attempts made by the good admiral to plant 
 colonies in North A^nerica, the one in 
 South Carolina, the other in Florida. It 
 seemed as if the time had not yet come for 
 the planting of good colonies, and that nei- 
 ther religion nor persecution had as yet 
 sufficiently ripened the Protestants for the 
 enterprise. 
 
 From the time of the siege of Rochelle 
 to that of the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes, there had been a continual emi- 
 gration of French Protestants to the Eng- 
 lish colonies in America, which, after the 
 latter of these two events, was greatly aug- 
 jnentcd, as is abundantly proved by the 
 public acts of those colonies. The first 
 notice of the kind to be found is an act of 
 the colony of Massachusetts Bay, in 166:l*, 
 to this eff'ect, " that John Touton, a French 
 doctor and inhabitant of Rochelle, made 
 application to the General Court of Massa- 
 chusetts, in behalf of himself and other 
 Protestants, expelled from their habitations 
 on account of their religion, that they might 
 have liberty to live there, which was read- 
 
 * Bancroft's " History of the United States," vol. 
 ii., p. 180-183. 
 
 ily granted to them."* In 1686, a grant 
 of 11,000 acres was made to another com- 
 pany of French Protestants who had set- 
 tled at Oxford, in the same colony. f In 
 that year, too, a French Protestant Church 
 was erected at Boston, which, ten years 
 after, had the Rev. Mr. Daille for its pas- 
 tor. A century later, when the French 
 Protestants had ceased to use the French 
 language, and had become merged in other 
 churches, their place of worship fell into 
 the hands of some Roman Cathohc refu- 
 gees from France. 
 
 In 1666, an act for the naturalization 
 of French Protestants was passed by the 
 Legislature of Maryland : acts to the like 
 effect were passed in Virginia in 1671 ; in 
 the Carolinas in 1696, and in New- York in 
 
 nos.j 
 
 New- York became an asylum for the 
 Huguenots at a very early date, for even 
 before it was surrendered to England, 
 namely, about 1656, they were so numer- 
 ous there that the public documents of the 
 colony had to be published in French as 
 well as in Dutch ;^ and in 1708, Smith, the 
 historian of that colony, says, that next to 
 the Dutch, they were the most numerous 
 and wealthiest class of the population. 
 From an early period they had in that city 
 a church, which exists at the present day. 
 It has long been attached to the Protest- 
 ant Episcopal Church, and has a French- 
 man for its rector. 
 
 New- Rochelle, about twenty miles above 
 the city of New- York, on the East River, 
 or Sound, as it is more commonly called, 
 was settled solely by Huguenots from Ro- 
 chelle, in France, and the French tongue, 
 both in public worship and common par- 
 lance, was in use even until after the Amer- 
 ican Revolution. There are many of the 
 descendants of French Huguenots in Ul- 
 ster and Dutchess counties in the State of 
 New- York. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Miller, professor of Church 
 History in the Theological Seminary at 
 Princeton, New-.Iersey, had the following 
 interesting facts, respecting the early in- 
 habitants of New-Rochelle, communicated 
 to him : '" When the Huguenots first set- 
 tled in that neighbourhood, their only place 
 of worship was in the city of New-York. 
 They had taken lands on terms that requi- 
 red the utmost exertions of men, women, 
 and children among them to render tillable. 
 They were, therefore, in the habit of work- 
 ing hard till Saturday night, spending the 
 
 * Holmes's " American Annals" for that year. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
 % Huguenots had long been settled in both the 
 Carolinas and New-York, before they were natural- 
 ized. This arose solely from internal difficulties, 
 which rendered their naturalization, lor the moment, 
 impossible, not from any unwillingness to receive 
 them. 
 
 () Bancroft's " History of the United States," vol, 
 ii., p. 30;i. 
 
Chap. XII.] CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 79 
 
 night in trudging down on foot to the city, 
 attending worship twice the next day, and 
 walking home the same night to be ready 
 for work in the morning. Amid all these 
 hardships, they wrote to France to tell 
 what great privileges they enjoyed."* 
 
 In 1679, Charles II. sent, at his own ex- 
 pense, in two ships, a company of Hugue- 
 nots to South Carolina, in order that they 
 might there cultivate the vine, the olive, 
 &c., and from that time there was an ex- 
 tensive emigration of French Protestants 
 to the colonies. Collections were made 
 for them in England in the reign of James 
 II., and the English Parliament at one time 
 aided them with a grant of £15,000.1 In 
 1690, William III. sent a large colony of 
 them to Virginia ; in addition to which, 
 that colony received 300 families in 1699, 
 followed successively by 200 and afterward 
 by 100 families more. In 1752, no fewer 
 than 1600 foreign Protestants, chiefly 
 French, settled in South Carolina, and 
 above 200 more in 1764. 
 
 In 1733, 370 Swiss Protestant families 
 settled in South Carolina, under the con- 
 duct of Jean Pierre Pury, of Neuchatel ; 
 the British government granting them 
 40,000 acres of land, and jC400 sterling for 
 every hundred adult emigrants landed in 
 the colony. J 
 
 In some of the colonies where an Es- 
 tabhshed Church was supported by a tax, 
 special acts were passed for relieving 
 French Protestants of that burden, and for 
 granting them liberty of worship. Thus, 
 in 1700, the colony of Virginia enacted as 
 follows : " Whereas, a considerable num- 
 ber of French Protestant refugees have 
 been lately imported into his majesty's 
 colony and dominion, and several of which 
 refugees have seated themselves above the 
 fall of James's River, at or near the place 
 commonly called and known by the name 
 of the Monacan towns, &c., the said settle- 
 ment be erected into a parish, not liable to 
 other parochial assessments." This ex- 
 emptiijn was to last for seven years, and 
 was afterward renewed for seven more.^ 
 
 These Huguenots, wherever sufficiently 
 numerous, at first used their own language 
 in public worship, and had churches of their 
 own, until, with one or two exceptions, and 
 those only for a time, they fell into either 
 the Presbyterian or Episcopal denomina- 
 tion. This must be taken as a general 
 statement, for their descendants may now 
 be found in almost all communions, as 
 well as in all parts of the United States. 
 Many members, too, of the Dutch Reform- 
 ed churches are descended from Hugue- 
 
 ■* " History of the Evangelical Churches of New- 
 York." 
 
 t Holmes's "American Annals." % Ibid. 
 
 (j Ibid., p. 432, 4~■^, 492. Hening's " Statutes," p. 
 201. Dr. Hawks's "Episcopal Church in Virginia," 
 p. 79. 
 
 nots, who had first taken refuge in Holland, 
 and afterward emigrated to America. Nor 
 must we forget the descendants of Hugue- 
 nots who found their first asylum in Eng- 
 land and Scotland. Among these was the 
 late excellent Divie Bethune, whose an- 
 cestors came originally from the town of 
 Bethune, not far from Calais. 
 
 On looking over the roll of the Presby- 
 terian churches of Charleston, South Car- 
 olina, there may be found the Huguenot 
 names of Dupre, Du Bosse, Quillin, Lau- 
 neau, Legare, Rosamond, Dana, Cousac, 
 Lequeux, Bores, Hamet, Rechon, Bize, Be- 
 noist, Berbant, Marchant, Mallard, Belville, 
 Molyneux, Chevalier, Bayard, Sayre, De 
 Saint Croix, Boudinot, Le Roy, Ogier, Jan- 
 vier, Gillet, Purviance, Guiteau, Boyer, Si- 
 mon, &c., &c.* 
 
 As the entire population of the American 
 colonies amounted only to about 200,000 
 souls in 1701,t more than forty years after 
 the commencement of the Huguenot emi- 
 grations, a large proportion of that number 
 must have been French Protestants, and 
 Huguenot blood accordingly must be ex- 
 tensively diffused among the citizens of 
 the United States at the present day.J It 
 is very obvious that so large an accession 
 of people, whose very presence in Ameri- 
 ca proved the consistency of their reli- 
 gious character, and who were generally 
 distinguished by simple and sincere piety, 
 must have been a great blessing to thq land 
 of their adoption, especially to the South- 
 ern States, where it was most required. 
 Their coming to America, on the other 
 hand, has been blest, under God, to them 
 and their descendants. Many of the first 
 families in New- York, Maryland, Virginia, 
 and the Carolinas, as well as other states, 
 are to be found among them, as may be 
 seen in many cases from their names, al- 
 though these have often been lost through 
 intermarriages, or can with difficulty be 
 recognised, owing to their being spelt as 
 they are pronounced by Anglo-Americans. 
 Some of the most eminent persons that 
 have ever adorned the United States were 
 of Huguenot descent. Such were no few- 
 er than three out of the seven presidents 
 of Congress, and, in a sense, of the whole 
 nation, during the war of the Revolution, 
 namely, John Jay, Henry Laurens, and 
 Elias Boudinot — all excellent men. 
 
 I conclude this chapter in the words of 
 a distinguished clergyman of the Episco- 
 pal Church in America.^ " And never, 
 probably, did any people better repay the 
 hospitable kindness of the land which af- 
 forded them a refuge. Many of their de- 
 
 * Lang's " Religion and Education in America," 
 p. 24. t Holmes's " Annals." 
 
 t Lang's " Religion and Education in America," 
 p. 22, 23. 
 
 ^ Rev. Dr. Hawks's " History of the Episcopal 
 Church in Virginia." 
 
■80 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 ecendants are still left in New- York, Vir- 
 ginia, the Carolinas, and other parts of our 
 country ; and among the brightest orna- 
 ments of the state, in the halls of legisla- 
 tion and of justice, as well as in the sacred 
 office, may be found the names of some of 
 the French refugees. No man in Ameri- 
 ca need ever blush to own himself one of 
 their descendants ; for the observation has 
 more than once been made, and it is believ- 
 ed to be true, that among their descend- 
 ants the instances have been rare indeed 
 of individuals who have been arraigned for 
 crime before the courts of the country." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLV COLO- 
 NISTS. — EMIGRANTS FROM GERMANY. 
 
 Germans began to emigrate to America 
 in the latter part of the seventeenth centu- 
 ry, and the first comers were probably suf- 
 ferers in the devastations committed by the 
 French under Turenne in the Upper Palat- 
 inate, a country lying on both sides of the 
 "^ Rhine, having Manheim for its capital, and 
 including a portion of the territory which 
 has since been transferred from the Ger- 
 man Empire to France. In 1674 the 
 whole of it was rendered almost utterly 
 desolate by the troops of Louis XIV., who 
 had no better motive for perpetrating such 
 atrocities than that the invaded province 
 was part of the empire with which he 
 •was then at war, and, next, that its inhabi- 
 tants were almost all Protestants. So ef- 
 fectually did these troops do tlieir master's 
 bidding, that the Elector Palatine could at 
 one time see, from his palace at Manheim, 
 two cities and twenty-five villages in 
 ilames ! In this work of horror Turenne, 
 no doubt, proved to his royal master's sat- 
 isfaction the sincerity of his conversion 
 from Protestantism to Romanism, but he 
 forever tarnished by it his own great 
 name. 
 
 As persecution continued what war and 
 rapine had begun, on the Palatinate falling 
 Tinder the government of a bigot, many 
 German Protestants emigrated to the Eng- 
 lish colonies in America ; and it may be 
 remarked, that previously to the Ameri- 
 can Revolution, the German emigration, 
 though not always confined to the Palati- 
 nate, and though many of the emigrants 
 came from the northwest of Germany, 
 continued to be almost purely Protestant. 
 
 About 2700 " Palatines," as they were 
 called, who had souglit refuge in England, 
 were sent out by the British government un- 
 der Colonel Hunter in 1710, when that offi- 
 cer was transferred from the governorship 
 of Virginia to that of New-York ; and Ger- 
 man settlements were formed about that 
 time, and some years following, on the 
 
 " German Flats," and in some other parts 
 of the latter province. 
 
 In Pennsylvania this immigration is said 
 to have commenced in 1682 or 1683, when 
 Germantown, near Philadelphia, was found- 
 ed ; and in subsequent years, such was the 
 influx of those emigrants, that they and 
 their descendants were estimated, in 1772, 
 at a third of the whole population of that 
 province, then amounting to between 
 200,000 and 300,000.* In a letter dated 
 October 14th, 1730, Mr. Andrews says : 
 " There is besides in this province a vast 
 number of Palatines, and they come in 
 still every year. Those that have come 
 of late are mostly Presbyterians, or, as 
 they call themselves, Reformed ; the Pa- 
 latinate being about three fifths of that sort 
 of people." There were, however, many 
 Lutherans mixed with them, as Mr. A. 
 afterward remarks, while he adds : " In 
 other parts of the country they are chiefly 
 Reformed, so that, I suppose, the Presby- 
 terian party are as numerous as the Qua- 
 kers, or near it."f In the year 1749, 
 12,000 Germans arrived in that colony, 
 and for several years thereafter nearly 
 the same number came.| 
 
 From Pennsylvania they spread into 
 Maryland and Virginia. "The year 1713 
 was rendered memorable by an act of 
 kindness shown to certain emigrants, sim- 
 ilar to that which had been manifested 
 towards the French refugees. It seems 
 that a small body of Germans had settled 
 above the falls of the Rappahannock, on 
 the southern branch of the river, in the 
 county of Essex. This was at that period 
 the frontier of civilization ; and, therefore, 
 it was alike the suggestion of interest and 
 humanity to aff'ord protection and encour- 
 agement to these foreigners. According- 
 ly, they were exempted, as the French had 
 been, from all ordinary taxes for the term 
 of seven years, and were formed into the 
 " Parish of St. George," with power to 
 employ their own minister and upon their 
 own terms. "i^ 
 
 Many Germans emigrated to the Caro- 
 linas also. In 1709 above 600 arrived, and 
 from the name of their settlement, New- 
 bern, they are supposed to have been 
 Swiss-Germans from the canton of Berne. || 
 From 1730 to 1750, South Carolina receiv- 
 ed large accessions from Switzerland, Hol- 
 land, and Germany, and a great many " Pal- 
 atines" arrived every year.^f In 1764, 500 
 
 * Proud's " History of Pennsylvania," vol. ii., p. 273. 
 
 t Dr. Hodge's " Constitutional History of the 
 Presbyterian Church," vol. i., p. 50. 
 
 X Proud's "History of Pennsylvania," vol. ii., p. 
 273, 274. 
 
 ^ Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church 
 in Virginia," p. 81. 
 
 II Williamson's " History of North Carolina," vol.. 
 1., p. 184. 
 
 ^ Ramsay's " History of South Carolina," vol. i., 
 p. 11. 
 
Chap. XIV.J CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 81 
 
 or 600 were sent over from London, and 
 had a township set apart for them.* Some 
 years later a considerable number of Ger- 
 man families, after having settled in Maine, 
 left that province to join their countrymen 
 at Londonderry in South Carolina, but most 
 of these repented having taken that step, 
 and returned to Maine, where their descend- 
 ants are to be found at this dayf. 
 
 Georgia had Germans among its very 
 first colonists. A band of these were led 
 thither by Colonel Oglethorpe, and re-en- 
 forcements from time to time arrived from 
 Europe. 
 
 The Germans who emigrated to Ameri- 
 <;a during the colonial era, being almost 
 all Protestants, organized upon tlieir arri- 
 val two Communions or Churches, upon 
 the great doctrinal principles wluch had 
 divided them into two denominations in 
 Germany — the Reformed, or the Calvin- 
 ists, and the Church of the Aug:sburg 
 Confession, or Lutherans. The history 
 of these churches down to the present 
 day will fall under our notice elsewhere. 
 But although diii^rence of language com- 
 pelled them in the first instance to have 
 churches of their own, many of their de- 
 scendants, partly from having adopted the 
 English tongue, partly from their wide 
 dispersion over the country, are now 
 members of the Presbyterian, Episcopal, 
 Methodist, and Baptist Churches. 
 
 Among the Germans who settled in 
 America were two small, but interesting 
 portions of the ancient Sclavonic churches 
 of Bohemia, as if to show that even the 
 great Eastern branch of the Christian 
 Church was to have its representatives 
 also in the New World, and to contribute to 
 lay the foundations of a Christian empire 
 there. These were the United Brethren, 
 or Moravians, as they are more commonly 
 called, and some members of the church- 
 es of Boliemia. The Moravians came di- 
 rectly from Herrnhut, the mother city of the 
 whole fraternity that adopt the renovating 
 system, received by some of the remains 
 of the ancient race from Count Zinzen- 
 dorf, in the early part of the last century. 
 The Bohemians came in a dispersed state 
 by way of Holland, but not having organ- 
 ized themselves as a distinct commu- 
 nion, these children of John Huss and Je- 
 rome of Prague were soon merged in the 
 Protestant churches of the land of their 
 adoption. Not so with the United Breth- 
 
 * Holmes's " American Annals," vol. ii , p. 268. 
 
 + There is an intere.sting account of this colony 
 in the American Quarterly Register for Nov., 1840. 
 It was commenced, it would seem, in 1739, and 
 received several accessions from Germany, but never 
 became very strong, it suffered much in its early 
 days from the Indians, and also from lawsuits about 
 the titles to the lands occupied by the emigrants. 
 The chief place in the colony is called VValdobor- 
 ough, where there is a church and a pastor, but the 
 German language is now disused. 
 
 ren, who preserve their own organization 
 and peculiar institutions to this day. Be- 
 sides a few churches in such large cities 
 as Philadelphia and New-York, and some 
 scattered throughout the interior, they are 
 chietly to be found in the three settlements 
 of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz in Penn- 
 sylvania, and Salem in North Carolina. 
 But I shall speak of their history and pres- 
 ent number in another part of this work. 
 
 Previous to the Revolution, the German 
 emigration was not only extensive, but 
 also, to a considerable degree at least, 
 pure. The emigrants had left Europe on 
 account of their religion, and brought with 
 them into America the simple and tranquil 
 habits, and the frugal industry that char- 
 acterize the nation iVom which they came. 
 Not only was their general standard of 
 morality high, but there was not wanting 
 among them a goodly number of sincere 
 Christians, distinguished for the cultiva- 
 tion of all the Christian virtues. But ever 
 since the Revolution, and especially during 
 the last thirty years, a very numerous em- 
 igration from Germany to tiie United States 
 has taken place, consisting both of Protest- 
 ants and Roman Catholics, influenced in 
 expatriating themselves chiefly by worldly 
 considerations, and much inferior in point 
 of religious character to those godly emi- 
 grants of the same race who had been 
 driven to our shores by persecution and 
 oppression at home. 
 
 The descendants of German settlers are 
 very numerous in Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
 Virginia, and the other Southern States, as 
 well as in New- York, Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
 nois, Michigan, Missouri, and the Territo- 
 ries of Wisconsin and Iowa. Indeed, they 
 are by far the most numerous of all the 
 emigrants to America that are not of the 
 British stock. But their influence on the 
 religious character of the nation has not 
 been equal to that of the Puritans, the 
 Scotch, or the Huguenots. The first Bi- 
 ble printed in America was Luther's ver- 
 sion. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. EiMIGRANTS FROM POLAND. 
 
 Even Poland was called upon to furnish 
 her contingent towards the colonization 
 of America, and sent over some excellent 
 people, whose descendants are now dis- 
 persed over the country. 
 
 I know not whether the fact I am about 
 to mention stands recorded in any history, 
 but it may, without hesitation, be received 
 as true in all material points. I received 
 it myself from some excellent ministers 
 of the Dutch Reformed Church, who are 
 personally acquainted with a considerable 
 number of the descendants of the colonists 
 
82 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 to whom it relates. They state that in the 
 early part of the 18th century, a Count So- 
 bieski, a lineal descendant of the famous 
 John Sobieski III., who routed the Turks 
 at the battle of (>hoczia in 1G7.3, and cha- 
 sed them from the walls of Vienna in 16S3, 
 led a colony of about 200 Protestants from 
 Poland to the shores of America, there to 
 enjoy a religious freedom which was not 
 to be found m their native country. 
 
 In this tradition there is nothing strange. 
 The doctrines of the Reformation made a 
 considerable progress for a time in Poland, 
 and one or two of the kings of that coun- 
 try were well disposed towards it. Stipu- 
 lations somewhat like the Edict of Nantes 
 were even made, for securing liberty of 
 conscience and of worship to the Protest- 
 ants. But these were afterward disregard- 
 ed, the Protestants persecuted, and their 
 doctrines so etfectually suppressed, that a 
 Protestant Pole is hardly to be found now 
 in the whole kingdom ; for those Protest- 
 ants whom one meets with there are of 
 the German, not of the Polish race. Thus 
 there is nothing incredible in Poland, too, 
 being represented in a country where the 
 persecuted of every land have found a 
 home. 
 
 This Polish colony settled in the valleys 
 of the Passaic and liaritan Rivers in New- 
 Jersey, where there are some of their de- 
 scendants at the present day, while others 
 are dispersed over various parts of the 
 country. The name of Sobieski, corrupt- 
 ed into that of Zabriskie, is retained by a 
 highly respectable family, some members 
 of which are to be found in one district of 
 New Jersey, and others in the city of New- 
 York. 
 
 How wonderful are the ways of God ! 
 Poland chose to cleave to Romanism and 
 rejected the Protestant Reformation, and 
 how has Romanism served her in her re- 
 cent dreadful struggle for national inde- 
 pendence ■? This question is best answered 
 by the pope's bull,* addressed to the bish- 
 ops of the kingdom in relation to that war. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO- 
 NISTS. EMIGRANTS FROM THE VALLEYS OF 
 
 PIEDMONT. 
 
 While even Bohemia, Moravia, and Po- 
 land thus sent forth their little bands of 
 faithful men to America, it is not sur- 
 prising that we should find some wit- 
 nesses to the Truth proceeding from the 
 valleys of Piedmont, to place themselves 
 in the ranks of those whom God was thus 
 calling from .so many nations to take part 
 in peopling the New World with profes- 
 sors of the pure Gospel. It was most fit- 
 
 * This bull is given at length in the work of the 
 Abbe de la Mennais entitled " Home." 
 
 ting tha^ among those there should be some, 
 at least, to represent that martyr-people, 
 veritable living relics of those churches in 
 the north of Italy and southwest of France, 
 which had remained faithful to the Truth 
 during long ages of apostacy, anJ whose 
 pi eservation was so appropriately symbol- 
 ized by " the bush unconsumed in the midst 
 of the flames." 
 
 These had heard, in the recesses of their 
 valleys, of the wonderful movement of 
 the Reformation in Germany and France. 
 They sent a deputation to Basel to learn 
 from CEcolampadius what were the senti- 
 ments of the Reformers, and what those 
 doctrines which were turning the world 
 upside down. They heard with joy that 
 the faith of the Reformers was the same 
 as their own, and hastened, accordingly, 
 to unite themselves to the general body of 
 faithful men, who, through much tribula- 
 tion, were casting oft' the yoke of that 
 spiritual Babylon, drunk with the blood of 
 saints, which had been endeavouring for 
 so many ages to crush their forefathers. 
 
 But before long the persecution, which 
 was to fall upon the whole Protestant 
 body, reached them also, and with fresh 
 violence. Neither the seclusion of their 
 valleys, nor the insignificance of their num- 
 bers, could save them from this stroke. 
 Then it was that the voice of Cromwell 
 spoke for them with a power which even 
 the Emperor of Germany dared not disre- 
 gard. And then the pen of England's great- 
 est poet v/as no less ready to teach a per- 
 secuting prince the duty that he owed to 
 suffering humanity, than it was " to assert 
 eternal providence, and justify the ways 
 of God to man." Those valleys contain 
 enduring monuments of British benevo- 
 lence ; the fund contributed at that time 
 by the Christians of Enghi'id has aided the 
 preaching of the Gospel to their poor in- 
 habitants ever since. But those who had 
 fled from persecution before the voice of 
 Britain was thus lifted up, had to be pro- 
 vided with an asylum, and for this they 
 were indebted to the city of Amsterdam, 
 which offered them a free passage to 
 America. There the few hundreds that 
 embraced the offer found a welcome re- 
 ception awaiting them.* 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 Such, as respects the religious charac- 
 ter of the colonists, was the early coloniza- 
 tion of the United States ; and well may it 
 excite our wonder as altogether without a 
 
 * " Albany Records," vol. iv., p. 22.3. Lambrecht- 
 sten, ]). 65, vvithont quoting his authority, says COO 
 came over. Mr. 15ancroft, vol. ii., p. .322, thinks this 
 an overstatement. A second emigration was pro- 
 posed in 1003, but the project failed. 
 
Chap. XVI.l CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLONISTS. 
 
 83 
 
 parallel in the history of the world. What 
 were the colonies of Egypt, of Phoenicia, 
 of Greece, and Rome 1 what the colonies 
 of Spain and Portugal, when compared 
 with those we have been considering^ 
 Before leaving the subject, let us take a 
 general survey of their character. 
 
 1. They were not composed of the rich, 
 the voluptuous, the idle, the efteminate, and 
 the profligate, neither were they, generally 
 speaking, composed of poor, spiritless, de- 
 pendant, and helpless persons. They rath- 
 er came from that middle class of socie- 
 ty, which is placed in the happy medium 
 between sordid poverty and overgrown 
 wealth. They knew that whatever com- 
 fort or enjoyment they could look for in 
 the New World, was only to be attained 
 by the blessing of God upon their indus- 
 try, frugality, and temperance. 
 
 2. They were not an ignorant rabble, 
 such as many ancient and some modern 
 states have been obliged to expel from 
 their borders. Taken in the mass, they 
 were well informed — many of them re- 
 markably so for the age in which they 
 lived — and which in the case of none of 
 them was an age of darkness. Letters 
 had revived ; the art of printing had dif- 
 fused a great amount of valuable knowl- 
 edge among the middle ranks of society, 
 and was fast carrying it down to the low- 
 est. With few exceptions, they had ac- 
 quired the elements of a good education. 
 There were few persons in any of the col- 
 onies that could not read. They were, 
 moreover, a thinking people, and very un- 
 fit to be the slaves of despotic power. 
 
 3. They were a virtuous people ; not a 
 vicious herd, such as used to be sent out 
 by ancient states, and such as chiefly col- 
 onized South America and Mexico, men 
 of unbridled passions and slaves to the ba- 
 sest lusts. The morality of the earJy col- 
 onists of the United States was unrivalled 
 in any community of equal extent, and has 
 been lauded by almost all who have writ- 
 ten about them, as well as by those who 
 governed them. 
 
 4. They were religious men. They be- 
 lieved and felt that Christianity is no vain 
 fancy— a fact that holds true even as re- 
 spects those of them with whom religious 
 motives were not the chief inducement for 
 expatriating themselves. The overwhelm- 
 ing majority stood acquitted of the slight- 
 est approach to infidelity. Neither were 
 they what are called " philosophers," at- 
 tempting to propagate certain new theo- 
 ries respecting human society, and sug- 
 gesting new methods for rendering it per- 
 fect. By far the greater number of them 
 were simple Christians, who knew of no 
 way by which men can be good or happy 
 but that pointed out by God in his Word. 
 There was not a single St. Simon or Owen 
 to be found among them. Some of them. 
 
 indeed, were irreligious men : some were 
 even openly wioked, and opposed to all 
 that is good. But these, in most of the 
 colonies, formed a very small minority. 
 
 Nor was their religion inoperative. It 
 produced the fruits of righteousness. They 
 have been blamed for their conduct to the 
 Indians, but not with so much justice as 
 has been supposed. No doubt there were 
 instances of individual wrong, but they can- 
 not be charged with any general want of 
 justice or kindness to the Aborigines. In 
 almost every case they bought from those 
 prior occupants the lands on which they 
 settled. But on this, and some other 
 points of a general nature, I shall have 
 more to say in another place. 
 
 5. With few exceptions, the first colo- 
 nists were Protestants ; indeed. Lord Bal- 
 timore's was the only Roman Catholic col- 
 ony, and even in it the Romanists formed 
 only a small minority long before the Rev- 
 olution of 1775. The great mass had sacri- 
 ficed much, some their all, for the Protest- 
 ant faith. They were Protestants in the 
 sense of men who took the Bible for their 
 guide, who believed what it taught, not 
 what human authority put in its place. 
 "What saith the LordV this was what 
 they desired first of all, and above all, to 
 know. And it was the study of the Bible 
 that opened their eyes to truths which 
 bore upon every possible relation of life, 
 and upon every duty. There they learned 
 to look upon all men as children of the 
 same heavenly Father, as redeemed by 
 the same Saviour, as going to the same bar 
 of judgment, before which all must stand 
 stripped of the factitious distinctions of 
 this world. They saw no reason, there- 
 fore, why one man should lord it over an- 
 other, since all " are of one flesh," and if 
 Christians, brethren in Christ. And they 
 learned from the Bible that obedience is- 
 due to rulers, not because they are differ- 
 ent in blood or rank from other men, but 
 because government is " an ordinance of 
 God." Obedience to God secured their 
 obedience to civil rulers. As God cannot 
 command what is wrong, no ruler can be 
 justified in doing so, nor can expect obe- 
 dience if he does. And while they learned 
 from the Bible what were their duties, so 
 they learned there also what were their 
 rights. This led them at once to do the 
 former and to demand the latter. 
 
 6. The great majority of them had suf- 
 fered much oppression and persecution, 
 and in that severe but effectual school had 
 learned lessons not to be acquired in any 
 other. It led them to question many 
 things to which otherwise their thoughts 
 might never have been directed, and it 
 gave them irresistible power of argument 
 in favour of the right of the human mind 
 to freedom of thought. Indeed, it is re- 
 markable how large a proportion of the 
 
84 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 early colonists of the United States were 
 driven from Europe by oppression. Al- 
 though Virginia and the Carolinas were 
 not expressly established as asylums for 
 the wronged, yet during the Common- 
 wealth ill England they afforded a refuge 
 to the " Cavalier" and the " Churchman," 
 as they did afterward to the Huguenot and 
 German Protestant. Georgia was colo- 
 nized as an asylum for the imprisoned and 
 " persecuted Protestants ;" Maryland, as 
 the home of persecuted Roman Catholics ; 
 and the colony of Gustavus Adolphus was 
 to be a general blessing to the " whole 
 Protestant world," by ofl'ering a shelter to 
 all who stood in need of one. Even New- 
 York, though founded by Dutch merchants, 
 with an eye to trade alone, opened its arms 
 to the persecuted Bohemian, and to the in- 
 habitant of the Italian valleys. So that, 
 in fact, all these colonies were originally 
 peopled more or less, and some of them 
 exclusively, by the victims of oppression 
 and persecution ; hence the remark of one 
 of our historians is no less just than elo- 
 quent, that " tyranny and injustice peopled 
 America with men nurtured in suffering 
 and adversity. The history of our colo- 
 nization is the history of the crimes of 
 Europe."* 
 
 7. Though incapable as yet of emanci- 
 pating themselves from all the prejudices 
 and errors of past ages, with respect to the 
 rights of conscience, they were at least in 
 advance of the rest of the world on these 
 points, and founded an empire in which 
 religious liberty is at this day more fully 
 enjoyed than anywhere else — in short, is 
 in every respect perfect. 
 
 8. Lastly, of the greater number of the 
 early colonists it may be said, that they ex- 
 patriated themselves from the Old World, 
 ]iot merely to find liberty of conscience in 
 the forests of the New, but that they might 
 extend the kingdom of Christ, by founding 
 states where the Truth should not be im- 
 peded by the hinderances that opposed its 
 progress elsewhere. This was remarka- 
 bly the case with the Puritans of New- 
 England ; but a like spirit animated the pi- 
 ous men who settled in other parts of the 
 coontry. They looked to futurity, and 
 caught glimpses of the glorious progress 
 ■which the Gospel was to make among their 
 children and children's children. This 
 comforted tliem in sorrow, and sustained 
 them under trials. They lived by faith, 
 and their hope was not disappointed. 
 
 -4^ 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 RELATIONS BRTWEEN THE CHURCHES AND THE 
 CIVIL POWER IN THE COLONIES OK AMERICA. 
 1. IN NEW-FNGLAND. 
 
 In treating of the religious character of 
 
 ♦ Bancroft's " History of the United fcJtates," vol. 
 ii., p. 251. 
 
 the early Anglo-American colonies, I have 
 spoken incidentally only respecting their 
 forms of Church government, and even 
 now proceed to consider these only in so 
 far as is required for a right understanding 
 of the established relations between their 
 Churches and the civil government. I 
 shall elsewhere treat of the various reli- 
 gious communions in the United States, 
 or, rather, of the diverse forms in which 
 the Church presents itself to the world, 
 and the doctrines peculiar to each. We 
 have here to do only with the relations 
 which the State bore in the different colo- 
 nies to the Church ; and where these two 
 bodies were united, we shall see what 
 were the nature and extent of that union. 
 
 Many persons whom I have met within 
 Europe seem to have been altogether una- 
 ware of the existence of any such union in 
 any part of the United States, and, still 
 more, have had no correct idea of what the 
 nature of that union was in the different 
 parts of the country where it was to be 
 found. To both these classes I desire to 
 give all the information they may require. 
 
 If we consider for a moment what was 
 the state of the Christian world when these 
 colonies were first planted, in the early 
 part of the seventeenth century, we must 
 see that the mass of the colonists would be 
 very little disposed to have the Church 
 completely separated from the State in 
 their infant settlements, and the former 
 deriving no support from the latter. The 
 Church and the State were at that time in- 
 timately united in all the countries of Eu- 
 rope ; and the opinion was almost univer- 
 sally entertained that the one could not 
 safely exist without the direct counte- 
 nance of the other. It is not even certain 
 that England, or any other country, would 
 have granted charters for the founding of 
 permanent colonies, unless upon the con- 
 dition expressed, or well understood, that 
 religion was to receive the public sanction 
 and support. Assuredly, James 1., at least, 
 was not likely to consent to anything else. 
 
 Be that as it may, the first colonists 
 themselves had no idea of abolishing the 
 connexion which they saw everywhere 
 established between the civil powers and 
 the Church of Christ. To begin with New- 
 England, nothing can be more certain than 
 that its Puritan colonists, whether we look 
 to their declarations or their acts, never 
 contemplated the founding of communities 
 in which the Church should have no alli- 
 ance with the State. Their object, and it 
 was one tliat was dearer to them than life 
 itself, was to found such civil communities 
 as should be most favourable to the cause 
 of pure religion. They had left England 
 in order to escape from a government 
 which, in their view, hindered the progress 
 of divine truth, oppressed the conscience, 
 and was inexpressibly injurious to the im- 
 
chap.xvii.] the churches and the civil power. 
 
 85 
 
 mortal interests of men's souls. " They 
 had seen in their native country the entire 
 subjection of the Church to the supreme 
 civil power ; reformation beginning and 
 ending according to the caprices of the 
 hereditary sovefeign; the Church neither 
 purified from superstition, ignorance, and 
 scandal, nor permitted to purify itself; 
 ambitious, time-serving, tyrannical men, 
 the minions of the court, appointed to the 
 high places of prelacy ; and faithful, skil- 
 ful, and laborious preachers of the Word 
 of God silenced, imprisoned, and deprived 
 of all means of subsistence, according to 
 the interests and aims of him or her who, 
 by the law of inheritance, happened to be 
 at the head of the kingdom. All this 
 seemed to them not only preposterous, but 
 intolerable ; and, therefore, to escape from 
 such a state of things, and to be where 
 they could freely practise ' Church Ref- 
 ormation,' they emigrated."* 
 
 In the formation, likewise, of their civil 
 institutions in the New World, they deter- 
 mined that, whatever else might be sacri- 
 ficed, the purity and liberty of their church- 
 es should be inviolate. Bearing this in mind, 
 they founded commonwealths in which the 
 churches were not to be subordinate to the 
 state. Not that they were " Fifth mon- 
 archy men ;" they had no wish that the 
 Church should engross to itself the powers 
 of the State, and so rule in civil as well as 
 in ecclesiastical matters. But they thought 
 it better that the State should be accom- 
 modated to the Church, than the Church 
 to the State. " It is better," said Mr. Cot- 
 ton, " that the commonwealth be fashioned 
 to the setting forth of God's house, which 
 is his Church, than to accommodate the 
 Church frame to the civil state. "f 
 
 With this in view, they sought to avail 
 themselves of all the lights furnished by 
 the experience of ancient as well as mod- 
 ern states, and looking especially to the 
 Constitution of England as it then stood, 
 they framed civil governments in which, 
 as they hoped, not only the temporal, but, 
 still more, the spiritual interests of mankind 
 might best be promoted. They considered 
 that they had a right to do so, and held 
 opinions on this point directly at variance 
 with those of the age in which they lived. 
 The fashion then was to deduce all author- 
 ity from the divine right of kings, and the 
 theory of civil power was that of uninter- 
 rupted hereditary succession. But the Pu- 
 ritan foundersof New-England thought that 
 " they were free to cast themselves into 
 that mould and form of commonwealth 
 which appeared best for them," in reference 
 
 * Bacon's " Historical Discourses on the Comple- 
 tion of 200 Years from tlie beginning of the first 
 Church in New-Haven," p. 17, 18. 
 
 t Cotton's " Letter to Lord Say and Seal, in 
 Hutchmson's History of New-England," vol, i., p. 
 497. 
 
 to their grand purpose ; nor did they doubt 
 that a government thus originating in vol- 
 untary compact would have equal right to 
 the exercise of civil authority with that of 
 any earthly potentate whatever. 
 
 Whatever were the details of their poli- 
 cy, and whatever the results of some parts 
 of it, it is most certain that they intended 
 that the Church should in no sense be sub- 
 ject to the State. They held the great and 
 glorious doctrine that Christ is the only 
 Head and Ruler of the Church, and that 
 no human legislation has a right to inter- 
 fere with His. It has been said that they 
 took the Hebrew commonwealth for their 
 model in civil politics, and this is so far 
 true. But it holds as to their penal code 
 more than with respect to the forms of 
 their civil governments. With the excep- 
 tion of the first few years of the Massachu- 
 setts Bay and New-Haven colonies, there 
 was no such blending of civil and religious 
 authority as existed in the Jewish Republic. 
 There was much, however, in the Hebrew 
 commonwealth and laws that seemed 
 adapted to the circumstances of men who 
 had just exchanged what they considered a 
 worse than Egyptian bondage for a Canaan 
 inhabited by the " heathen," whom they 
 were soon to be compelled " to drive out." 
 The two cases were more alike than at first 
 strikes a superficial observer.* There were 
 
 * " The laws of Moses were given to a communi- 
 ty emigrating from their native country to a land 
 which they were to acquire and occupy for the great 
 purpose of maintaining in simplicity and purity the 
 worship of the one true God. The founders of this 
 colony came hither for the self-same purpose. Their 
 emigration from their native country was a religious 
 emigration. Every other interest of their communi- 
 ty was held subordinate to the purity of their reh- 
 gious faith and practice. So far, then, as this point of 
 comparison is concerned, the laws which were given 
 to Israel in the wilderness may have been suited to 
 the wants of a rehgious colony planting itself in 
 America. 
 
 " The laws of Moses were given to a people who 
 were to live not only surrounded by heathen tribes 
 on every frontier save the seaboard, but also with the 
 heathen inhabitants, worshippers of the devil, inter- 
 mixed among them, not fellow-citizenb, but men of an- 
 other and barbarous race ; and the laws were therefore 
 framed with a special reference to the corrupting in- 
 fluence of such neighbourhood and intercourse. Sim- 
 ilar to this was the condition of our fathers. The Ca- 
 naanite was in the land, with his barbarian vices, with 
 his heathenish and hideous superstitions ; and their 
 servants and children were to be guarded against the 
 contamination of intercourse with beings so degraded. 
 
 "The laws of the Hebrews were designed for a 
 free people. Under those laws, so unlike all the in- 
 stitutions of Oriental despotism, there was no abso- 
 lute power, and, with the exception of the hereditary 
 priesthood, whose privileges, as a class, were well 
 balanced by their labours and disabilities, no privi- 
 leged classes. The aim of those laws was ' equal 
 and e.xact justice ;' and equal and e.xact justice is the 
 only freedom. Equal and exact justice, in the laws 
 and in the administration of the laws, infuses free- 
 dom into the being of a people, secures the widest 
 and most useful distribution of the means of enjoy- 
 ment, and affords scope for the activity and health- 
 ful stimulus to the affections of every individual. 
 The people whose habits and sentiments are formed 
 
86 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 parts of the Mosaic law, excluding, of 
 course, all that was typical, ceremonial, 
 and local, which the colonists thought they 
 might do well to adopt, until, in the course 
 of time, they should find reasons for chan- 
 ging to something better. Had it been the 
 laws of Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, or Alfred 
 that tliey adopted, some who now ridicule 
 would perhaps have applauded tliem, as if 
 Moses were inferior to any of those law- 
 givers. There are men who know more of 
 the laws of Solon, and even of Minos, than 
 about Moses, and who, in their ignorance, 
 talk of the Jews of the days of Moses as if 
 almost, if not altogether, savages ; not 
 knowing that they were quite as much civ- 
 ilized as any of their contemporaries, and 
 had institutions prescribed to them by the 
 Supreme Ruler and Lawgiver. 
 
 It is remarkable that, with the exception 
 of the Plymouth settlers, all the first New- 
 England colonists — all who founded Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay, New-Hampshire, Maine, 
 Connecticut, New-Haven, Providence, and 
 Rhode Island — up to their leaving England, 
 were members of ihe Established Church. 
 The Plymouth people alone were Inde- 
 pendents,* had had their church organized 
 on that principle for years, and were such 
 even before they went to Holland. If any 
 of the other original colonists of New-Eng- 
 land had been thrust out from the Estab- 
 lished Church of the mother-country, they 
 had not organized themselves on any other 
 principle ; and, however opposed to the 
 spirit of its rulers and to some of its cere- 
 monies and usages, that they were attached 
 to the Church itself, as well as to many of 
 those wliom they had left within its pale, is 
 manifest from the letter of Governor Win- 
 throp and his associates, just after embark- 
 ing for America. 
 
 But on arriving there they immediately 
 proceeded to the founding of an ecclesias- 
 tical economy upon the Independent plan, 
 having for its essential principles, " That, 
 according to the Scriptures, every church 
 ought to be confined within the limits of a 
 single congregation, and that the govern- 
 ment should be democratical ; that church- 
 es should be constituted by such as desired 
 to be members, making a confession of 
 their faith in the presence of each other, 
 and signing a covenant ; that the whole 
 power of admitting and excluding mem- 
 
 tinder such an administration of justice will be a 
 free people." — Bacon^s " Historical Discourses,'" p. 
 30,31. 
 
 * They were not, properly speaking, Scparati.ils, 
 in the distinctive sense in which that word was used 
 at that epoch, viz., those who not only refused to 
 have any sort of comnuinion with the Established 
 Church, but denounced all who did. The Separa- 
 tists were exceedingly bitter in their hostility to eve- 
 rything which bore the name of the Establi.shed 
 Church of England. The farewell address of John 
 Robinson, to the Pilgrims who left Leyden to plant 
 the colony at Plymouth, breathed a very different 
 spirit. 
 
 bers, with the deciding of all controversies, 
 was in the brotherhood ; that church-offi- 
 cers, for preaching the Word and taking 
 care of the poor, were to be chosen by 
 tiie free suffrages of the brethren ; that in 
 church censures, there should be an entire 
 separation of the ecclesiastical from the 
 civil sword ; that Christ is the Head of the 
 Church ; that a liturgy is not necessary ; 
 and that all ceremonies not prescribed by 
 the Scriptures are to be rejected." 
 
 But how are we to account for a change 
 in their views so sudden and so great I 
 Even when Winthrop left England in 1630, 
 neither the Presbyterian nor the Independ- 
 ent doctrines as to Church government had 
 made that progress in public opinion which 
 they had made when the Long Parliament, 
 and Cromwell and his army, began to play 
 their parts. It is quite possible, or, rather, 
 all but certain, that several of the ministers 
 in the Massachusetts Bay colony were low 
 Episcopalians, and friends of Archbishop 
 Usher's scheme ; but if all of the leading 
 colonists were as much inclined to Presby- 
 terianism as has been thought by some, it 
 is hard to imagine why they did not estab- 
 lish that form of government. It is diffi- 
 cult to make out, on the other hand, why 
 they diverged so widely, and at once, from 
 the Episcopal economy, as to adopt Inde- 
 pendency, which is almost antipodal. 
 
 This, it appears to me, may be referred 
 to two or three causes. First, it is natural 
 that, on quitting England, where they had 
 suffered so much from Prelacy, they should 
 renounce an ecclesiastical system that con- 
 ferred upon any men powers so capable of 
 being abused ; nor can it be thought surpri- 
 sing that in such circumstances they should 
 run to the opposite extreme, and prefer an 
 ecclesiastical government of the most dem- 
 ocratical sort. Another, and much more 
 powerful reason, for their rejecting Epis- 
 copacy would be, that they might escape 
 the jurisdiction of the bishops, which would 
 otherwise unquestionably have followed 
 them. And, lastly, there can be no doubt 
 that they were much influenced by what 
 they saw and heard of the Plymouth colo- 
 ny. It will be remembered tliat the first 
 division of the Massachusetts Bay settlers, 
 under Endicott, reached Salem in 1628, and 
 that the main body, under Winthrop, fol- 
 lowed in 1630, and founded Boston. It 
 would seem that the Rev. Mr. Higginson, 
 the distinguished minister in Endicott's col- 
 ony, led tlie way in effecting the change, 
 he having, upon his arrival at Salem, or 
 soon afterward, introduced the Independ- 
 ent plan among his people, though not with- 
 out much difficulty, being opposed by the 
 two Brownes, John and Samuel, who, in 
 consequence of this opposition, had to re- 
 turn to Englaixl. Mr. Higginson was dis- 
 posed to receive very favourably the ac- 
 counts transmitted from the Plymouth col- 
 
Chap. XYll.] 
 
 THE CHURCHES AND THE CIVIL POWER. 
 
 87 
 
 oriy on the other side of the bay. It is true 
 that Edward Winslow, in his " Brief Nar- 
 rative," as well as Cotton, in his " Way," 
 &c., undertake to prove that Plymouth did 
 not exert the influence that has been as- 
 cribed to it, and which has even by Gorton 
 and his accomplices been charged against 
 it as a crime. But I think it clear that they 
 admit the substance of the charge.* 
 
 The Church, then, that was established 
 in all the New-England colonies, with the 
 exception of Providence and Rhode Isl- 
 and,! was what is termed in the United 
 States, Congregational, and in England, 
 Independent ; though there is some differ- 
 ence between the Congregational churches 
 in the former of these countries, and the 
 Independent in the latter, as I shall show 
 in another part of this work. I speak here 
 of the form of government. As for doc- 
 trines, they were essentially those of the 
 Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of Eng- 
 land ; in other words, Calvinistic. 
 
 Let us now see what were the relations 
 between the Church and the State, or 
 " Commonwealth," in New-England. In 
 every colony there, except the two above 
 mentioned, the object of one of the first 
 acts of civil legislation was to provide for 
 the support of public worship, and other 
 laws followed from time to time to the 
 same effect, as circumstances required. 
 Without going into unnecessary details, 
 suffice it to say, that parishes or " towns" 
 of a convenient size were ordered to be 
 laid out, and the people were directed to 
 levy taxes by the proper authorities of 
 their respective towns, for erecting and 
 keeping in due repair a suitable " meeting- 
 
 * Winslow says, "It is true, I confess, that some 
 of the chief of them," referring to the colony of Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay, " advised with us how they should 
 do to fall upon a right platform of worship, and de- 
 sired to that end, since God had honoured us to lay 
 the foundation of a commonwealth, and to settle a 
 church in it, to show them whereupon our practice 
 was grounded ; and if they found, upon due search, 
 it was built upon the Word of God, they would he 
 willing to take up what was from God." He then 
 goes on to say, that they of Plymouth showed them 
 the warrant for their government in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, the Epistles, and the Gospels ; and that their 
 friends, the other colonists, were well pleased there- 
 with, and also agreed to walk in the same way, so far 
 as God should reveal his will to them, from time to 
 time, in his Word. As for Cotton, he says, "Thedis- 
 suader is much mistaken when he saith, ' The con- 
 gi-egation of Plymouth did incontinently leaven all 
 the vicinity,' seeing for many years there was no vi- 
 cinity to be leavened. And Salem itself, that was 
 gathered into church order seven or eight years after 
 them, was above forty miles distant from them. And 
 though it be very likely that some of the first- comers 
 (meaning Endicott and Higginson) might help their 
 theory by hearing and discerning their practice at 
 Plymouth, yet therein is the Scripture fulfilled, "The 
 kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a wom- 
 an took and hid in three measures of meal till all was 
 leavened.' " 
 
 t And it too may be called Congregational, for it 
 was founded by Baptists, whose churches are essen- 
 tially indepeadent in form of government. 
 
 house," for the maintenance of a pastor or 
 minister, and for all other necessary ex- 
 penses connected with public worship. I 
 am not aware of any exemption from this 
 law being allowed for a long time after the 
 colonies were founded. Such was the fun- 
 damental union of Church and State in the 
 colonies that now form the States of Mas- 
 sachusetts, Connecticut, New-Hampshire, 
 and Maine. 
 
 The next law adopted in the Massachu- 
 setts Bay colony dates from 1631, the year 
 after the arrival of Winthrop and his com- 
 pany, and, as we shall hereafter see, it 
 was pregnant at once with evil and with 
 good. It ran thus : " To the end that the 
 body of the commons may be preserved of 
 honest and good men, it is ordered and 
 agreed, that for the time to come, no man 
 shall be admitted to the freedom of this 
 body politic but such as are members of 
 some of the churches within the limits of 
 the same."* In other words, no one was 
 to vote at elections, or could be chosen to 
 any office in the commonwealth, without 
 being a member of one of the churches. 
 This law was long in force in Massachu- 
 setts and in Maine, which, until 1820, was 
 a part of that state ; but it never prevailed, 
 I believe, in New-Hampshire, and was un- 
 known, of course, in Rhode Island. But a 
 like law existed from the first in New- 
 Haven, and when that colony was united, 
 in 1662, with Connecticut, where this had 
 not been the case, it became, I believe, 
 part of the legislation of the united colony. 
 
 Thus we find two fundamental laws on 
 this subject prevailing in New-England — 
 the one universal, with the exception of 
 Rhode Island ; the other confined to Massa- 
 chusetts, Connecticut, and Maine. In re- 
 stricting the exercise of political power to 
 men who, as members of the Church, were 
 presumed to be loyal to the grand princi- 
 ple of the colony to which they belonged, 
 namely, the maintenance of purity of doc- 
 trine and liberty of worship, as the first 
 consideration, and of free political govern- 
 ment as necessary to it, the authors of 
 that law doubtless contemplated rather the 
 protection of their colonists from appre- 
 hended dangers than the direct promotion 
 of piety. 
 
 This principle, in fact, down to the found- 
 ing of these colonies, seems to have been 
 adopted substantially by all nations. Popish 
 and Protestant, Mohammedan and Hea- 
 then ; so much so that Davenport said, 
 " These very Indians, that worship the 
 devil," acted on the same principle, so that, 
 in his judgment, "it seemed to be a prin- 
 ciple imprinted in the minds and hearts of 
 all men in the equity of it."t We need 
 
 * Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. 
 i., p. 3G0. 
 
 t " Discourse about Civil Goverment," p. 24, as 
 quoted in Bacon's " Historical Discourses." 
 
88 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 hardly remind the reader that this allegi- 
 ance to the Christian Faith was, until very 
 lately, indispensable to the holding of any 
 office under the crown in England, and 
 that receiving the sacrament in the Es- 
 tablished Church was the legal test of a 
 man's possessing it. 
 
 In conclusion, I ought to state, that in 
 the New-England colonies the ministers 
 of the Gospel had no part, as such, in the 
 civil government. They were confined to 
 their proper office and work. Yet no men 
 had more influence, even in affairs of state. 
 As a body of enlightened patriots, whose 
 opinion it was important to obtain, they 
 were consulted by the political authorities 
 in every hour of difficulty ; and although 
 cases might be found in which the leading 
 men among them, at least, did not advise 
 their fellow-citizens wisely, it was much 
 otherwise in the great majority of instan- 
 ces. Such was the state of things through- 
 out the whole colonial age ; and to this 
 day, in no other country is tlie legitimate 
 influence of the clergy in public affairs — 
 an influence derived from their intelli- 
 gence, united with religion, virtue, and 
 public spirit — more manil^est, or more sal- 
 utary, than in New-England. If these col- 
 onies might be compared, in their earlier 
 periods, to the Hebrew commonwealth, it 
 is certain that, wherever there was a Mo- 
 ses, there was also an Aaron ; and the in- 
 fluence of Winthrop, and Haynes, and 
 Bradford, and Eaton, was not greater or 
 happier than that of their compeers and 
 coadjutors, the Rev. Messrs. Cotton, and 
 Hooker, and Brewster, and Davenport. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND THE 
 
 CIVIL POWER IN THE COLONIES. 2. THE 
 
 SOUTHERN AND MIDDLE PROVINCES. 
 
 Virginia, too, like New-England, was 
 first colonized by members of the Church 
 of England ; but there was a vast differ- 
 ence between the views of the admirers 
 of the English Prelacy of tliat time and 
 those of the Puritans. The P^stablished 
 Church was then composed, in fact, of two 
 great divisions, which in spirit, at least, 
 have more or less existed ever since, and 
 were represented in the colonization of 
 America by the High Churchmen and Cav- 
 aliers of the South, on the one hand, and 
 the Puritans of the North on the other. 
 While the latter left England in order to 
 escape from the oppressions inflicted on 
 them by the Prelacy, abetted by the Crown, 
 the former had no complaint against either, 
 but carried with them a cordial attach- 
 ment to both. 
 
 In the original charter of James I. to 
 Virginia, it was specially enjoined that re- 
 
 ligion should be established according to 
 the doctrines and rites of the Church of 
 England ; every emigrant was bound to 
 allegiance to the king, and to conformity 
 with the royal creed.* Still, it does not 
 appear that any provision was made for 
 the clergy until 1619, that is, twelve years 
 after the commencement of the colony. 
 A Legislative Assembly, elected by the 
 colonists, met that year for the first time, 
 and passed laws for the formation of pai'- 
 islies and the regular maintenance of the 
 clergy ; accordingly, the establishment of 
 the Episcopal Church dates formally, if 
 not really, from that year. 
 
 Previously to this, however, and during 
 the governorship of Sir Thomas Dale, the 
 London Company sent over to Virginia a 
 set of " laws, divine, moral, and martial," 
 being, apparently, the first fruits of Sir 
 Thomas Smith's legislation ; and from 
 their Draconian character, they give us 
 some idea of the notions entertained in 
 those times of the ways whereby religion 
 might be promoted by the civil power. 
 They were so bad, it is true, as to be httle,. 
 if at all enforced. In short, they soon fell 
 into complete desuetude, and were dis- 
 claimed, at length, by the company, with- 
 out whose sanction they seem to have been, 
 prepared and sent. Yet there is ample ev- 
 idence to prove that they breathed very 
 much the spirit of the times that produced 
 them, and of the party in the Church of 
 England to which their author belonged — 
 a spirit which, thank God ! has long since 
 ceased to exist in that or any other portion 
 of the Church of Clirist in that country. 
 
 The first of those laws that bears upon 
 religion enjoins on the officers of the col- 
 ony, of every description, to have a care 
 that " the Almightie God bee duly and dai- 
 ly served," that the people " heare ser- 
 mons," that they themselves set a good 
 example therein, and that they punish such 
 as shall be often and wilfully absent, "ac- 
 cording to martial law in the case provi- 
 ded." 
 
 The second law forbids, upon pain of 
 death, speaking against the sacred Trinity,- 
 or any Person of the same, or against the 
 known articles of the Christian Faith. 
 
 The third law forbids blasphemy of God's 
 holy name, upon pain of death ; and the 
 use of all uiflawful oaths, upon severe pun- 
 ishment for the first offence, the boring of 
 tlie tongue with a bodkin for the second, 
 and death for the tliird. 
 
 The fourth law forbids speaking disre- 
 spectfully of the Word of God, upon pain 
 of death, as well as the treating of minis- 
 ters of the Gospel with disrespect; and en- 
 joins the " holding of them in all reverent 
 regard and dutiful entreatie," under penal- 
 ty of being whipped three times, and of 
 
 * Bancroft's " History of the United States," vol. 
 i., p. 123. 
 
Chap. XVIII.] THE CHURCHES AND THE CIVIL POWER. 
 
 89 
 
 " asking forgiveness in the assembly of the 
 congregation three severall Saboth daies." 
 
 The fifth law enjoins upon all to attend 
 morning and evening, every week-day, in 
 the church for service, at the tolling of 
 the bell, upon pain of losing their daily al- 
 lowance* for the first omission, to be whip- 
 ped for the second, sent to the galleys for 
 six months for the third. It also forbids 
 all violation of the Sabbath by gaming, and 
 commands the people to prepare them- 
 selves by private prayer for the proper at- 
 tendance upon the public worship, fore- 
 noon and afternoon, upon pain of losing 
 their week's allowance for the first omis- 
 sion, the same and a whipping for the sec- 
 ond, and death for the third. 
 
 The sixth enjoins upon every minister 
 within the colony to preach every Sabbath 
 morning, and catechise in the afternoon ; to 
 have a service morning and evening every 
 day, and preach on Wednesday 4; " to chuse 
 unto him foure of the most religious and 
 better disposed" to maintain a sort of spir- 
 itual police, and to see that the church be 
 kept in a good and decent state, and that 
 he keep a register of births, deaths, bap- 
 tisms, &c., " upon the burthen of a neglect- 
 full conscience, and upon paine of losing 
 their entertainment." 
 
 The seventh law commands " all who 
 Avere then in the colony, or who shall 
 thenceforth arrive, to repair to the minis- 
 ter, that he may know, by conference had, 
 their religious knowledge ; and if any be 
 deficient, they are enjoined to go to him, 
 at times which he shall appoint, to receive 
 farther instruction, which, if they refuse to 
 do, the governor, upon representation of 
 the fact, shall order the delinquent to be 
 whipped once for the first omission, twice 
 for the second, and every day till acknowl- 
 edgment be made and forgiveness asked 
 for the third ; and also commands every 
 man to answer, when catechised respect- 
 ing his faith and knowledge upon the Sab- 
 bath, upon pain of the same peril. "f 
 
 Such was Sir Thomas Smith's code, and 
 truly it may be said to promote religion 
 with a vengeance. To the credit of the 
 governor and council, it seems never to 
 have been enforced. 
 
 Previously to the dissolution of the com- 
 pany, iu 1624, the Colonial Legislature 
 passed a number of laws relating to the 
 Church ; three of the most important were 
 as follows : 
 
 1. That in every plantation where the 
 
 * For some time after the colony of Vir^nia was 
 planted, a!i provisions were served out from the com- 
 mon storehouse. It was not long, however, before 
 this plan of having all things in common gave place 
 to the " individual prmciple"of each having what he 
 could gain by his personal exertions. 
 
 t These lavvs must be considered far more intol- 
 erant and abhorrent to the spirit of Christianity than 
 any of the statutes taken by the New-England Puri- 
 tans from those of the Hebrew Commonwealth. 
 
 people were wont to meet for the worship 
 of (iod, there should be a house or room 
 set apart for that purpose, and not convert- 
 ed to any temporal use whatsoever ; and 
 that a place should be impaled and seques- 
 tered only for the burial of the dead. 
 
 2. That whosoever should absent him- 
 self from Divine service any Sunday, with- 
 out an allowable excuse, should forfeit a 
 pound of tobacco ; and that he who absent- 
 ed himself a month, should forfeit fifty 
 pounds of tobacco.* 
 
 3. That there should be a uniformity in, 
 the Church as near as might be, both in 
 substance and circumstance, to the canons 
 of the Church of England ; and that all 
 persons should yield a ready obedience tO' 
 them upon pain of censure. f 
 
 Upon the company being dissolved, the 
 colony fell under the immediate govern- 
 ment of the crown, which thenceforth ap- 
 pointed the governors, as well as decided, 
 in the last instance, upon all laws passed 
 by the Assembly, the Council, and the gov- 
 ernor. And from about the year 1629, the 
 laws requiring conformity to the Estab- 
 lished Church were strictly enforced, and 
 infractions of them visited with severe pen- 
 alties. 
 
 During the period of the " Grand Rebel- 
 lion" in England, and while the Common- 
 wealth lasted, Virginia sympathized strong- 
 ly with the cause of the tottering, and, 
 eventually, fallen throne and altar, and 
 many of the friends of both found refuge 
 there during Cromwell's Protectorate. It 
 may be remarked, however, that the colony 
 did not meet with such a recompense from, 
 the restored royal house as its loyalty just- 
 ly merited. 
 
 In 1662, in obedience to instructions from 
 the crown, the Virginia Legislature enact- 
 ed several laws for the more effectual sup- 
 port of the Established Church, the promo- 
 tion of the education of youth generally, 
 and of candidates for the ministry in partic- 
 ular. But it was long before the " college" 
 contemplated by these laws was actually 
 established. 
 
 Early in the eighteenth century, if not 
 even sooner, the laws of Virginia, requi- 
 ring strict conformity to the Established 
 Church, must either have been modified, 
 or had begun to fall into neglect, there be- 
 ing positive evidence that Presbyterian 
 meetings were held for public worship in 
 1722. From that period until the Revolu- 
 
 * Tobacco was the chief article of traffic which 
 the country produced at that time, and was often 
 used as a substitute for a monetary circulating me- 
 dium. 
 
 t It will be seen, from these laws, that the actual 
 legislation of the more liberal " Cavaliers" of the 
 South was not a whit more tolerant than that of 
 the bigoted " Roundheads" of New-England. So it 
 ever is ; the religion of the world, with all its vaunt- 
 ed liberality, is found to be more intolerant, wherever 
 it has a chance, than serious, earnest, evangelical 
 piety. 
 
90 
 
 KELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 tion, avowed dissenters increased steadily 
 and rapidly, and previously to 1775 there 
 were many Baptist, Presbyterian, Luther- 
 an, and Quaker churches within the colo- 
 ny. Still, the Episcopal Church predomi- 
 nated, and it alone was supported by law. 
 
 Maryland, founded by Roman Catholics, 
 had no union of Church and State, no legal 
 provision for any religious sect, and toler- 
 ated all until 1692,* when Protestant Epis- 
 copacy was estabhshed by law, the coun- 
 try divided into parishes, and the clergy, 
 as in Virginia, supported by a tax upon the 
 inhabitants. This was one of the results 
 of the Revolution of 1688 in England, and 
 ■of the wide-spread abhorrence of popery 
 which prevailed at that time, and long af- 
 terward, both in the nioiher-country and 
 her colonies. Gradually, and not without 
 encountering many obstacles, the Episco- 
 pal Church advanced in the number of its 
 parishes and clergy until the American 
 Revolution, and though all other sects had 
 ever been tolerated, was the only one sup- 
 ported by the State. Of the good and bad 
 effects of that establishment we shall speak 
 hereafter. 
 
 In South Carolina, all sects were at first 
 protected by the Proprietaries. In 1704, 
 ■liowever, the friends of the Episcopal 
 Church having, by the arts of Nathaniel 
 Moore, obtained a majority of one in the 
 Representative Assembly of a colony two 
 thirds of whose inhabitants were not Epis- 
 copalians, abruptly disfranchised all but 
 themselves, and gave the Church of Eng- 
 land a monopoly of political power. But 
 the dissenters having appealed to the 
 House of Lords in England, the acts com- 
 plained of were annulled by the crown, and, 
 cconsequently, repealed by the Colonial As- 
 sembly, two years afterward. Neverthe- 
 less, although the dissenters were tolera- 
 ted, and admitted to a share in the civil 
 government, the Church of England re- 
 mained the Established Church of the prov- 
 ince until the Revolution.! 
 
 In the same year, 1704, influenced by 
 -zeal or bigotry, the Proprietaries forced a 
 Church Establishment upon the people of 
 North Carolina, though presenting at that 
 time an assemblage of almost all religious 
 denominations — Quakers, Lutherans, Pres- 
 byterians, Independents, &c. But, accord- 
 ing to the royalists, the majority were 
 " Q uakers, Atheists, Deists, and other evil- 
 
 "^ Strictly speaking, it might be said that this 
 statement is not quite exact. For when Cromwell's 
 cointiussioners came into possession of the colony, 
 in 1054, the Legislature, which was wholly subservi- 
 ent to Clayborne, a tool of the; Protector, passed a 
 law suppressing public worship among Roman Cath- 
 olics and Episcopalians. And four years afterward, 
 Fendall, acting as governor, at first in the name of 
 the Proprietaries, and afterward by his own usurpa- 
 tion, undertook to persecute the Quakers. But both 
 these exceptions were of short duration. 
 
 t Bancroft's " History of the United States," vol. 
 iii., p. 18, 19. 
 
 disposed persons." From that time glebes 
 and a clergy began to be spoken of, and 
 churches were ordered to be erected at the 
 public cost. But we shall see that the 
 Established Church made slow progress in 
 North Carolina. 
 
 As long as New- York was under the 
 Dutch government, the churches of that 
 colony supported their pastors by volun- 
 tary contributions, and there was no union 
 of Church an^- State.* But on its falling 
 into the hands of the English, as the royal 
 governors and other officers sent over to 
 administer public affairs were all admirers 
 of the Established Church of England, they 
 very naturally wished to see it supersede 
 the Dutch Church, while, at the same time, 
 the English tongue supplanted the Dutch 
 as the language of the colony. Governor 
 Fletcher, accordingly, in 1693, prevailed on 
 the Legislature to pass an act for the estab- 
 lishment of certain churches and ministers, 
 reserving the right of presentation to the 
 vestrymen and church-wardens. This act 
 was so construed, two years after, that 
 Episcopal ministers alone received the 
 benefit of it, although this does not appear 
 to have been the expectation or the inten- 
 tion of the Legislature. From that period 
 till the Revolution, the Episcopal was the 
 Established Church, although, at the time 
 of its becoming so, it was reckoned that 
 nine tenths of the population belonged to 
 other communions. 
 
 East and West New-Jersey, united into 
 one province, and placed under the admin- 
 istration of the crown in 1702, had its future 
 government laid down in the commission 
 and instructions to Lord Cornbury. Toler- 
 ation being allowed by these to all but pa- 
 pists, and special " favour" invoked for the 
 Church of England, that church was so far 
 established there, seventy-three years be- 
 fore the American Revolution. In Penn- 
 sylvania there never was any union of 
 Church and State, nor, so far as I know, 
 any attempt to bring it about. Delaware 
 was separated from Pennsylvania in 1691, 
 and from that time had its own governors, 
 under the immediate control of the crown. 
 But in Delaware, as well as in New-Jersey 
 and in Georgia, the colony of the good 
 cavalier, James Oglethorpe, who loved 
 " the King and the Church," there can hard- 
 ly be said to have been an establishment, 
 as the " favour" shown to the Episcopal 
 Church secured a maintenance for a very 
 
 * It cannot be said, I fear, that the early Dutch 
 colonists, or, rather, their colonial governors, were 
 very tolerant. Though there was no union of the 
 Church and State, they were very jealous of allow- 
 ing any other than the Reformed Dutch Church to 
 exist among them. A little band of Lutherans, who 
 joined the colony almost at its commencement, were 
 not allowed to hold their worship publicly until the 
 country passed into the hands of the English.— Pro- 
 fessor Schmufker's " Retrospect of Lutheranism in the 
 , United Stales," p. 6. 
 
Chap. XIX.] 
 
 UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 91 
 
 small number of ministers only, and that 
 more for the benefit and gratification of the 
 officers connected with the government, 
 and their families, than with the view of 
 reaching the bulk of the people, who pre- 
 ferred other modes of worship. 
 
 In fine, as the colonial period drew to a 
 close, there were only two colonies in 
 which the civil power did not employ its 
 influence in supporting one or other of two 
 Communions or Churches. In New-Eng- 
 land it gave its support to Congregational- 
 ism, or, as it is called in Britain, Inde- 
 pendency, that being established in all the 
 colonies of that province, with the single 
 small exception of Rhode Island. In the 
 colonies to the south of these, from New- 
 York to Georgia, with the exception of 
 Pennsylvania, Episcopacy was the favour- 
 ed form. Even in these last, however, 
 there were material differences in the ex- 
 tent to which the principle of a church es- 
 tablishment was carried out. In New- 
 Jersey, Delaware, North Carolina, and 
 Georgia, that establishment was quite in- 
 considerable, whereas in Virginia, Mary- 
 land, New- York, and South Carolina, it 
 may be regarded as having been widely 
 and powerfully influential. 
 
 Were we to select two colonies from 
 each of these divisions as examples of the 
 two favoured types of Church government, 
 so diverse, yet about equally favoured by 
 legal enactments and a public provision, 
 we should take Massachusetts and Connec- 
 ticut in the North, and Virginia and Mary- 
 land in the South. In these we may com- 
 pare and contrast the nature and influence 
 of Independency, or the most popular form 
 of church organization, with Episcopacy ; 
 or Puritanism with High-churchism, among 
 the descendants of tlie Anglo-Saxons and 
 the Normans of the New Warld. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE INFLUENCES OF THE UNION OF CHURCH 
 AND STATE AS IT FORMERLY EXISTEO IN 
 AMERICA. 1. IN NEW-ENGLAND. 
 
 In entering upon this part of my work, I 
 should like my readers to unders.tand that 
 I wish simply to state the results, good or 
 evil, of the union of Church and State in 
 America, in so far as these were the proper 
 fruits of the particular sort of union exist- 
 ing in one or other, respectively, of the 
 two important sections of the country 
 above mentioned ; and that I have no in- 
 tention of discussing the advantages or dis- 
 advantages of a union of Church and State 
 in the abstract. We have to do, therefore, 
 with the actual results in America, not with 
 what they might have been in other cir- 
 cumstances. And as the union between 
 Church and State in the Northern section 
 
 differed in some important respects from 
 that which prevailed in the South, I shall 
 give a separate consideration to each, and 
 begin with New-England. 
 
 Let us first consider what were the ad- 
 vantages resulting from this union. 
 
 I. It is not to be denied that it proved 
 beneficial, by securing the ministrations of 
 the Gospel to the colonial settlements, as 
 fast as these were formed. The law pro- 
 vided that the country occupied should be 
 divided into " towns," or parishes, with well- 
 defined boundaries, and that as soon as a 
 certain number of families should be found 
 residing within these boundaries, a meeting 
 should be called by the proper local officers, 
 and steps taken for the establishment of 
 public worship. The expense of building 
 such a church as the majority of the inhab- 
 itants, or legal voters, might choose to 
 erect, was, like other taxes, to be levied on 
 the people of the township, according to 
 their properties and polls, and the pastors 
 stipend was, in like manner, to be fixed by 
 the decision of the majority at a like meet- 
 ing of legal voters, and raised by a general 
 yearly tax. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the township 
 was left to decide what sort of building 
 should be erected, how much should be ex- 
 pended upon it, and the amount of the pas- 
 tor's stipend. As the pastor was chosen 
 by the people, without any interference on 
 the part of the civil authorities, or any other 
 person, individual or corporate, the evils of 
 patronage were unknown. In the choice 
 of a pastor, however, be it observed, that it 
 was the invariable rule from the first, that 
 he should be called by the " church," that 
 is, by the body of believers or actual mem- 
 bers of the church — the communicants — 
 and afterward by the " town," that is, by 
 the legal voters, the vote of a majority of 
 them being requisite to the validity of a 
 call. This plan, so eminently Democratical, 
 seemed calculated to give all parties their 
 rights. In case of the " church" and the 
 " town" disagreeing as to the choice of a 
 pastor, some means were almost always 
 found for bringing about unanimity. Such, 
 in brief, was the plan pursued for above 
 150 years in Massachusetts, and, if I am 
 not mistaken, in all the other New-Eng- 
 land States, where the civil power was in 
 union v/ith the Church. 
 
 Such a law as this, if enforced, it will 
 be admitted, must have made the estab- 
 lishment of public worship keep pace with 
 the increase of the population, wherever 
 that became numerous enough, in any given 
 direction, for the building of churches, and 
 also must have secured to ministers of the 
 Gospel a steadier, and possibly, too, an am- 
 pler support than otherwise. But it may 
 be questioned whether the New-England 
 Puritans, with the dispositions and the ob- 
 jects they had in view in coming to the 
 
92 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IJ. 
 
 New World, would not have accomplished 
 of their own accord, and on what is called 
 the voluntary plan, very nearly the same 
 results, as we see is now done in Maine and 
 elsewhere, since the union between Church 
 and State has ceased. I am willing-, how- 
 ever, to allow that the system I have de- 
 scribed was in this respect decidedly bene- 
 ficial. The mere support of public wor- 
 ship was certainly never provided for in a 
 more popular or less exceptionable man- 
 ner. I speak of the law as it stood at the 
 outset, and for a long while thereafter. 
 We shall see presently what evils flowed 
 from it. 
 
 2. I have already stated that in Massa- 
 chusetts, and if not in the Connecticut 
 colony, at least in that of New-Haven, 
 political trust and power were confined to 
 members of the churches. It were absurd 
 to suppose that this law was adopted as a 
 means of promoting religion ; its authors 
 were too well acquainted with human na- 
 ture to have any such expectation. Their 
 grand object was to confine the exercise 
 of political power to persons in whom they 
 could confide. As they have been severe- 
 ly censured for their intolerance in this 
 respect, very much from ignorance, I con- 
 ceive, of their peculiar position, I may be 
 allowed to dwell for a moment on the sub- 
 ject. They had made a long voyage to 
 establish a colony in the wilderness, where 
 they and their children might enjoy liberty 
 of conscience, and worship God in purity. 
 Being all of one mind on the subject of 
 religion, as well as other great points, they 
 thought that they were fully authorized to 
 establish such a colony, and certainly it 
 would be hard to prove that they were not. 
 In these circumstances, what more natu- 
 ral than their endeavouring to prevent per- 
 sons from coming in among them to defeat 
 their object? Desiring, above all things, 
 that their institutions should continue to 
 be pervaded in all time coming with the 
 spirit in which they had been commenced, 
 they determined, in order to secure this, 
 that none but the members of their church- 
 es should enjoy the rights and privileges 
 of citizens, and by this they hoped to guard 
 against both internal and external ene- 
 mies. Dreading interference on the part 
 of England, alarmed lest the partisans of 
 the Prelacy, from which they liad just es- 
 caped, should come among them and over- 
 throw their institutions, both civil and re- 
 ligious, their object was to put an impas- 
 sable gulf between themselves and persons 
 who had no sympathy with their views 
 and feelings. And this object they cer- 
 tainly accomplished. They rescued their 
 institutions from the clutches of Charles I. 
 and Archbishop Laud.* But in doing so 
 
 ♦ It is well known that Witithrop and his com- 
 pany were scarcely settled three years in Massachu- 
 setts before King Charles began to repent that he 
 
 they exposed themselves to the greatest 
 of evils — evils whose disastrous influence 
 on Truth have not ceased to be felt down 
 to this day. 
 
 3. While the above law, no doubt, had 
 the eff'ect of keeping out of the govern- 
 ment of the colony all influences which in 
 those trying times might militate against 
 its best interests, it is no less certain that 
 it kept away men of a troublesome char- 
 acter. Many, in fact, who made the ex- 
 periment, speedily became weary of a col- 
 ony where their restless spirits found littl& 
 or no scope for interference, and accord- 
 ingly soon left, either for some other col- 
 ony, or for England. 
 
 Such, I consider, were the most impor- 
 tant advantages resulting from the union of 
 Church and State in Massachusetts, and 
 some other of the New-England colonies ; 
 and I am not disposed to deny that these 
 advantages were of no small moment in 
 the circumstances in which the colonists 
 were placed. I have next to point out 
 some of the evils resulting from it. 
 
 1. It gave rise to internal difiiculties of 
 the gravest nature with such of the colo- 
 nists as were not disposed to agree to all 
 the measures by which it was carried out, 
 and led to the adoption of the harshest 
 proceedings against those persons. One 
 of the first cases of this kind was that of 
 Roger Williams, in 1633-35, and it shook 
 the colony to its centre. That remarkable 
 man had been educated for the English 
 bar under the patronage of Sir Edward 
 Coke ; but influenced by the conviction 
 that he was called to the ministry, he took 
 orders in the Established Church. Expel- 
 led from that Church by the bishops, on 
 account of his Puritanical principles, he 
 came to Boston in 1631. 
 
 had consented to the charter. The success of the 
 Puritans in .\merica awakened the jealousy of Laud 
 and all the High Church party among the clergy. 
 Proof was produced of marriages having been per- 
 formed in the colony by civil magistrates; and it 
 was discovered that the whole colonial system of 
 Church government was at variance with the laws 
 of England. A most formidable conspiracy was 
 formed against New-England, and never were colo- 
 nies in greater danger. Even the letters patent were 
 ordered, by the royal council, to be produced in Eng- 
 land ; and nothing but the greatest adroitness on the 
 part of the colonists postponed a compliance with 
 the measure, for the primate, Archbishop Laud, and 
 his associates actually received full power over the 
 American plantations, to establish the government, 
 dictate laws, govern the Church, &c., &c. Every- 
 thing seemed to threaten ruin. In the mean viiiile 
 the colonists remonstrated, defended themselves in 
 Iheir letters as well as they could, and raised money 
 to fortify Boston. They had great need, truly, to 
 be vigilant in respect to the admission of persons to 
 authority among them. As it was, nothing saved 
 them, probably, but the breaking out of the civil war 
 in Great Britain, which gave Charles 1. enough to do 
 at home. For the details of these matters the read- 
 er is referred to the writings of Winthrop, Savage, 
 Hubbard, Hutchinson, Hazzard, and the excellent 
 statement in Bancroft's " History of the United 
 States," vol. i., p. 405-414. 
 
Chaf. XIX.] 
 
 UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 Taught by persecution to examine how 
 far human governments are authorized to 
 legishite for the human mind, and to bind 
 its facuhies by their decisions, Williams 
 soon perceived that a course w^as pursued 
 in America which he could not but con- 
 demn as repugnant to tjie rights of con- 
 science. Regarding all intolerance as sin- 
 ful, he maintained that " the doctrine of 
 persecution for cause of conscience is 
 most evidently and lamentably contrary 
 to the doctrine of Jesus Christ." The law 
 required the attendance of every man at 
 public worship ; Williams pronounced this 
 to be wrong, for to drag the unwilling to 
 public worship looked like requiring hy- 
 pocrisy. Not less did he oppose the law 
 that taxed all men for the support of a 
 system of religious worship which some 
 might dislike and conscientiously disap- 
 prove. " What !" exclaimed his antago- 
 nists, " is not the labourer worthy of his 
 hire V " Yes," he repUed, " from them 
 that hire him." Public functionaries were 
 to be taken only from among members of 
 the Church; Williams argued that, with 
 like propriety, " a doctor of physic, or a 
 pilot," might be selected according to his 
 skill in theology and his standing in the 
 Church.* In the end, Roger Williams was 
 banished from the fcolony, and having re- 
 tired to Narragansett Bay, there he be- 
 came a Baptist, and founded what is now 
 the state called Rhode Island. Absolute 
 religious liberty was established there from 
 the first. 
 
 The next case occurred in 1637, and 
 ended in the expulsion of Wheelwright, 
 Anne Hutchinson, and Aspinwall, who, al- 
 though they held some very extravagant 
 notions on certain points, would have been 
 harmless persons had the only weapon 
 employed against them been Truth. 
 
 Testimony to the like effect is borne by 
 the history of the colony in subsequent 
 years. " Since a particular form of wor- 
 ship had become a part of the civil estab- 
 lishment, irrehgion was now to be punish- 
 ed as a civil offence. The state was a 
 model of Christ's kingdom on earth ; trea- 
 son against the civil government was trea- 
 son against Christ; and reciprocally, as 
 the Gospel had the right paramount, blas- 
 phemy, or whatever a jury might call blas- 
 phemy, was the highest offence in the cat- 
 alogue of crimes. To deny any book of 
 the Old or New Testament to be the writ- 
 ten and infallible Word of God, was pun- 
 ishable by fine or by stripes, and in case 
 of obstinacy, by exile or death. Absence 
 from the ministry of the Word was pun- 
 ished by fine."t Everything indicated that 
 this union between Church and State was 
 operating in such a manner as rapidly to 
 
 * Bancroft's '« History of the United States," vol 
 i. p. 370. t Ibid., p. 450. 
 
 93 
 
 undermine the rights and principles of both. 
 The Anabaptists were treated in some 
 cases with great harshness, and when, in 
 1651, the Quakers made an attempt to es- 
 tablish themselves in tlie colony, they were 
 expelled, and prohibited from returning 
 upon pain of death ; a penalty actually 
 inflicted on four of them who returned in 
 contravention of this enactment. 
 
 These Quakers, it is true, behaved in the 
 most fanatical and outrageous manner. 
 They attacked the magistrates with the 
 grossest insults, and interrupted public 
 worship with their riotous proceedings. 
 Even women among them, forgetting the 
 proprieties and decencies of their sex, and 
 claiming Divine direction for their absurd 
 and abominable caprices, smeared their 
 faces and ran naked through the streets ! 
 It were absurd to compare them with the 
 peaceable and excellent people who bear 
 that name in our day. They gave no evi- 
 dence whatever of knowing what true re- 
 ligion means. Still, their punishment ought 
 not to have been so extreme, and should 
 have been inflicted for violating the deco- 
 rum of society, not for their supposed he- 
 retical opinions.* Now, measures so dis- 
 graceful and injurious to the colony, and 
 so contrary to what one would expect 
 from men of such excellence in other re- 
 
 * Penalties involving mutilation, such as boring 
 the tongue with a hot iron, and cutting off the ears, 
 were enacted against the Quakers in 1657, and thus 
 found a place in the statute-book of Massachusetts, 
 but were soon repealed, the colony being ashamed of 
 them. The fact was, as Mr. Bancroft says, vol. i., 
 p. 451, "the creation of a national and uncompro- 
 sing Church led the Congregationalists of Massachu- 
 setts to the indulgence of the passions which dis- 
 graced their English persecutors, and Laud was jus- 
 tified by the men whom he wronged." 
 
 But before the reader pronounces sentence, with- 
 out mitigation, upon the Puritans of Massachusetts, 
 he should refresh his remembrance of what was go- 
 ing on in England about the vear 1633. There was 
 William Prynne, Esq., barr'ister-atlaw, who was 
 condemned for writing a constructive libel on the 
 queen, by attacking the theatre, to be excluded from 
 his profession, to lose both his ears, stand iti the pil- 
 lory, pay a fine of .5000/., and to suffer imprisonment 
 for the rest of his life ! Dr. Bastwick, a physician, 
 about the same time, was condemned by the High 
 Commission to be e.Kcluded from his profes.sion, ex- 
 communicated, fined 1000/., and imprisoned till he 
 should recant, for having published a book in which 
 he denied that bishops are superior to presbyters ! 
 And then there was Dr. Alexander Leighton, a 
 Scotcli divine, the father of the celebrated Arch- 
 bishop Leighton, who was condemned in 1630, if I 
 mistake not, to pay a fine of 10,000/., to be whipped 
 at the pillory at Westminster, to have one of his 
 ears cut off, and one side of his nose slit ; then to be 
 taken to the prison for a few days ; then brought 
 to the pillory at Cheapside to be whipped, have The 
 other ear cut off, and the other side of his nose slit, 
 and be shut up in prison the rest of his days ! These 
 are unquestionable facts. And what shal'i we say of 
 the wholesale massacres of the Protestants in France, 
 in Belgium, in Bohemia, and in Moravia .' To say 
 nothing of scenes in Scotland in the days of the last 
 two Stuarts? Verily, religious liberty was but ill 
 understood in those days ! And is it well under- 
 stood, even now, in most countries of Europe .' 
 
94 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 spects, would never have been adopted had 
 it not been for laws unhappily dictated by 
 the colonial union between Church and 
 St;ite. 
 
 Forty years later, twenty persons were 
 put to death for witchcraft! Now it is 
 obvious that so absurd a spectacle would 
 never have taken place among so enlight- 
 ened a people as the colonists of Massa- 
 chusetts, within the bounds of which all 
 these executions took place, had not the 
 union of the Church and the State led the 
 government so often to act on grounds 
 purely religious, and to take cognizance 
 of subjects which no political government 
 is capable of deciding upon.* At all events, 
 the embarrassment created by Roger Will- 
 iams, the " Antinomian controversy," as 
 the contest with Wheelriglit, Anne Hutch- 
 inson, and Aspinwall was called, and the 
 persecution of the Anabaptists and Qua- 
 kers, unquestionably arose from the en- 
 forcement of the laws passed in favour of 
 the theocratic institutions of the colony, 
 and were the legitimate results of the es- 
 tablislied union between Church and State. 
 They had a special reference to the law 
 compelling every man to attend the public 
 worship of the colony. 
 
 a. Much more disastrous were the con- 
 sequences flowing from another and still 
 more fundamental law, passed by the Con- 
 script Fathers of Massachusetts and Con- 
 necticut — that of making church member- 
 ship requisite to the enjoyment of the 
 rights and privileges of citizenship. Nor 
 was it long before these consequences ap- 
 peared. Not only did many persons find 
 admission into the colonies as settlers 
 who were not members of any church in 
 the sense almost invariably attached to the 
 term in America — that is, communicants, 
 or, as they are sometimes called, " full 
 members" — but, what the worthy founders 
 seem not to have anticipated, some of their 
 own children grew up manifestly " uncon- 
 verted," and, consequently, did not become 
 communicants ; the churches planted by the 
 New-England Fathers having maintained 
 at first the strictest discipline, and allowed 
 
 * The putting of witches to death in Massachu- 
 setts was a legitimate re.sult of the attempt to build 
 up a sort of theocracy, having for its basis the civil 
 institutions of the Jewish conimonwealth. But were 
 witches nowhere put to death in those days save in 
 New-England ! Let the reader search and see. 
 
 1 ought to add, that the rulers of Massachusetts 
 put the Quakers to death, and bamshcd the ".\nti- 
 nomians" and "Anabaptists," not because of their 
 religious tenets, but because of their violations of 
 the civil laws. 'I'his is the justification which they 
 pleaded, and it was the best they could make. Mis- 
 erable excuse ! I5iit just so it is : wherever there is 
 such a union of Church and State, heresy and heret- 
 ical practices are apt to become violations of the 
 civil code, and are punished no longer as errors in 
 religion, but infractions of the laws of the land. So 
 the defendcr.s of the Inquisition have always spo- 
 ken and written in justification of that awful and 
 most iniquitous tribunal. 
 
 none to become communicants until they 
 had satisfied the proper church authorities 
 that they were converted persons, and 
 had the religious knowledge without which, 
 they could not fitly come to the Lord's 
 Supper. Persons who had not these re- 
 quisites, as might be expected, thought it 
 very hard to be excluded from the privi- 
 leges of citizenship, although, as was gen- 
 erally the case, their lives were perfectly 
 regular and moral. They therefore com- 
 plained, and their complaints were felt to 
 be reasonable, and such as parental love, 
 even in the breast of a Brutus, could not 
 long resist. 
 
 In tliese circumstances, what was the 
 course pursued by the colonial legislators, 
 after taking council of their spiritual 
 guides? Instead of abolishing the law, 
 they decided that all baptized persons 
 might be regarded as members of the 
 Church, thus directly interfering with mat- 
 ters wholly beyond the sphere of civil le- 
 gislation, and contravening, likewise, a for- 
 mer decision of the Church ; for although 
 there is a sense in which all persons bap- 
 tized in infancy are in their youth mem- 
 bers of the Church, it is only as pupils or 
 wards, and must not be confounded with 
 the membership of persons who have made 
 a profession of their faith after conversion, 
 and at an age that qualifies them for taking 
 such a step. Such, at least, is, I apprehend, 
 the opinion of all churches that maintain a 
 strict discipline. The New-England Fa- 
 thers felt tins difficulty, and accordingly it 
 was not to all baptized persons that they 
 gave the rights of citizens, but to baptized 
 persons of good moral deportment, wiio 
 came publicly forward and owned in the 
 Church the covenant made for them by 
 their parents at baptism. I give the sub- 
 stance, if not the exact words of the law. 
 This compromise settled the matter for a 
 time, by providing for the case of their 
 own young men. 
 
 This law was not so hurtful in its con- 
 sequences to the State as it was to Reli- 
 gion. The churches were filled with bap- 
 tized persons who "owned the covenant," 
 and with the lapse of time the number of 
 " full members," or communicants, dimin- 
 ished. Many now enjoyed civil privileges 
 in virtue of a less intimate connexion with 
 the Church ; this was all that they desired, 
 and with this they were too apt to be con- 
 tent. But the evil went far beyond this. 
 To escape from a state of things in which 
 the churches, though filled with baptized 
 people, had comparatively few " commu- 
 nicants," many of the pastors were led 
 into the dangerous, I may say the fatal 
 error, of considering the Lord's Supper to 
 be a means of grace, in tlie same sense 
 that the preaching of tlic Word is such, 
 and that all Avell-disposed persons may be 
 admitted to it as a means of conversion to 
 
Chap. XIX.] 
 
 UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 95 
 
 the unconverted, as well as of edification 
 to " believers," or converted persons. 
 
 Not that this was enjoined on the church- 
 es as a law of the state. But it was the 
 natural and almost inevitable,^ though indi- 
 rect, consequence of the law adjudging all 
 baptized persons who " renewed the cov- 
 enant" to be considered members of the 
 Church, and entitled to the civil privileges 
 attached to that relation. It is easy to see 
 what would follow. The former measure 
 filled the churches with baptized people 
 who owned the covenant ; the latter prac- 
 tice filled the churches with unconverted 
 communicants. In the course of a few 
 generations the standard of religious truth 
 and practice fell lower and lower. This 
 decline neeessarily bore upon the charac- 
 ter of the pastors, for upon the occurrence 
 of a vacancy, the choice, in too many cases, 
 was sure to fall upon a pastor equally low 
 in point of religious character with the par- 
 ties by whom he was chosen. Such a 
 state of things opened the way effectually 
 for the admission of false doctrine, and the 
 more so, inasmuch as there was no eflfect- 
 ual control beyond and above vvliat was to 
 be found in each individual church. But 
 this subject I may dismiss for the present, 
 as I shall have occasion to recur to it when 
 we come to consider the rise and progress 
 of Unitarianism in the United States. 
 
 So much for the ill consequences flow- 
 ing from two of the measures by which 
 the New-England Fathers endeavoured to 
 carry into operation their ideas on the 
 subject of the union that should subsist 
 between the Church and the State; let us 
 now look at the mischief produced by 
 a third measure — that, namely, requiring 
 each " town" to maintain public worship 
 by levying a tax on all the inhabitants. 
 
 3. As the people were invested by law 
 with an absolute control over the applica- 
 tion of the money so raised, no great evil 
 seemed, at first sight, likely to arise from 
 such a mode of supporting the Church ; and 
 it may readily be supposed that at the out- 
 set, when the colonists formed a homo- 
 geneous society, and were all either mem- 
 bers of the established churches, or cor- 
 dial friends and admirers of their system 
 of doctrine and church polity, this assess- 
 ment for their support would be submitted 
 to without reluctance. But in process of 
 time, when, whether from the accession of 
 fresh emigrants, or from the growing up 
 into manhood of the children of the origi- 
 nal colonists, there happened to be found 
 in any particular town a considerable 
 number of inhabitants who either disliked 
 the services of the parish church, or were 
 indifferent to religion altogether, it is clear 
 that such a law would be considered both 
 burdensome and unjust. Men can never 
 be made to feel that they can with equity 
 be required to pay taxes, in any shape, to 
 
 support a church which they dislike, and 
 to which they may have conscientious ob- 
 jections. Hence serious difTiculties, ag- 
 gravated afterward when the Legislature 
 was compelled, by the progress of true 
 principles of legislation, to extend the 
 rights of citizenship, and permission to have 
 a worship of their own, to persons of all 
 sects. It seemed unjust that these, while 
 supporting their own churches, should be 
 compelled, in addition, to contribute to- 
 wards the maintenance of the parish, or 
 town churches, which for a long time they 
 were called upon to do. 
 
 A law, however, was passed at length, 
 not exempting those who did not attend 
 the parish church from all taxation, but al- 
 lowing them to appropriate their propor- 
 tion to the support of public worship ac- 
 cording to their own wishes. Fair as this 
 seemed, it proved most disastrous in its 
 consequences to the interests of true reli- 
 gion. The haters of evangelical Christi- 
 anity could now say, " VVell, since we- 
 must be taxed in support of religion, we 
 will have what suits us," and in many 
 places societies, for it would be improper 
 to call them churches, of Universalists* 
 and Unitarians began to be formed, and 
 false preachers found support where, but 
 for this law, no such societies or preach- 
 ers would ever have existed. It is im- 
 possible to describe the mischiefs that 
 have flowed from this unfortunate meas- 
 ure, not only and particularly in Massachu- 
 setts, but likewise in Connecticut, Maine, 
 and, I believe, in New-Hampshire also. 
 With the aid of such a law, thousands, 
 who are now indiflferent to truth or error, 
 might easily be driven into Universalism, 
 or some other dangerous heresy, in any 
 part of the United States, or, rather, in any 
 part of the world where religious opinion 
 is unrestrained. 
 
 4. Only one farther measure was re- 
 quired in order to make this law for the 
 support of public worship as fatal as possi- 
 ble to the interests of true religion in Mas- 
 sachusetts. This was a decision of the 
 Supreme Court of that state, pronounced 
 some twenty or twenty-five years ago, by 
 which the distinction which had previously 
 existed between the " Church" and the 
 " town," or " parish," was destroyed in the 
 view of the law ; and the " town," that is, 
 the body of the people who were taxed for 
 the support of the parish church, was al- 
 lowed to exercise a control in the calling 
 of a pastor, and in everything else. There 
 then ensued great distress in not a few 
 parishes. In every instance in which the 
 majority of the " town" were opposed to 
 
 * By Universalists I mean those professed Chris- 
 tians in America who, with many shades of ditference 
 on the subject, agree in holding that eventually all 
 men will be saved. I shall have to speak of them 
 more at large in another place. 
 
96 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 evangelical religion, they had it in their 
 power, by stopping his salary, to turn away 
 a faithful pastor, and to choose a Univer- 
 salist or Unitari;in in his place.* This ac- 
 tually took place in numerous instances, 
 and the church, or at least the faithful part 
 of it, which was often the majority, was 
 compelled to abandon the edifice in which 
 their fathers had worshipped, with what- 
 ever endowments it might have, and to 
 build for themselves a new place of wor- 
 ship, call a pastor, and support him on the 
 voluntary plan. The evil, however, which 
 might have gone to still greater lengths, 
 was arrested in Massachusetts in 1833, by 
 the final dissolution of the union between 
 Church and State, in a way hereafter to be 
 described. 
 
 Such is a simple, brief, and, I trust, com- 
 prehensible view of the chief consequen- 
 ces resulting in New-England from the 
 union of Church and State, long maintain- 
 ed in that part of America. The reader 
 will draw his own conclusions from this ex- 
 hibition of facts, in all essential points un- 
 questionably correct. That some of these 
 consequences were beneficial, none will 
 deny ; but that these were more than coun- 
 terbalanced by others of an opposite ten- 
 dency, is, I think, no less manifest.! 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE INFLUENCES OF THE UNION OF CHURCH 
 AND STATE. 2. IN THE SOUTHERN AND MID- 
 DLE STATES. 
 
 Havlvg seen what a Church establish- 
 ment did for Congregationalism in New- 
 England, we have now to see what it did 
 for Episcopacy in other provinces, and 
 particularly in the South. In the case of 
 the latter, as in the former, the nature of 
 the connexion between Church and State, 
 and the kind of Church establishment, were 
 very diflerent in different colonies. That 
 connexion was closest, and the support 
 given to religion most effective, in Virgin- 
 ia; next to it in these respects comes Ma- 
 ryland, and New-York occupies the third 
 place. 
 
 In Virginia, we find that the three main 
 laws connecting the Church and the State 
 were substantially the same as those of 
 
 * In many cases there was no great ditlicnlty in get- 
 ting such a majority, by persnacjing the Uiiiversahsts 
 and others, who might have eea.sed for years to allow 
 themselves to be considered to belong to the parish, 
 or congregation, or society, worshipping at the par- 
 ish church, to return at least for a year or so, since 
 by so doing, and paying again the assessment for the 
 parish church, they could vote at its meetings. 
 
 t The reader will find in the " Spirit of the Pil- 
 grims," vol. i. (a work published in Boston in 1820- 
 1833), the fullest details on this subject that have ap- 
 peared as yet in any one publication. 
 
 Massachusetts at a later date. 1. The 
 country was divided into parishes, the in- 
 habitants of which were required to build, 
 furnish, and uphold churches, and maintain 
 a pastor, by an assessment proportioned to 
 their respective means, these being esti- 
 mated by the quantity of tobacco that they 
 raised, that being the chief article of their 
 commerce and of their wealth. 2. The 
 people were required to attend the estab- 
 lished churches, which were for a long 
 time the only ones that existed, or that 
 were permitted to exist in the colony. 
 3. The rights of citizenship were confined 
 to members of the Episcopal Church. 
 
 Now, it is beyond dispute that the divis- 
 ion of the country into parishes, the erec- 
 tion of churches, and the providing of 
 glebes for the rectors and ministers, was 
 useful both in Virginia and Maryland. The 
 picture presented by Dr. Hawks, in his in- 
 teresting and valuable sketches of the Epis- 
 copal Church in those colonies, is delight- 
 ful as far as relates to these outward and 
 material matters. Besides, there was a 
 special necessitj^ for some such legislation 
 in Episcopalian colonies of the High Church 
 party, if I may so designate them, as was 
 the case with Virginia ; for, although it 
 would be imfair to tax them with a total, 
 or almost total, want of true living piety, 
 they certainly had not the fervent zeal, the 
 devoted enthusiasm in the cause of reli- 
 gion, which mingled with all the proceed- 
 ings of the Puritans. If, in fact, in any 
 part of America, the union of Church and 
 State was beneficial, or even indispensable 
 in securing the formation of parishes and 
 the building of churches, it was in the 
 Southern colonies, planted as these were 
 by the friends of Prelacy par exceUence, 
 men afraid of fanaticism in religion, what- 
 ever they might think of it in some other 
 things. These advantages were, in pro- 
 cess of time, secured at intervals along the 
 banks of the noble rivers of Virginia, until, 
 at the commencement of the Revolution, 
 that colony could boast of ninety-seven 
 parishes, more than that number of church- 
 es, if we include chapels of ease, and above 
 a hundred ministers. 
 
 This is the chief, or, rather, the only 
 benefit conferred on Virginia by the con- 
 nexion of the (Church with the State ; for 
 the maintenance of the clergy, as Dr. 
 Hawks remarks, can hardly be reckoned 
 one, inasmuch as that was nearly, if not 
 altogether, voluntary on the part of the 
 parishioners, and was by no means en- 
 forced as the law contemplated. During a 
 large part of the colonial period, too, the 
 want of ministers greatly diminished the 
 advantages that might have accrued from 
 having parishes marked out and churches 
 built in them. Thus, in 1019, there were 
 eleven parishes and only five ministers ; 
 and in 1661, the parishes in Virginia were 
 
Chap. XX.] 
 
 UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 97 
 
 about fifty, and the ministers only about 
 a fifth part of that number.* 
 
 But granting that the support secured by 
 law to Episcopacy was ample, which in 
 Virginia it was hot, let us notice some of 
 the evils attending on this union of Church 
 and State, and see whether they did not 
 counterbalance all the admitted good. The 
 first of these, and it was no trifling one, 
 was the antipathy which such compulsory 
 measures created towards the favoured 
 Church. Men were displeased, and felt 
 aggrieved at being taxed for the support of 
 a church whose services they did not fre- 
 quent, but to which they might otherwise 
 have felt no hostility, nay, to which they 
 might by a different course have been 
 won. This was particularly the case in 
 those colonies where the favour shown to 
 the Episcopal Church did not exclude the 
 toleration of other religious bodies, that is, 
 in all in which Episcopacy was established 
 except Virginia. Episcopacy, in fact, be- 
 came influential and powerful, in most ca- 
 ses, long after the colonies were founded, 
 and owed its pre-eminence purely to the 
 favour of the state, as we have seen in the 
 colonies of Maryland, the Carolinas, New- 
 York, New-Jersey, &c. In all these, tax- 
 es for the support of a dominant church, 
 representing in some instances bat a mere 
 fraction of the population, were extremely 
 off"ensive to those who were members of 
 other churches or of none, and proved 
 hurtful, in the end, to the Episcopal Church 
 itself. It attached a stigma to it which it 
 took a long time to efface; the more so as, 
 when the Revolution was drawing on, it 
 began to be viewed as the Church favoured 
 of the mother-country, with which the col- 
 onists were about to enter into a war for 
 what they deemed to be their rights. 
 Thus the cause of that Church became 
 identified so far with that of the enemies 
 of the country, as they were called. This 
 twofold animosity long prevailed in the 
 very states where the Episcopal Church 
 was once predominant, and no doubt con- 
 tributed to retard its progress in later 
 times, so that any former favours received 
 from the state may be regarded as having 
 been very dearly purchased. 
 
 2. As respects Virginia at least, the inter- 
 ests of true religion and of the Episcopal 
 Church were seriously injured by the com- 
 pulsory attendance upon the services of the 
 churehes, &c., noticed in a former chapter. 
 In th6 justness of the following remarks 
 every well-informed man must heartily 
 concur: " T6 coerce men into the outward 
 exercise of religious acts by penal laws is 
 indeed possible ; but to make them love* 
 either the religion which is thus enforced, 
 or those who enforce it, is beyond the 
 reach of human power. There is an in- 
 
 * Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church 
 in Virginia," p. 64. 
 G 
 
 lierent principle of resistance to oppres- 
 sion seated in the very constitution of most 
 men, which disposes them to rebel against 
 the arbitrary exercise of violence seeking 
 to give direction to opinions ; and it is 
 not, therefore, to be wondered at, that one 
 sanguinary law to compel men to live 
 piously should beget the necessity for 
 more."* 
 
 3. Another evil resulting from the union 
 between Church and State in the Southern 
 colonies, and particularly in Virginia and 
 Maryland, is to be found in the almost inces- 
 sant disputes that long prevailed between 
 the colonial governors and the parish ves- 
 tries respecting the right of presentation, 
 which was claimed by both parties. In this 
 contest the Virginia vestries were, upon the 
 whole, successful ; still, as the governor 
 claimed the right of inductivg, there were 
 often serious collisions. In order to evade 
 the force of that principle in English law, 
 which gives a minister, when once install- 
 ed as pastor, a sort of freehold interest in 
 the parish, and renders his ejectment al- 
 most impossible, unless by deposition from 
 the sacred office altogether, in conse- 
 quence of his being found guilty of some 
 flagrant enormity, instead of presenting a 
 minister, tlie vestries often preferred em- 
 ploying him from year to year, so as to 
 have it in their power to dismiss him 
 when they thought fit ; and this refusal to 
 present involved, of course, an inability 
 on the governor's part to induct. In Mary- 
 land the governors long insisted on exer- 
 cising the right of presentation, a right 
 that put it into their power to thrust very 
 unworthy pastors into the Church. But 
 the case was not much better when left to 
 the vestries, these being often composed 
 of men by no means fit to decide upon the 
 qualifications of a pastor. In no case does 
 it appear that the Church itself, that is, the 
 body of the communicants, possessed the 
 privilege of choosing a pastor for them- 
 selves. 
 
 4. A fourth evil resulting from the union 
 of Church and State in the colonies where 
 the Episcopal Church was established, lay 
 in this, that the ministers required from 
 time to time by the churches behooved to 
 come from England, or, if Americans by 
 birth, to receive ordination from some bish- 
 op in England, generally the Bishop of Lon- 
 don, to whose superintendence and gov- 
 ernment the Episcopal Church in America 
 seems to have been intrusted. As there 
 was no bishop in America during the whole 
 colonial period, this disadvantage contin- 
 ued down to the Revolution. 
 
 No doubt, many worthy men, endued 
 with the true spirit of their calling and of- 
 fice, were sent over by the bishops who 
 successively occupied the See of London, 
 
 * Dr. Hawks's " Histor)' of the Episcopal Church 
 in Virginia," p. 49. 
 
93 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book nr 
 
 some of whom took a deep interest in 
 the Colonial Church. Still, it is no less 
 true that many of a very different stamp 
 were sent over, or came of their own ac- 
 cord, and these, after being once inducted 
 into a parish, it was found almost impos- 
 sible to remove. At a distance from Eng- 
 land, and beyond the immediate inspection 
 of the only bishop that seemed to have 
 any authority over them, they generally 
 contrived to secure impunity, not only for 
 the neglect of their duties, but even for 
 flagrant crimes. Some cases of the most 
 shocking delinquency and open sin occur- 
 red both in Virginia and Alaryland, with- 
 out the possibility, it would seem, of their 
 being reached and punished. All that 
 could be done by persons commissioned by 
 the Bishop of London to act for him, under 
 the name of commissaries, was done by 
 such men as Drs. lihiir and Bray, and their 
 successors, but the evil was too deep to be 
 effectually extirpated by anything short of 
 the exercise of full Episcopal authority on 
 the spot. Besides tr<idilional evidence of 
 "the immoralities of some of the established 
 clergy in Virginia and Mnryland, we learn 
 their existence and character from indu- 
 bitable histories written by Episcopalians 
 themselves, and they were such as even 
 to call for the interference of the colonial 
 legislatures. The General Assembly of 
 Virginia, in 1631. enacted that " Mynisters 
 shall not give themselves to excess in 
 drinkinge or riott, spendinge theire tyme 
 idellye by day or night, etc."* The fact 
 is, that worthless and incapable men in 
 every profession were wont to leave the 
 mother-country for the colonies, where 
 they thought they might succeed better 
 than ill England ; and such of them as be- 
 loiig(!d to the clerical profession very nat- 
 urally supposed that they might find com- 
 fortable '• livings"' in those colonies, where 
 their own church was established, and 
 where they heard that there was so great 
 a deficiency of clergymen. f 
 
 5. And, lastly, one of the greatest evils 
 of the Establishment we are speaking of, 
 is to be found in the shameful acts of in- 
 tolerance and oppression to which it led. 
 Although the Quakers were in no instance 
 
 * Hening's " Laws of Virginia," 7th Car, i. At a 
 much later period. Sir William Berkeley, governor 
 of Virginia, in reply to this iii(i\iiry from the Lords 
 of Plantations, " What provision is there made for 
 the paying of your ministers?" stated, "We have 
 forty-eight parishes, and our ministers are well paid. 
 But as of ail other commodities, so of this, the worst 
 are sent to tis." — See " Appendix to Htning's Collec- 
 tion." 
 
 t Even so lato as 175L the Bishop of London, 
 in a letter to the well-known Dr. Doddridge, says 
 upon this subject, " Of those that are sent from 
 hence, a great part are of the Scotch-Irish, who can 
 get no employment at home, and enter into the ser- 
 vice more out of necessity than choice. Some oth- 
 ers are willing to go abroad to retrieve either lost 
 fortunes or lost character." — See Biblical Repertory 
 and Princeton Review for April, 1840." 
 
 put to death in Virginia, yet they were 
 subjected to much persecution and annoy- 
 ance, and were glad in many cases to es- 
 cape into North Carolina. The Puritans,, 
 too, were much disliked, and severe laws 
 were passed " to prevent the infection from 
 reaching the country."* Archbishop Laud's 
 authority stood as high in Virginia as in 
 England. An offender against that author- 
 ity, of the name of Reek, was, in 1642, pil- 
 j loried for two hours, with a label on his- 
 back setting forth liis offence, then fined 
 jC50, and imprisoned during the pleasure 
 of the governor.! 
 
 It would appear, however, either that 
 all this vigilance could not keep out the 
 Puritans, or else that some of the Virgini- 
 ans themselves had become so disgusted 
 with their own as to wish for Puritan 
 preachers. Be that as it may, certain it 
 is that in 1612 there was transmitted to 
 Boston from certain persons in Virginia 
 an application for preachers, and that two 
 actually went from Massachusetts and one 
 from Connecticut, but were dismissed by 
 the governor. Governor W^inthrop, speak- 
 ing of this affair in his Journal, says that, 
 though the state did silence the ministers, 
 because they would not conform to the 
 order of England, yet the people resorted 
 to them in private houses to hear them. J 
 
 In fact, it was not until the lapse of a 
 century after those times that toleration 
 was established in Virginia, through the 
 persevering efforts of the Presbyterians 
 and other non-established denominations, 
 whose friends and partisans had by that 
 time greatly increased, partly in conse- 
 quence of this very intolerance on the part 
 of the government, but chiefly by immi- 
 gration, so far as to outnumber the Epis- 
 copalians of the province when the war of 
 the Revolution commenced. 
 
 As for Maryland, although the Quakers 
 were greatly harassed in that colony for 
 some time, and Roman Catliolics were 
 treated with grievous injustice, yet there 
 never was the same intolerance manifest- 
 ed towards those who were called Dissent- 
 ers, as had been shown in Virginia. The 
 Protestant Episcopal Church was estab- 
 lished there by law in 161)2, but not in fact 
 until 1702. 
 
 But in no colony in which Episcopacy 
 became established by law was there more 
 intolerance displayed than in New- York. 
 That establishment was effected in 1693 
 by Governor Fletcher, who soundly rated 
 the Legislature because not disposed to 
 comply with all his wishes. But in zeal 
 for Episcopacy he was outdone by one of 
 his successors, Lord Cornbury, a descend- 
 ant of Lord Clarendon, who would fain 
 
 * Hening's " Virginia Statutes," 223. 
 t Ibid., 552. 
 
 t Savage's Winthrop, p. 92. Hubbard's " History 
 of New-England," p. 141. 
 
GhAP. XXI.] 
 
 RELIGION DURING THE COLONIAL ERA. 
 
 99 
 
 have deprived the Dutch of their privile- 
 ges, and forced them into the Episcopal 
 Church. He had orders from the govern- 
 ment at home " to give all countenance 
 and encouragement to the exercise of the 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of 
 London, as far as conveniently might be 
 in the province ; that no schoolmaster be 
 henceforward permitted to come from this 
 kingdom, and keep a school in that our 
 said province, without the license of our 
 said Lord Eisliop of London."* 
 
 In what has been said of the intolerance 
 manifested in several of the colonies m 
 which the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 was established, I would not be under- 
 stood as charging such intolerance upon 
 that Church. No doubt men of an intol- 
 erant spirit were to be found in it, but, alas! 
 true religious liberty, and an enlarged spir- 
 it of toleration, were far from being gen- 
 eral in those days ; but it had members 
 also of a most catholic spirit, who neither 
 could nor did approve of such acts as the 
 above. The intolerance was rather that of 
 the colonial governments, and to them 
 properly belongs the credit or discredit at- 
 tached to it. 
 
 In conclusion, I cannot but think that 
 the union of the Episcopal Church with the 
 State in some colonies, and of the Congre- 
 gational Church with the civil power in oth- 
 ers, was, upon the whole, far more mis- 
 chievous than beneficial ; an opinion in 
 which 1 feel persuaded that the great body 
 ahke of the Episcopal and Congregational 
 ministers concur. Had the founders of 
 the Episcopal Church in Virginia and Ma- 
 ryland, excellent men as 1 believe they 
 were, gone to work in reliance on the 
 blessing of God upon their efforts, and en- 
 deavoured to raise up a faithful native min- 
 istry, trusting to the willingness of the 
 people to provide for their support, I doubt 
 not that they would have succeeded far 
 better in building up the Episcopal Church 
 than they did with all the advantages of 
 the State alliance which they enjoyed. 
 They would doubtless have had to encoun- 
 ter many difficulties, but they would have 
 laid a surer foundation also for ultimate 
 success. Dr. Hawks gives a painfully in- 
 teresting narrative of the struggles which 
 the established clergy of Virginia and Ma- 
 ryland had to sustain with their parishion- 
 ers about their salaries ; the one party stri- 
 ving to obtain what the law assigned to 
 them ; the other, aided even at times by 
 legislative enactments, availing themselves 
 of every stratagem in order to evade the 
 legal claims of the clergy. The time and 
 anxiety, the wearing out of mind and body, 
 which these disputes cost faithful minis- 
 ters, not to mention the sacrifice of influ- 
 ence, would have been lai d out better and 
 
 *• " History of the Evangelical Churches of New- 
 York." 
 
 more pleasantly in the unembarrassed 
 work of their calling ; nor were they like- 
 ly to have been worse off in respect of 
 this world's blessings than the faithful 
 among them really were. 
 
 Assuredly the Episcopal Church in the 
 United States at the present day furnish- 
 es decisive proof that Episcopacy can ex- 
 ist and flourish without aid from the civil 
 government. Dr. Hawks thinks that it 
 has even peculiar advantages for self-sus- 
 tentation, proved, as he conceives, by the 
 experience of the Episcopal Church iu 
 Scotland, and that of the Syrian Churches 
 in India, as well as the history of that 
 Church in the United States. Without ex- 
 pressing an opinion on that point, 1 hesi- 
 tate not to say that the Episcopal Church, 
 with all the advantage of having the peo- 
 ple enlisted on her side in several of the 
 colonies at the outset, and sustained as she 
 was by the prestige of the National Church 
 of the mother-country, would have done 
 far better had she relied on her own re- 
 sources under God, in the faithful itiinis- 
 tration of his Word, and of the ordinances 
 of His House, than in trusting to the arm 
 of the State in the colonies in which she 
 endeavoured to plant herself. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI, 
 
 STATE OF RELIGION DURING THE COLONIAL ERA. 
 
 Before quitting the Colonial Era in the 
 history of the United States, let us take 
 a general view of the state of religion 
 throughout all the colonies during the pe- 
 riod of 168 years, from 1607 to the com- 
 mencement of the war of the Revolution 
 in 1775. 
 
 As communities, the Anglo-American 
 colonies, from their earliest days, were 
 pervaded by religious influence, not equal- 
 ly powerful, yet real and salutary in all. 
 This was especially true of New-England, 
 whose first settlers openly declared to the 
 world that they left their native land nOt 
 so much to promote individual religion a.s 
 to form Christian societies. They could 
 have maintained silent, personal, individu- 
 al communion with their heavenly Father 
 in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, or in Hol- 
 land, as did some recluses in the monastic 
 institutions of the earlier and Middle Ages. 
 But they had no such purpose. Their 
 Christianity was of a diffusive kind; their 
 hearts yearned for opportunities of extend- 
 ing it. Religion with them was not only 
 a concern between man and God, but one 
 in which society at large had a deep inter- 
 est. Hence some fruits of this high and 
 holy principle might be expected in the 
 communities which they founded, and we 
 not unreasonably desire to know how far 
 
100 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book 11. 
 
 the result corresponded with such excel- 
 lent iutentioas. It were unfair, however, 
 to expect much in this way, considering 
 the circumstances of the colonists, settling 
 in a remote wilderness, amid fierce and 
 cruel savages, and exposed to all the fa- 
 tigues and sicknesses incident to such a 
 settlement, and to the anxieties and diffi- 
 culties attending the organization of their 
 governments, collisions with the mother- 
 country, and participation in all that coun- 
 try's wars. 
 
 The colonial era may, for the sake of 
 convenience, be divided into four periods. 
 The first of these, extending from the ear- 
 liest settlement of Virginia in 1607 to 1660, 
 was one in which religion greatly flour- 
 ished, notwithstanding the trials incident 
 to settlements amid the forests, and the 
 troubles attending the establishment of the 
 colonial governments. Peace with the 
 Aborigines sufiered few interruptions, the 
 only wars worth mentioning being that 
 with the Pequods in (Connecticut, in 1637 ; 
 that between the Dutch and the Algon- 
 quins, in 1643 ; and those that broke out in 
 Virginia in l(i2-2 and 1644, which were at 
 once tiie first and the last, and by far the 
 most disastrous of that period. But these 
 wars were soon over, and a few years suf- 
 ficed to repair whatever loss they occa- 
 sioned to the colonists. 
 
 This was the period in which those ex- 
 cellent men who either came over with 
 the first colonies, or soon afterward joined 
 them, laboured long, and very successfully, 
 for the salvation of souls. Among these 
 were Wilson, and Cotton, and Shepard, 
 and .Mather (Richard), and Philips, and 
 Higginson, and Skelton, in the colony of 
 Massachusetts Bay ; Brewster in Plym- 
 outh ; Hooker in Connecticut ; Davenport 
 in New-Haven ; and Hunt and VVhitaker in 
 Virginia. Several of the contemporary 
 magistrates, also, were distinguished for 
 their piety and zeal ; such as the governors 
 Winthrop of Massachusetts, Bradford and 
 Winslow of Plymouth, Haynes of Con- 
 necticut, and Katon of New- Haven. To 
 these we must add Roger Williams, who 
 was pastor, and, for a time, governor in 
 Providence. 
 
 This was the golden Age of the colonial 
 cycle. God poured out his Spirit in many 
 places. Precious seasons were enjoyed by 
 the churches in Boston, in Salem, in Plym- 
 outh, in Hartford, and in New-Haven. Nor 
 were the labours of faithful men in Virginia 
 without a rich blessing. Days of fasting 
 and prayer were frequently and faithfully 
 observed. God was entreated to dwell 
 among the people. Religion was felt to be 
 the most important of blessings, both for 
 the individual man and for llic State. Re- 
 vivals were highly prized, and earnestly 
 sought ; nor were they sought in vain. 
 The journals of (Jovernor Winthrop, and 
 
 other good men of that day, present most 
 interesting details in pro^f of this. Amer- 
 ica has seen more extensive, but never 
 more unequivocal, works of grace, or more 
 indubitable operations of the Spirit. 
 
 Nor were the aboriginal heathen around 
 the colonies forgotten in those days. El- 
 liot and others laboured with great suc- 
 cess among the Indians in the vicinity of 
 Boston. Several thousand souls were con- 
 verted. The Bible was translated into 
 their tongue. Nor was it in Massachu- 
 setts alone that men cared for the souls of 
 the " Salvages," as they were called. In 
 Virginia, an Indian princess, Pocahontas, 
 received the Gospel, was baptized, and be- 
 came a consistent member of a Christian 
 Church. Another convert, Chanco, was 
 the instrument, under God, of saving the 
 colony from entire extirpation. 
 
 The commencement of the colonization 
 of America was certainly auspicious for 
 the cause of true religion. 
 
 The second period is one of sixty years, 
 from 1660 to 1720. 
 
 This might be called the brazen age of the 
 colonies. Almost all of them experienced 
 times of trouble. Massachusetts suffered 
 in 1675 from a most disastrous war with 
 " King Philip," the chief of the Pokanokets, 
 and with other tribes which afterward 
 joined in a general endeavour to expel or 
 exterminate the colonists. Violent dis- 
 putes arose with the government of Eng- 
 land respecting the rights of the colony, 
 and to these were added internal dissen- 
 sions about witchcraft, and other exciting 
 subjects, chiefly of a local nature. In Vir- 
 ginia, in 1675-76, there were a serious In- 
 dian war and a " Grand Rebellion," which 
 threatened ruin to the colony. And in the 
 Carolinas a desolating war with the Tus- 
 caroras broke out in 1711-12. 
 
 Besides these greater causes of trouble 
 and excitement, there were others which 
 it is not necessary to indicate. The influ- 
 ence of growing prosperity may, however, 
 be mentioned. The colonies had now ta- 
 ken permanent root. They might be sha- 
 ken, but could not be eradicated or over- 
 thrown by the rude blasts of misfortune. 
 Their wealth was increasing; their com- 
 merce was already considerable, and at- 
 tracted many youth to the seas. Every 
 war which England had with France or 
 Spain agitated her colonies also. 
 
 These causes concurring with the disas- 
 trous consequences of the union of Church 
 and State already described, led to a great 
 decline of vital Christianity, and although 
 partial revivals took place, the all-perva- 
 ding piety that characterized the first gen- 
 eration suffered a great diminution. The 
 liglit of holiness grew faint and dim. and 
 morality, in general, degenerated in a like 
 degree. The Fathers had gone to the 
 tomb, and were succeeded, upon the whole, 
 
Chap. XXI.] 
 
 RELIGION DURING THE COLONIAL ERA. 
 
 101 
 
 by inferior men. The second Governor 
 Winthrop, it is tme, showed himself, in the 
 administration 8f the united colonies of 
 Connecticut, to be a great and good man, 
 and a father alike to the Church and the 
 State. Among the ministers, too, there 
 was a considerable number of distinguished 
 men ; but their labours were not equally 
 blessed with those of the Fathers. Among 
 the best known were the Mathers, Increase 
 and Cotton, father and son, the latter more 
 distinguished for the extent and variety of 
 his acquirements than for soundness of 
 judgment ;* Norton and others in Massa- 
 chusetts ; Pierpont in Connecticut ; Dr. 
 Blair, who for a long time was the Bishop 
 of London's commissary in Virginia ; Dr. 
 Bray, who held the same office in Maryland, 
 two persons to whom the Episcopal Church 
 in those colonies was much indebted for 
 its prosperity. 
 
 The faithful pastors in New-England re- 
 ceived an accession to their number, in the 
 early part of this period, by the arrival from 
 England of some of the two thousand min- 
 isters who were ejected there for non-con- 
 formity, soon after the accession of Charles 
 IL 
 
 The third period, comprehending the thir- 
 ty years from 17-20 to 1750, was distinguish- 
 ed by extensive revivals of religion, and 
 this, notwithstanding the agitation produced 
 in the colonies, by the share they had in 
 the war between France and England to- 
 wards the close of that period, and other 
 unfavourable circumstances besides. The 
 Great Awakening,! as it has been called, 
 infused a new life into the churches, more 
 especially in New-England, in certain parts 
 of New- York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
 and some other colonies, and its effects 
 were visible long afterward in many places. 
 It is true that fanatical teachers did much 
 mischief in several quarters by associating 
 themselves with the work of God, and in- 
 troducing their own unwarrantable meas- 
 ures, so as to rob it, in the end, of much of 
 the glorious character that distinguished it 
 at first. Yet it cannot be denied that it 
 was a great blessing to the churches. Some 
 
 * Cotton Mather's acquirements were really pro- 
 digious, considering the age and the circumstances 
 in which he lived. His publications amounted to no 
 fewer than 3S2, several of which, such as his " Mag- 
 iialia.orthe Ecclesiastical History of New-England," 
 were large works. He displayed, however, such a 
 mixture of credulity, pedantry, and bad taste, that he 
 was not appreciated as he deserved. The part which 
 he look in the affair of the witches, though greatly 
 misrepresented by some writers, did him vast injury. 
 He was singularly given to believe all sorts of mar- 
 vellous stories. 
 
 t For a full and able account of this great work of 
 grace, as well as of other revivals of religion, of un- 
 usual power and extent in America, see a work pub- 
 lished at Boston in 1842, entitled the " Great Awa- 
 kening," by the Rev. Joseph Tracy. It is by far 
 the fullest account of the early revivals in America 
 that has yet appeared, and being derived from au- 
 thentic sources, is worthy of entire credence. 
 
 important, though painful lessons, were 
 learned, in regard to the economy of the 
 Spirit, which have not been wholly forgot- 
 ten to this day. 
 
 This was the period in which Edwards 
 and Prince, Frelinghuysen, Dickinson, Fin- 
 ley, and the Tennents, laboured in the 
 Northern and the Middle States ; Davies, 
 and others of kindred spirit, in Virginia ; 
 the Wesleys for a while in Georgia ; while 
 Whitfield, like the angel symbolized in the 
 Apocalypse as flying through the heavens, 
 having the everlasting Gospel to preach to 
 the nations, traversed colony after colony 
 in his I'epeated visits to the New World, 
 and was made an instrument of blessing to 
 multitudes. 
 
 The fourth and concluding period of the 
 Colonial Era comprehends the twenty-five 
 years from 1750 to 1775, and was one of 
 great public agitation. In the early part 
 of it the colonies aided England with all 
 their might in another war with France, 
 ending in the conquest of the Canadas, 
 which were secured to the conquerors by 
 the treaty of Paris in 1763. In the latter 
 part of it men's minds became universally 
 engrossed with the disputes between the 
 colonies and the mother-country, and when 
 all prospect of having these brought to 
 an amicable settlement seemed desperate, 
 preparation began to be made for that 
 dreadful alternative — war. Such a state of 
 things could not fail to have an untoward 
 influence on religion. Yet most of those 
 distinguished men whom I have spoken of 
 as labouring in the latter part of the imme- 
 diately preceding period, were spared to 
 continue their work in the beginning of 
 this. Whitfield renewed from time to time 
 his angel visits, and the Spirit was not 
 grieved quite away from the churches by 
 the commotions of the people. Still, no 
 such glorious scenes were beheld during 
 this period as had been witnessed in the 
 last ; on the contrary, that declension in 
 spiritual life, and spiritual effort, which war 
 ever occasions, was now everywhere visi- 
 ble, even before hostilities had actually 
 commenced. 
 
 Such is the very cursory and imperfect 
 review which the limits of this work per- 
 mit us to take of the religious vicissitudes 
 of the United States during their colonial 
 days. That period of 168 years was, com- 
 paratively speaking, one of decline, and 
 even deadness, in the greater part of Prot- 
 estant Europe ; indeed, the latter part may 
 be regarded as having been so universally. 
 Yet, during the same period, I feel very 
 certain that a minute examination of the 
 history of the American Protestant church- 
 es would show that in no other part of 
 Christendom, in proportion to the popula- 
 tion, was there a greater amount of true 
 knowledge of the Gospel, and of practical 
 godliness, among both ministers and their 
 
102 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 flocks. No doubt there were long intervals 
 of coldness, or, rather, of deadness, as to 
 spiritual things, during which both pastors 
 and people became too much engrossed 
 with the " cares of life." But, blessed be 
 God, he did not abandon us forever. Though 
 he visited our transgressions with a rod, 
 and chastised us for our sins, yet he re- 
 membered the covenant which he made 
 
 with our fathers, and the Word of his prom- 
 ise wherein he had caused them to trust. 
 And though our unwort^hess and our un- 
 profitableness had been great, he did not 
 cast us away from his sight, but deigned 
 to hear us when we called upon him in the 
 dark and gloomy hour, and saved us with 
 a great salvation. And this he did " be- 
 cause his mercy endureth forever." 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE NATIONAL ERA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION UPON RELIGION. 
 
 CHANGES TO WHICH IT NECESSARILY GAVE 
 
 RISE. 
 
 From the Colonial we now proceed to 
 the National period in the history of the 
 United States. 
 
 The first twenty-five years of the national 
 existence of the States were fraught with 
 evil to the cause of religion. First came 
 the war of the Revolution, which literally 
 engrossed all men's minds. The popula- 
 tion of the country at its commencement 
 scarcely, if at all, exceeded 3,500,000 ; and 
 for a people so few and so scattered, divided 
 into thirteen colonies, quite independent, at 
 the outset, of each other, having no national 
 treasury, no central government or power, 
 nothing, in short, to unite them but one 
 common feeling of patriotism, it was a gi- 
 gantic undertaking. The war was followed 
 by a long period of prostration. Connex- 
 ion with I'higland having been dissolved, the 
 colonies had to assume the form of states, 
 their governments had to be reorganized, 
 and a general, or federal government, insti- 
 tuted. The infant nation, now severed 
 from the mother-country, had to begin an 
 eJcistence of its own, at the cost of years 
 of anxiety and agitation. Dangers threat- 
 ened it on every side, and scarcely had the 
 General Government been organized, and 
 the states learned to know their places a 
 little in the federal ecoiiomy, when the 
 French Revolution burst forth like a volca- 
 no, and threatened to sweep the United 
 States into its fiery stream. In the end it 
 led them to declare war against France for 
 their national honour, or, rather, for their 
 national existence. That war was happily 
 brought to an end by Napoleon, on his be- 
 coming First Consul, and tluis was the in- 
 fant country allow(;d to enjoy a little longer 
 repose, as far as depended on foreign na- 
 tions. 
 
 Unfavourable to the promotion of religion 
 as were the whole twenty-five years from 
 
 1775 to 1800, the first eight, spent in hos- 
 tilities with England, were pre-eminently 
 so. The eff"ects of war on the churches of 
 all communions were extensively and va- 
 riously disastrous. To say nothing of the 
 distraction of the mind from the subject of 
 salvation, its more palpable influences were 
 seen and felt everywhere. Young men 
 were called away from the seclusion and 
 protection of the parental roof, and from 
 the vicinity of the oracle of God, to the de- 
 moralizing atmosphere of a camp ; congre- 
 gations were sometimes entirely broken 
 up ; churches were burned, or converted 
 into barracks or hospitals, by one or other 
 of the belligerant armies, often by both 
 successively ; in more than one instance 
 pastors were murdered ; the usual minis- 
 terial intercourse was interrupted ; efforts 
 for the dissemination of the Gospel were, 
 in a great measure, suspended ; colleges 
 and other seminaries of learning were 
 closed for want of students and professors ; 
 and the public morals in various respects, 
 and in almost all possible ways, deterio- 
 rated. Christianity is a religion of peace, 
 and the tempest of war never fails to blast 
 and scatter the leaves of the Tree which 
 was planted for the healing of the nations. 
 
 A single passage from a letter, written 
 by a distinguished and most excellent Ger- 
 man clergyman,* will give the reader some 
 idea of the state of things during that war. 
 It was written not long after its commence- 
 ment. The perusal of it cannot fail to im- 
 press the mind of every Christian with the 
 duty of praying that the peace which now 
 so happily reigns among the nations may 
 evermore continue : 
 
 " Throughout the whole country great 
 preparations are making for the war, and 
 almost every person is under arms. The 
 
 * The Rev. Dr. Helmuth, formerly pastor in Phil- 
 adelphia. The letter from which the extract given 
 in the text is taken is found in the " Hallische Nach- 
 nchlen," p. 1.3;>7-H, antl quoted by Professor Schmuck- 
 er in his " Retrospect of Lutheranism in the United 
 States." 
 
Chap. I.] 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 103 
 
 erdour manifested in these melancholy cir- 
 cumstances is indescribable. If a hundred 
 men are required^nany more Immediately 
 offer, and are dissatisfied when they are 
 not accepted. I know of no similar case 
 in history. Neighbourhoods, concerning 
 which it would have been expected that 
 years would be requisite to induce them 
 •voluntarily to take up arms, became strong- 
 ly inclined for war as soon as the battle of 
 Lexington was known. Quakers and Men- 
 nonists take part in the military exercises, 
 and in great numbers renounce their former 
 religious principles. The hoarse din of 
 war is hourly heard in our streets. The 
 present disturbances inflict no small injury 
 on religion. Everybody is constantly on 
 the alert, anxious, like the ancient Athe- 
 Jiians, to hear the news, and, amid the mass 
 of news, the hearts of men are, alas ! closed 
 against the good word of God. The Lord 
 is chastising the people, but they do not 
 feel it. Those who appear to be distant 
 from danger are unconcerned ; and those 
 .whom calamity has overtaken are enraged, 
 and meditating vengeance. In the Ameri- 
 can army there are many clergymen, who 
 serve both as chaplains and as officers. I 
 jnyself know two, one of whom is a colonel, 
 and the other a captain. The whole coun- 
 try is in perfect enthusiasm for liberty. 
 The whole population, from New-England 
 ■to Georgia, is of one mind, and determined 
 to risk life and all things in defence of 
 liberty. The few who think differently 
 are not permitted to utter their sentiments. 
 In Philadelphia the English and German 
 students are formed into military com- 
 panies, wear uniforms, and are exercised 
 like regular troops. Would to God that 
 jnen would become as zealous and unani- 
 mous in asserting their spiritual liberty as 
 they are in vindicating their political free- 
 dom." 
 
 It required some time for the churches 
 to recover from the demoralizing effects 
 of a war which had drawn the whole na- 
 tion into its circle, and lasted for eight long 
 years. But the times immediately follow- 
 ing the Revolution were, as I have remark- 
 ed, far from being favourable to the re- 
 suscitation of true religion, and to the res- 
 toration of the churches, even to the con- 
 dition, unsatisfactory as it was, in which 
 they stood previously to the contest. 
 Through God's blessing, however, they 
 not only shared in the returning tranquilli- 
 ty of the country, but from that time to 
 this, with some short periods of interrup- 
 tion, have steadily grown with its growth 
 and strengthened with its strength. 
 
 It is not easy to ascertain what was the 
 exact number of ministers and churches in 
 the United States when these became sev- 
 ered from England, but the following esti- 
 mate cannot be very wide of the truth. 
 The Episcopal clergymen may be reckon- 
 
 ed at about 250 at most ; the churches at 
 about 300.* In 1788, the Presbyterians had 
 exactly 177 ministers, and 417 congrega- 
 tions.! ^^ the Lutherans had eleven min- 
 isters in 1748, and forty churches three 
 years after, the former could hardly have 
 exceeded twenty-five, and the latter sixty, 
 at the commencement of the Revolution — • 
 judging by the statistics of the directo- 
 ry for worship (Kirchenagende), published 
 in 1786. 1 The German Reformed church- 
 es were not more numerous. The Dutch 
 Reformed churches had thirty ministers 
 and eighty-two congregations in 1784.^ In 
 1776, the Associate Church had thirteen 
 ministers, and perhaps twenty churches. 
 The Moravians had probably twelve min- 
 isters and six or eight churches. The New- 
 England Congregationalists could not, at 
 the commencement of the Revolution, have 
 had above 700 churches and 575 pastors. 
 The Baptists, in 1784, had 424 ministers, 
 and 471 churches or congregations. || The 
 Methodists, at the time of the Revolution, 
 did not exist as a body distinct from the 
 Established Episcopal Church, and had no 
 ordained ministers. As for the Roman 
 Catholics, according to Bishop England's 
 estimate, their priests did not exceed twen- 
 ty-six in number when the war of the 
 Revolution commenced, but their congre- 
 gations were at least twice as numerous.^ 
 
 These statements, though far from pre- 
 cise, are from the best sources, and suffice 
 to give a tolerably correct view of the num- 
 bers of the clergy and churches at the com- 
 mencement of the national existence of 
 the country, and for the first ten years af- 
 ter the breaking out of hostilities with Eng- 
 land. 
 
 From the best estimate I can make, it 
 seems very certain that in 1775 the total 
 number of ministers of the Gospel in the 
 United States did not exceed 1441, nor the 
 congregations 1940. Indeed, I am convin- 
 ced that this is rather too large an esti- 
 mate.** The population of the thirteen 
 
 * The number of the clergy and churches in the 
 Episcopal Church, given in the text, has been esti- 
 mated from various historical sketches and docu- 
 ments. 
 
 t " History of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States," by Dr. Hodge, part ii., p. 504. 
 
 t Dr. Schmucker's " Retrospect of Lutheranism 
 in the United States." 
 
 () See the Historical sketch of the Reformed Dutch 
 Church in another part of this work. 
 
 II View of the Baptist churches in America, given 
 in the " American Quarterly Register," vols. xiii. and 
 xiv. 
 
 IT Letter from Bishop England, of Charleston, to 
 the Central Council of the Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Faith, at Lyons, published in the " Aunales 
 de la Propagation de la Foi," for the month of May, 
 1838, vol. .\-. 
 
 ** The most exact approximation which I make 
 is as follows : 
 
 Ministers. Churches, 
 
 Episcopalians 250 300 
 
 Baptists 350 380 
 
104 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IIL 
 
 colonies at that epoch did not exceed 
 3,500,000, of whom about 500,000 were 
 slaves. 
 
 If we assume the number of ministers to 
 have been 144 1, and the population 3,500,000 
 in 1775, then we have one minister of the 
 Gospel, on an average, for every 2429 
 souls, which, I apprehend, is not far from 
 the exact truth. 
 
 At that epoch there was no bishop in 
 either the Protestant Episcopal or Roman 
 Cathohc Church. There were at that time 
 nine colleges and two medical schools, but 
 no schools of law or theology. 
 
 The changes that took place in the gen- 
 eral and local government of the thirteen 
 original colonies, on their achieving their 
 independence, have been already noticed. 
 Religion, as well as every other interest, 
 shared in the change of relations that en- 
 sued. Henceforth it was with Congress and 
 the State Legislatures, or, rather, with the 
 National and State Governments, that the 
 churches had to do, so far as they had any 
 political relations to sustain at all. 
 
 It will be my object in this book to point 
 out the changes that took place in the re- 
 lations of the churches to the civil power, 
 and to show their actual position with re- 
 gard to it at the present moment. This I 
 will try to do with all the brevity consist- 
 ent with a lucid treatment of the subject. 
 We have now to see by what means that 
 union of Church and State, which con- 
 nected the Congregational Church in the 
 North and the Episcopal Church in the 
 Middle and South, with the civil govern- 
 ment, was dissolved ; what were the re- 
 sults of that dissolution ; and what the po- 
 sition in which the churches now stand to 
 the civil power, whether as represented 
 by the General Government or the indi- 
 vidual States. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION OF CHURCH 
 AND STATE NOT EFFECTED BY THE GENERAL 
 GOVERNMENT, NOR DID IT TAKE PLACE IM- 
 MEDIATELy. 
 
 More than one erroneous idea prevails, 
 
 Ministers. Churches. 
 
 Congregationalists* . . . 575 700 
 
 Presbyterians 140 300 
 
 Lutherans 25 60 
 
 German Reformed .... 25 60 
 
 Reformed Dutch .... 25 CO 
 
 Associate 13 20 
 
 Moravians 12 8 
 
 Roman Catholics .... 26 52 
 
 1441 "1940 
 
 * The number (jf Coneregtitinnal rniiusters in New-Eng- 
 land (and there were few or mine in other parts of llie 
 country) was estiiriated by Ur. Stiles to he, in 1760, 530 ; 
 in the fifteen years which followed they probahly increased 
 to 575, as given in the text. 
 
 I apprehend, in Europe, with respect to the 
 dissolution of the union of Church and 
 State in the United Startes. First, many 
 seem to think that it was a natural and in- 
 evitable result of the separation of the col- 
 onies from the mother-country, and of the 
 independent position which they had as- 
 sumed. But that union connected the es- 
 tablished churches of America, not with 
 the mother-country, but with the colonial 
 governments ; so that, when the colonies 
 became states, the alliance that had sub- 
 sisted between them and certain church- 
 es was not necessarily affected. These 
 churches, in fact, remained, as before, part 
 and parcel of the states, and upon these 
 they continued to be as dependant as ever. 
 They never had any ties with England, 
 beyond falling incidentally, as did the col- 
 onies themselves, under the operation of 
 English laws. 
 
 Again, many imagine that the union of 
 Church and State in America was dissolv- 
 ed by an act of Congress ; that is, by an 
 act of the General Government. But this 
 was not the case. An article of the Con- 
 stitution, it is true, restrains Congress from 
 establishing any particular religion : but 
 this restriction is not in the original draught 
 of the Constitution; it forms one of certain 
 amendments adopted soon after, and runs 
 as follows : " Congress shall make no laws 
 respecting an establishment of religion, or 
 prohibiting the free exercise thereof." That 
 is to say, the General Government shall 
 not make any law for the support of any 
 particular church, or of all the churches. 
 But neither this, nor any other article in 
 the Constitution of the United-States, pro- 
 hibits individual states from making such 
 laws. The Constitution simply declares 
 what shall be the powers of the General 
 Government, leaving to the State govern- 
 ments such powers as it does not give to 
 the General Government. This, in refer- 
 ence to the subject in hand, is manifest 
 from the fact that " the establishment of 
 religion," as we shall presently see, sur- 
 vived for many years, in some states, their 
 adhesion to the Constitution of the United 
 States. 
 
 Lastly, many persons in Europe seem 
 to be under the impression that the union 
 of Church and State was annihilated at 
 the Revolution, or, at all events, ceased 
 upon the organization of the State govern- 
 ments being completed. This, however, 
 was not so in all cases. The connexion 
 between the civil power in all the states 
 in which Episcopacy had been established 
 in the colonial pcu-iod was dissolved, very 
 soon after the Revolution, by acts of their 
 respective Legislatures. But the Congre- 
 gational Church in New-Eiigland contin- 
 ued to be uiiiied with the State, and to be 
 supported by it, long after the Revolution. 
 Indeed, it was not until 1833 that the last 
 
Chap.III] dissolution of UiNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 105 
 
 tie that bound the Church to the State in 
 Massachusetts was severed. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION OF CHURCH AND 
 
 STATE IN AMERICA. WHEN AND HOW EF- 
 
 FECTED. 
 
 The first State that dissolved its connex- 
 ion with the Church was Virginia, a cir- 
 cumstance that seems surprising at first 
 sight, inasmuch as its early colonists were 
 all sincere friends of its established Epis- 
 copal Church, and for a long period were 
 joined by few persons of different senti- 
 ments. Indeed, for more than a century 
 dissent was scarcely, if at all, allowed to 
 exist within the commonwealth, even in 
 the most secret manner. 
 
 Two causes, however, concurred in pro- 
 duchig an alteration of these feelings to- 
 wards the Established Church. First, many 
 whose attachment to it had been owing to 
 their birth, education, and early preposses- 
 sions, became disgusted with the irreli- 
 gious lives of many of the clergy, and the 
 greediness with which, notwithstanding 
 that most of their time was spent in fox- 
 hunting and other sports, in company with 
 the most dissolute of their parishioners, 
 they were ready to contend for the last 
 pound of tobacco allowed them as their le- 
 gal salary. Such, indeed, was the charac- 
 ter of those clergymen, that any one who 
 makes himself minutely acquainted with 
 their doings, must feel amazed that the 
 church wliich they dishonoured should 
 have retained its hold upon the respect of 
 the Virginian colonists as long as it did. 
 What attachment to it remained, must be 
 ascribed to its having at all times had 
 some faithful and excellent ministers who 
 mourned over these scandals, and by their 
 personal worth redeemed in some meas- 
 ure the body to which they belonged from 
 the infamy brought upon it by their repro- 
 bate fellow-clergymen, or " parsons," as 
 they were oftener called. These excep- 
 tions, however, did not prevent multitudes 
 from abandoning the Church of their fa- 
 thers, around which their earliest and ten- 
 derest associations still clustered. " Had 
 the doctrines of the Gospel," says one who 
 became an honoured instrument of much 
 good in Virginia, and probably the most 
 eloquent preacher of his day in America, 
 " been solemnly and faithfully preached in 
 the Established Church, I am persuaded 
 there would have been but few Dissenters 
 in these parts of Virginia ; for their first 
 objections were not against the peculiar 
 rites and ceremonies of that Church, much 
 less against her excellent articles, but 
 against the general strain of the doctrines 
 delivered from the pulpit, in which those 
 
 articles were opposed, or (which was more 
 common) not mentioned at all ; so that, 
 at first, they were not properly dissenters 
 from the original constitution of the Church 
 of England, but the most strict adherents 
 of it, and only dissented from those who 
 had forsaken it."* 
 
 Prior to 1740, there was only one Pres- 
 byterian congregation, it is believed, in 
 Eastern Virginia, though the Scotch and 
 Irish emigrants from Pennsylvania must 
 have introduced several into the Valley.f 
 There were also a few Quaker societies, 
 some small German congregations, and a 
 considerable number of Baptist churches, 
 which, though small and scattered, em- 
 braced, perhaps, a larger number of per- 
 sons, upon the whole, than all the other 
 dissenting bodies put together. 
 
 It was about this time that a Mr. Samuel 
 Morris, a layman, who had been brought to 
 the knowledge of salvation by the reading 
 of the Scriptures, and by the perusal of 
 Flavel's works, and Luther on the Gala- 
 tians, began to invite his neighbours, who, 
 like himself, had been living in great igno- 
 rance of the Gospel, to come to his house 
 on the Sabbath, and hear him read his fa- 
 vourite authors. Such were the crowds 
 that attended, that a house had soon to be 
 built of size sufficient to contain them. To 
 Flavel and Luther there was added a vol- 
 ume of Whitfield's sermons, as furnishing 
 spiritual food for these hungry souls. They 
 were visited in 1743 by the Rev. Mr. Robin- 
 son, a Presbyterian sent from New-Jersey 
 on a missionary tour to the South. His 
 preaching was greatly blessed to " the 
 Readers."! He taught them to conduct 
 their worship in the Presbyterian way, and 
 was followed by other ministers of the 
 same denomination. Though they were 
 often fined for not attending the services 
 of the Established Church, these simple- 
 hearted and excellent people continued 
 their meetings. In 1747, the Rev. Mr. Da- 
 vies, mentioned above, was sent to them 
 by the Presbytery of Newcastle, in Dela- 
 ware ; and, with the exception of some 
 months spent on a visit to England, he la- 
 boured among them until 1759, when he 
 was chosen President of the College of 
 
 * The Rev. Samuel Davies, in his " Narrative on 
 the State of Religion among Dissenters in Virginia." 
 
 t The " Valley of Virginia" is a fine district of 
 country which hes west of the first ridge of the Al- 
 leghany Mountains, and between that ridge and 
 others which lie still farther to the west. It reaches 
 quite across the state, from northeast to southwest, 
 and is considered the best part of it for fertility of 
 soil. It is a part of the same valley which extends 
 across Maryland into Pennsylvania. In the latter 
 state it is called Cumberland Valley. 
 
 J A counterpart to these worthy inquirers after 
 divine knowledge is found at the present day in the 
 northern parts of Sweden and in Norway, where 
 groups of persons meet on the Sabbath after church 
 service, which in too many cases furnishes but poor 
 spiritual nourishment, to read the Bible and other 
 good books. 
 
^06 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 JNew-Jersey. He succeeded in building up j 
 seven churches, ;ind from that time Pres- 1 
 "byterianism made very considerable prog- 
 ress in Eastern Virginia ; so that, when 
 the war of the Revolution began, the Pres- 
 bytery of Hanover in that colony was a 
 jiuinerous body, and comprehended some 
 very able and eloquent ministers. The 
 Scotch and Irish Presbyterians were at the 
 same time increasing in the western part 
 of the province. The Baptist congrega- 
 tions increased even more rapidly. Still, 
 it was not always easy to avoid suffering 
 from the interference of the civil authori- 
 ties. The Act of Toleration, passed in 
 England on the 28th of June, 1687, extended 
 unquestionably to the colonies, yet not a 
 few obstacles continued to be thrown in the 
 way of dissenters, almost down to the open- 
 ing scenes of the Revolutionary drama. 
 
 When the Revolution came at last, the 
 Baptists and Presbyterians were, almost to 
 -a man, in its favour ; and many of these, 
 but especially of the former, whose preach- 
 ers had suffered by far the most from the 
 civil authorities in the earlier part of the 
 century, at the instigation, as they believed, 
 ■whether justly or unjustly, of the clergy 
 of the Established Church, were not a little 
 influenced in the course they then adopted 
 by the hope of seeing the success of the 
 Revolution lead to the overthrow of an es- 
 tablishment which they regarded with feel- 
 ings of repugnance, and even of hostility. 
 ]n these circumstances, it was to be ex- 
 pected that before the Revolution had made 
 much progress, an assault would be made 
 on the Established Church ; such an as- 
 sault was made, and not without success. 
 
 As the history of this matter is not a lit- 
 tle interesting, and almost quite unknown 
 in Europe, I may enter upon it at some 
 length. 
 
 A very general impression prevails in 
 England, and perhaps elsewhere, that the 
 entire separation of Church and State in 
 America was the work of Mr. Jefferson, 
 the third President of the United States, 
 who took a distinguished part in the strug- 
 gle, and who, upon being charged with 
 drawing up the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, executed the task so much to the 
 satisfaction of his fellow-citizens. Now 
 none of Mr. Jefferson's admirers will con- 
 sider it slanderous to assert that he was a 
 very bitter enemy to Christianity, and we 
 may even assume that he wished to see 
 not only the Episcopal Church separated 
 from the State in Virginia, but the utter 
 overthrow of everything in the shape of a 
 church throughout the country. Still, it 
 was not Jefferson that induced the State 
 of Virginia to pass the Act of Separation. 
 That must be ascribed to the petitions and 
 other efforts, of the Presbyterians and 
 Baptists. 
 J\o sooner was war declared than the 
 
 Synod of New- York and Philadelphia, the 
 highest ecclesiastical body among the Pres- 
 byterians of America at that time, address- 
 ed to their churches a very judicious and 
 patriotic letter, which, while it displayed a 
 firm spirit of loyalty towards the govern- 
 ment of England, evidently and naturally 
 sympathized with the contest then begun — 
 a contest which it was thought could not 
 be abandoned without the sacrifice of their 
 dearest rights. Few persons supposed at 
 that time that the struggle was to end in a 
 separation from the mother-country. But 
 when, in the following year, the Congress 
 issued its Declaration of Independence, the 
 whole face of matters was changed, and 
 ministers of the Gospel had to make their 
 election — whether they would recognise 
 and obey the act of the Congress, or still 
 adhere to the sovereignty of England. 
 Then it was that the first body of clergy of 
 any denomination in America that openly 
 recognised that act, and thereby identified 
 themselves with the cause of freedom and 
 independence, was the comparatively nu- 
 merous and very influential Presbytery of 
 Hanover in Virginia. At its first meeting 
 after the appearance of the Declaration, 
 that body addressed the Virginia House of 
 Assembly in a memorial, recommending 
 the separation of Church and State, and 
 the leaving of the support of the Gospel to 
 the voluntary efforts of its friends. The 
 memorial runs as follows : 
 
 " To the Honourable the General Assem- 
 bly of Virginia. The memorial of the 
 Presbytery of Hanover humbly represents : 
 That your memorialists are governed by 
 the same sentiments which have inspired 
 the United States of America, and are de- 
 termined that nothing in our pov/er and in- 
 fluence shall be wanting to give success to 
 their common cause. We would also 
 represent that dissenters from the Church 
 of England in this country have ever been 
 desirous to conduct themselves as peace- 
 able members of the civil government, for 
 which reason they have hitherto submitted 
 to various ecclesiastical burdens and re- 
 strictions that are inconsistent with equal 
 liberty. But now, when the many and 
 grievous oppressions of our mother-coun 
 try have laid this Continent under the ne- 
 cessity of casting off the yoke of tyranny, 
 and of forming independent governments 
 upon equitable and liberal foundations, we 
 flatter ourselves that we .shall be freed from 
 all the encumbrances which a spirit of 
 domination, prejudice, or bigotry has in- 
 terwoven with most other political sys- 
 tems. This we are the more strongly en- 
 couraged to expect by the Declaration of 
 Rights, so universally applauded for that 
 dignity, firmness, and precision with which 
 it delineates and asserts the privileges of 
 society, and the prerogatives of human 
 nature ; and which we embrace as the 
 
Chap.iil] dissolution of union of church and state. 
 
 107 
 
 Magna Charta of our commonwealth, that 
 can never be violated without endangering 
 the grand superstructure it was designed 
 to sustain. Therefore, we rely upon this 
 Declaration, as well as the justice of our 
 honourable Legislature, to secure us the 
 free exercise of religion according to the 
 
 c tates of our consciences ; and we should 
 fall short in our duty to ourselves, and the 
 many and numerous congregations under 
 our care, were we, upon this occasion, to 
 neglect laying before you a statement of 
 the religious grievances under which we 
 have hitherto laboured, that they may no 
 longer be continued in our present form of 
 government. 
 
 " It is well known that in the frontier 
 counties, which are justly supposed to con- 
 tain a fifth part of the inhabitants of Vir- 
 guiia, the dissenters have borne the heavy 
 burdens of purchasing glebes, building 
 churches, and supporting the established 
 clergy, where there are very few Episco- 
 palians, either to assist in bearing the ex- 
 pense, or to reap the advantage ; and that 
 throughout the other parts of the country 
 there are also many thousands of zealous 
 friends and defenders of our State, who, 
 besides the invidious and disadvantageous 
 restrictions to which they have been sub- 
 jected, annually pay large taxes to support 
 an Establishment from which their con- 
 sciences and principles oblige them to dis- 
 sent ; all which are confessedly so many 
 violations of their natural rights, and, in 
 their consequences, a restraint upon free- 
 dom of inquiry and private judgment. 
 
 " In this enlightened age, and in a land 
 where all of every denomination are united 
 in the most strenuous efforts to be free, we 
 hope and expect that our representatives 
 will cheerfully concur in removing every 
 species of religious as well as civil bond- 
 age. Certain it is, that every argument for 
 civil liberty gains additional strength when 
 applied to liberty in the concerns of reli- 
 gion ; and there is no argument in favour 
 of establishing the Christian religion but 
 may be pleaded, with equal propriety, for 
 establishing the tenets of Mohammed by 
 those who believe the Alcoran ; or, if this 
 be not true, it is at least impossible for the 
 magistrate to adjudge the right of prefer- 
 ence among the various sects that profess 
 the Christian faith, without erecting a 
 claim to infallibility, which would lead us 
 back to the Church of Rome. 
 
 " We beg leave farther to represent, that 
 ■religious establishments are highly injuri- 
 ous to the temporal interests of any com- 
 munity. Without insisting upon the am- 
 bition and the arbitrary practices of those 
 who are favoured by government, or the 
 intriguing, seditious spirit which is com- 
 -monly excited by this, as well as by every 
 other kind of oppression, such establish- 
 ments greatly retard population, and, con- 
 
 sequently, the progress of arts, sciences, 
 and manufactures. Witness the rapid 
 growth and improvement of the Northern 
 provinces compared with this. No one 
 can deny that the more early settlement, 
 and the many superior advantages of our 
 country, would have invited multitudes of 
 artificers, mechanics, and other useful 
 members of society, to fix their habitation 
 among us, who have either remained in 
 their place of nativity, or preferred worse 
 civil governments, and a more barren soil, 
 where they might enjoy the rights of con- 
 science more fully than they had a pros- 
 pect of doing in this. From which we in- 
 fer that Virginia might have now been the 
 capital of America, and a match for the 
 British arms, without depending on others 
 for the necessaries of war, had it not been 
 prevented by her rehgious establishment. 
 
 " Neither can it be made to appear that 
 the Gospel needs any such civil aid. We 
 rather conceive that, when our blessed 
 Saviour declares his kingdom is not of this 
 world, he renounces all dependance upon 
 state power ; and as his weapons are spir- 
 itual, and were only designed to have in- 
 fluence on the judgment and heart of man, 
 we are persuaded that if mankind were 
 left in the quiet possession of their inalien- 
 able religious privileges, Christianity, as 
 in the days of the Apostles, would con- 
 tinue to prevail and flourish in the great- 
 est purity by its own native excellence, 
 and under the all-disposing providence of 
 God. 
 
 " We would also humbly represent, that 
 the only proper objects of civil govern- 
 ment are the happiness and protection of 
 men in the present state of existence ; the 
 security of the life, liberty, and property 
 of the citizens, and to restrain the vicious 
 and encourage the virtuous by wholesome 
 laws, equally extending to every individ- 
 ual ; but that the duty which we owe to 
 our Creator, and the manner of dischar- 
 ging it, can only be directed by reason and 
 conviction, and is nowhere cognizable but 
 at the tribunal of the universal Judge. 
 
 " Therefore, we ask no ecclesiastical es- 
 tablishments for ourselves ; neither can 
 we approve of them when granted to oth- 
 ers. This, indeed, would be giving exclu- 
 sive or separate emoluments or privileges 
 to one set of men, without any special 
 public services, to the common reproach 
 and injury of every other denomination. 
 And, for the reasons recited, we are in- 
 duced earnestly to entreat that all laws 
 now in force in this commonwealth, which 
 countenance religious domination, may be 
 speedily repealed; that all, of every reli- 
 gious sect, may be protected in the full 
 exercise of their several modes of wor- 
 ship ; exempted from all taxes for the sup- 
 port of any Church whatsoever, farther 
 than what may be agreeable to their own 
 
108 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IIL 
 
 private choice or voluntary obligation. 
 This being done, all partial and invidious 
 distinctions will be abolished, to the great 
 honour and interest of the State, and every 
 one be left lo stand or fall according to his 
 merit, which can never be the case so long 
 as any one denomijiation is established in 
 preference to others. 
 
 "That the great Sovereign of the uni- 
 verse may inspire you with unanimity, 
 wisdom, and resolution, and bring you to 
 a just determination on all the important 
 concerns before you, is the fervent prayer 
 of your memorialists."' 
 
 Besides this petition from the Presbytery 
 of Hanover, there were others from the 
 Baptists and Quakers. The Baptists had 
 suffered more than any other class of dis- 
 senters, and the remembrance of their 
 wrongs, now that their day of power had 
 come, stimulated them to an uninterrupted 
 opposition of seven- and-twenty years to 
 the Established Church. Indeed, they now 
 took the lead in opposing its claims. In 
 1775 they presented to the General As- 
 sembly an address, composed by members 
 who had spontaneously convened, in which 
 they petitioned, " that they might be al- 
 lowed to worship God in their own way, 
 without interruption ; to maintain their own 
 ministers, separate from others ; and to be 
 married, buried, &c., without paying the 
 clergy of other denominations."* To this 
 the Assembly returned a complimentary 
 answer, and an order was made that the 
 sectarian clergy should have, the privilege 
 of performing Divine service to their re- 
 spective adherents in the army, equally 
 with the regular chaplains of the Estab- 
 lished Church. t 
 
 The above memorial from the Presby- 
 terians, and petitions from the Baptists, 
 Quakers, and others opposed to the Estab- 
 lished Church, were met by counter-me- 
 morials from tlie Episcopalians and Meth- 
 odists, appealing on behalf of the Estab- 
 lishment to the principles of justice, wis- 
 dom, and policy. Public faith, it was said, 
 required that the State should abide by its 
 engagements ; and that a system of such 
 old standing, and which involved so many 
 interests on the part of persons who had 
 staked their all upon its continued exist- 
 ence, possessed the nature of a vested 
 right, and ought to be maintained inviolate. 
 The wisdom of this course was argued 
 from the past experience of all Christian 
 landsjj and from the influence of religious 
 establishments in giving stability to virtue 
 and the public happiness. Policy required 
 it, for it was insisted that, were there to 
 
 * Semple's " History of the Baptists in Virginia," 
 p. 25-27, G2. 
 
 t Hurk's " History of Virginia," p. 59. 
 
 t This was not dilRcult, for church establishments 
 had existed tiiroughout Christendom since the days 
 of Constanline. 
 
 be no establishment, the peace of the com- 
 munity would be destroyed by the jealou- 
 sies and contentions of rival sects. And,, 
 finally, the memorialists prayed that the 
 matter might be referred, in the last resort, 
 to the people at large, as they had the best 
 of reasons for believing that a majority of 
 the citizens would be in favour of continu- 
 ing the establishment. 
 
 From this it would seem that, in the 
 conviction of these memorialists, a major- 
 ity of the population of Virginia were Epis- 
 copalians ; yet it was confidently main- 
 tained in other quarters that two thirds of 
 the people were at that time dissenters. 
 I am inclined to think that the greater part 
 professed, or favoured Episcopacy, but that 
 a decided majority was opposed to its civil 
 establishment. The memorials led to a 
 long and earnest discussion. The Church 
 had for her champions Messrs. Pendleton 
 and R. C. Nicolas, and for her great oppo- 
 nent Mr. Jeff"erson, who speaks of the con- 
 test as the severest in which he was ever 
 engaged.* After discussing the subject for 
 nearly two months, the Assembly repealed 
 all the colonial laws attaching criminality 
 to the profession of any particular reli- 
 gious opinions, requiring attendance at the 
 parish churches, and forbidding attendance 
 elsewhere, with the penalties attached. 
 thereto. Dissenters were to be exempted 
 in future from compulsory contributions 
 in support of the Episcopal Church. The 
 clergy, however, were to have their sti- 
 pends continued until the first day in the 
 ensuing year, and had all arrears secured 
 to them. The churches, chapels, glebes, 
 books, plate, &c., belonging to the Epis- 
 copal Church, were to remain in its pos- 
 session.! This law was passed on the 5th 
 of December, 1776. The question of hav- 
 ing a general assessment for the support of 
 religion was at the same time discussed, 
 but the determination of it was put off to 
 a future day. 
 
 In the course of 1777 and 1778, petitions 
 and counter-petitions continued to be ad- 
 dressed to the Legislature on the subject 
 of religion. Some of the petitions prayed 
 for the preservation of all that remained 
 of the Establishment ; others advocated a 
 general assessment for the support of all 
 denominations ; others opposed that sug- 
 gestion. Some, again, called for the sup- 
 pression by law of the irregularities of the 
 "sectaries," such as their holding meet- 
 ings by night, and craved that none but 
 " licensed preachers" should be allowed to 
 conduct the public worship of God. Among 
 the memorials was one from the Pres- 
 bytery of Hanover, opposing the plan of a 
 general assessment. After reverting to 
 the principles laid down in their first peti- 
 tion, and insisting that the only proper ob- 
 
 * Jefferson's Works, vol. i., p. 32. 
 
 + Hening's " Statutes of Virginia," p. 34. 
 
Chap. III.] DISSOLUTION OF UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 109 
 
 jects of civil governments are the happi- 
 ness iind protection of men in their present 
 state of existence ; the security of the hfe, 
 liberty, and property of the citizens ; the 
 restraint of the vicious, and the encourage- 
 ment of tlie virtuous, by wholesome laws, 
 equally extending to every individual ; and 
 that the duly which men owe to their Cre- 
 ator, and the manner of discharging it, can 
 only be directed by reason and conviction, 
 and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribu- 
 nal of the universal Judge, the presbytery 
 express themselves as follows ; 
 
 •' To illustrate and confirm these asser- 
 tions, we beg leave to observe, that to 
 judge for ourselves, and to engage in the 
 exercise of religion agreeably to the dic- 
 tates of our own consciences, is an inal- 
 ienable right, which, upon the principles on 
 which the Gospel was first propagated, 
 and the Reformation from Popery carried 
 on, can never be transferred to another. 
 Neither does the Church of Christ stand 
 in need of a general assessment for its 
 support; and most certain we are that it 
 would be of no advantage, but an injury to 
 the Society to which we belong ; and as 
 every good Christian believes that Christ 
 has oruained a complete system of laws 
 for the government of His kingdom, so we 
 are persuaded that by His providence He 
 will support it to its final consummation. 
 In the fixed belief of this principle, that 
 the kingdom of Christ and the concerns 
 of religion are beyond the limits of civil 
 control, we should act a dishonest, incon- 
 sistent part, were we to receive any emol- 
 uments from human establishments for the 
 support of the Gospel. 
 
 " These things being considered, we hope 
 that we shall be excused for remonstra- 
 ting against a general assessment for any 
 religious purpose. As the maxims have 
 long been approved, that every servant is 
 to obey his master, and that the hireling 
 is accountable for his conduct to him from 
 whom he receives his wages ; in like man- 
 ner, if the Legislature has any rightful au- 
 thority over the ministers of the Gospel 
 in the exercise of their sacred office, and 
 if it is their duly to levy a maintenance 
 for them as such, then it will follow that 
 they may revive the old Establishment in 
 its former extent, or ordain a new one for 
 any sect that they may think proper ; they 
 are invested with a power not only to de- 
 termine, but it is incumbent on them to 
 declare who shall preach, what they shall 
 preach, to whom, when, and in what places 
 they shall preach; or to impose any reg- 
 ulations and restrictions upon religious so- 
 cieties that they may judge expedient. 
 These consequences are so plain as not 
 to be denied, and they are so entirely sub- 
 versive of religious liberty, that if they 
 should take place in Virginia, we should 
 be reduced to the melancholy necessity of 
 
 I saying with the apostles in like cases, 
 ' Judge ye whether it is best to obey God 
 or men,' and also of acting as they acted. 
 
 " Therefore, as it is contrary to our prin- 
 ciples and interest, and, as we think, sub- 
 versive of religious liberty, we do again 
 most earnestly entreat that our Legisla- 
 ture would never extend any assessment 
 for religious purposes to us, or to the con- 
 gregations under our care." 
 
 This memorial, and probably still more, 
 the strenuous efforts of the Baptists, led, 
 in 1779, to the abandonment of the pro- 
 posed "general assessment," after a bill 
 to that effect had been ordered a third 
 reading. 
 
 With the return of peace, the Legisla- 
 ture of Virginia resumed the subject of 
 legislating in behalf of religion ; and in 
 the sessions of 1784 two important matters 
 were much debated. One was to provide 
 by law for the incorporation of " all soci- 
 eties of the Christian religion which may 
 apply for the same ;" the other was the 
 old project of a general assessment for 
 the support of religion. The celebrated 
 Patrick Henry* was the great advocate 
 
 * This gentleman, one of the most eloquent men 
 that America has ever produced, was for many years 
 a member of the Legislature of Virginia, and govern- 
 or, also, for several terms. He distinguished him- 
 self in opposing the taxation of the colonies by Eng- 
 land without their consent, and in the course of a 
 very animated speech on that subject in the Legisla- 
 ture of Virginia, said, in his emphatic manner, " Cae- 
 sar had a i3rutus, Charles I. had a Cromwell, and 
 George III."— here he was interrupted by cries of 
 "Treason ! treason !" — " and George III.," he repeat- 
 ed, " should profit by their example; if this be trea- 
 son, gentlemen, you may make the most of it." 
 
 It has been said that m his younger days Mr. Hen- 
 ry was inclined to inlidelity. But this is not true; 
 he was a firm believer in Christianity, and for many 
 years before his death a devout Christian. " He ever 
 had a great abhorrence of infidelity," says a private 
 letter from a member of Mr. Henry's family, given 
 in Dr. Hawks's " Ecclesiastical History of the Epis- 
 copal Church in Virginia," p. 160, 161, "and actu- 
 ally wrote an answer to ' Paine's Age of Reason,' 
 but destroyed it before his death. He received the 
 communion as often as an opportunity offered ; and 
 on such occasions always fasted until after he had re- 
 ceived the sacrament, and spent the day in the great- 
 est retirement. This he did both while he was gov- 
 ernor and afterward." 
 
 The following affecting anecdote is related of him. 
 VV^hen very old, he was induced to be a candidate 
 for the House of Delegates, in a time of great politi- 
 cal excitement. " On the day of the election," says 
 Mr. Wirt, in his Life of Patrick Henry, p. 408, "as 
 soon as he appeared on the ground, he was sur- 
 rounded by the admiring and adoring crowd, and 
 whithersoever ho moved the concourse followed 
 him. A preacher of the Baptist Church, whose pie- 
 ty was wounded by this homage paid to a mortal, 
 asked the people aloud, why they thus followed 
 Mr. Henry. 'Mr. Henry,' said he, 'is' not a god.' 
 'No!' said Mr. Henry, deeply affected, both by the 
 scene and the remark ; ' no, indeed, my friend ; I am 
 a poor worm of the dust, as fleeting and as unsub- 
 stantial as the shadow of the cloud that flies over 
 your fields, and is remembered no more.' The tone 
 with which this was uttered, and the look which ac- 
 companied, affected every heart and silenced every 
 voice." 
 
no 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IlL 
 
 of both measures. The Hanover Pres- 
 bytery soon reappeared upon the field, and 
 opposed the latter of these proposals, al- 
 thou<rh it would have proved as favoura- 
 ble to the Presbyterian Church as any oth- 
 er. But on this occasion there was an ev- 
 ident wavering on the part of the presby- 
 tery, probably owing to an expectation 
 that the measure would be sure to be adopt- 
 ed, and from their desire to secure the 
 least injurious plan of giving it effect. It 
 has also been alleged as one cause of the 
 temporary abatement of their zeal, that 
 Mr. Henry had won over to his opinions 
 the Rev. Dr. John B. Smith, one of the 
 ablest members of the presbytery. Cer- 
 tain it is, that an act to incorporate the 
 churches passed by a large vote, and a 
 bill in favour of a general assessment pass- 
 ed two readings, was ordered to be read a 
 third time, and was then sent forth to be 
 submitted to the people for their opinion 
 before being passed into a law. On the 
 same day, likewise, on which an act was 
 passed fur the incorpor;ition of such church- 
 es as might apply for the same, leave was 
 granted to introduce a bill for the incorpo- 
 ration of tlie Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 Mr. Henry introduced the bill. It had for 
 its object the securing to that church all 
 the property that it had ever had, both in 
 those parishes which had churches in use, 
 and ill the still greater number which had 
 no ministers, and not even vestries, and 
 where the church edifices had become di- 
 lapidated during the war of the Revolu- 
 tion. This bill was approved by the Le- 
 gislature, and promised permanent peace 
 and protection to the Episcopal Church. 
 But the prospect was not of long contin- 
 uance. The incorporation of the Episco- 
 pal clergy was strongly opposed in a me- 
 morial from the Presbytery of Hanover, 
 under the influence of which the Legisla- 
 ture delayed farther proceedings, in order 
 that public opinion migiit have time to ex- 
 press itself. Meanwhile, petitions against 
 the measure were sent in from all parts 
 of Virginia, signed by no fewer than 10,000 
 persons. Still, as the Legislature seemed 
 disposed to pass the bill in question, the 
 Presbyterian churches held a convention, 
 at which anotlier memorial was drawn up, 
 and the Rev. Dr. John B. Smith, who had 
 now become more confirmed in his oppo- 
 sition to the contemplated measure, was 
 appointed to accompany the presentation 
 of the memorial with his personal advo- 
 cacy at the bar of the Assembly, and was 
 heard there for three successive days. 
 This decided the matter; the whole scheme 
 was abandoned. 
 
 Thus, it was mainly owing to the exer- 
 tions of the Presbyterians, Baptists, and 
 Quakers that the union of (Muirch and 
 State in Virginia was dissolved, and the 
 scheme of having a general assessment 
 
 for the support of all Protestant denomi- 
 nations defeated.* Mr. Jefferson, it is true, 
 when a member of the Assembly in 1776, 
 rendered all the aid in his power, and 
 would have been very well pleased to have 
 had such parties to co-operate with him in 
 some other schemes, if he could. But they, 
 not he, began, the movement in this case^ 
 and they persevered in their endeavours 
 to render the churches altogether independ- 
 ent of tlie civil power, and to have all placed 
 precisely on the same footing, as respect- 
 ed the civil government. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson's grand achievement, in. 
 the line of legislating about religious rights, 
 was the famous act '' for establishing reli- 
 gious freedom," drawn up by him, and 
 adopted by the Legislature of Virginia iiv 
 1785. t That act in itself, however, con- 
 
 * A general assessment bill would have done in- 
 finite mischief. It never could have been contined) 
 to the Evangelical Churches, and would have end- 
 ed in building up Unilarianism, Universalism, &c.,, 
 in Virginia, just as a similar measure did altervyanii 
 in New-England. 
 
 t As the reader may wish to see this famous or- 
 dinance, which Mr. Jefferson challenged so much 
 credit to himself for having written and advocated, 
 we give it in this note : " Whereas Almighty God 
 hath created the mind free ; that all attempts to in- 
 fluence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or 
 by civil incapacitations, lend only to beget habits of 
 hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from 
 the plan of the holy Author of our religion, who, be 
 ing Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to 
 ]>ropagate it by coercions on either, as was in his al- 
 mighty power to do; that the impious presumptioa 
 of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiasti- 
 cal, who, being themselves but fallible and unin- 
 spired men, have assumed dominion over the faith 
 of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of 
 thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such 
 endeavouring to impose them on others, hath estab- 
 lished or maintained false religions over the greatest 
 part of the world, and through all time ; that to com- 
 pel a man to furnish contributions of money for the. 
 propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sin- 
 ful and tyrannical ; that even the lorcmg him to sup- 
 port this or that preacher of his own religious per- 
 suasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty 
 of giving his contributions to the particular pastor 
 whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose • 
 powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, 
 and is withdrawing from the ministry those tempo- 
 ral rewards, which, proceeding Irom an approbation ■ 
 of their personal conduct, are an additional incite- 
 ment to earnest and unremitting labours tor the in- 
 struction of mankind ; that our civil rights have no 
 dependance on our religious opinions, any more than 
 on our opinions in physic and geometry ; that there- 
 fore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy of the • 
 ]iul)lic conlidcnce, by laying upon him an incapacity 
 of being called to othces of trust and emolument, 
 unless he jirofess or renounce this or that religious 
 opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privi- 
 leges and advantages to which, in common with his 
 tellow-citizens, he has a natural right ; that it tends 
 only to corrupt the princi|>lrs of that religion it is 
 meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of 
 worldly honours and emoluments those who will 
 (>xtern.dly profess or conform to it ; that though, in- 
 deed, those are criminal who do not wilhstami such 
 temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay 
 l\w bait in their way ; that to suffer the civil magis- 
 trate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, 
 and to restrain the profession or propagation of prin- 
 cii>les on suspicion of their ill-tendency, is a danger- 
 
Chap. III.] DISSOLUTION OF UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. Ill 
 
 tains nothing to which a friend of full and 
 equal liberty of conscience would perhaps 
 object ; but it gave its author great satis- 
 faction, not because it imbodied the prin- 
 ciples of eternal justice, but because, by 
 putting all religious sects on an equality, 
 it seemed to degrade Christianity, and " to 
 comprehend," to use his own words, " with- 
 in the mantle of protection the Jew and 
 the Gentile, the Christian and the Moham- 
 medan, the Hindoo and infidel of every de- 
 nomination." It was this that made the 
 arch-infidel chuckle with satisfaction— not, 
 we repeal, that the great principles im- 
 bodied in the measure were right. 
 
 I have now gone through the history of 
 the dissolution of the union of Church and 
 State in Virginia*— a dissolution effected, 
 in reality, by the act of the 6th of Decem- 
 ber, 1776, which repealed all former acts 
 relating to that union. What followed had 
 no necessary connexion with that act, but 
 bore only upon certain measures, designed 
 to guard against what was deemed by tlie 
 majority to be an injurious legislation for 
 promoting the interests of religion. 
 
 This early discussion of the propriety of 
 
 ous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious lib- 
 erty ; because, he being, of course, judge of that 
 tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judg- 
 ment, and approve or condemn the sentiments ot 
 others only as they shall square with or differ from 
 his own -. that it is time enough, for the rightful pur- 
 poses of civil government, for its officers to inter- 
 fere when principles breakout into overt acts against 
 peace and good order: and, finally, that Truth is 
 great, and will prevail if left to herself; that she is 
 the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has 
 nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human 
 interposition disarmed of her natural weapons — free 
 argument and debate — errors ceasing to be danger- 
 ous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. 
 
 " Be It therefore enacted by the General Assem- 
 bly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or 
 support any religious worship, place, or ministry 
 whatsoever; nor shall be enlorced, restrained, mo- 
 lested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall 
 otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions 
 or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, 
 and by argument to maintain, their opinions in mat- 
 ters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise 
 diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. 
 
 " And though we well know that this Assembly, 
 elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of 
 legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts 
 of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers 
 equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this 
 act irrevocable would be of no effect in law ; yet we 
 are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights 
 hereby asserted are of the natural right of man- 
 kind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to 
 repeal the present, or narrow its operation, such act 
 will be an infringement of natural right." 
 
 * I might have gone into an ampler detail of the 
 measures pursued by the opponents of the Episcopal 
 Church in Virginia to annul the law incorporating 
 the clergy of that church, and of those, also, which 
 were followed up, in 1802, by the sale of the glebes ; 
 but such details have no proper conne.xion with the 
 subject in hand. The law ordaining the sale of the 
 glebes was, I think, unconstitutional, and would have 
 been pronounced to be so had it been brought to a fair 
 and full decision before the proper tribunal. The 
 opposition to the Episcopal Church towards the end 
 was marked by a cruelty which admits of no apology. 
 
 dissolving the union of Church and State 
 in Virginia, after the war of the Revolution 
 had broken out, had some effect, probably, 
 on other states placed in similar circum- 
 stances. Such, at least, is the prevailing- 
 impression in the absence of authentic 
 documentary proof. After the Declaration 
 of Independence, measures to the same 
 effect were very promptly taken in Mary- 
 land. On the 3d of November, 1776, the 
 Legislature of that state put forth a Decla- 
 ration of Rights similar to that made by 
 Virginia in the early part of the same year,^ 
 and imbodying principles directly subver- 
 sive of the union of Church and State. The 
 Episcopal Church, nevertheless, was se- 
 cured in the possession of the glebes and 
 all other church property, and it was de- 
 cided that the stipends of all the incum- 
 bents who should remain at their posts 
 should be paid up to the first day of the 
 month in which said Declaration was made. 
 Tins righteous decision was not departed 
 from, and Maryland, accordingly, was spa- 
 red those tedious and wretched disputes 
 about the property of the Church that 
 had once been established ; disputes that 
 did much harm to religion in Virginia, and' 
 were little reputable to the authors of them. 
 
 In the Maryland "Declaration of Rights,"' 
 it was declared, " that as it is the duty of 
 every man to worship God in such a man- 
 ner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, 
 all persons professing the Christian reli- 
 gion are equally entitled to protection in 
 their religious liberty ; wherefore no per- 
 son ought by any law to be molested in 
 his person or estate on account of his re- 
 ligious persuasion or profession, or for his 
 religious practice, unless, under colour of 
 religion, any man shall disturb the good 
 order, peace, or safety of the state, or shall 
 infringe the laws of morality, or injure 
 others in their natural, civil, or religious 
 rights." It was farther declared that no 
 one ought to be compelled to frequent or 
 maintain the religious worship of any de- 
 nomination ; but, at the same time, it was 
 affirmed that the Legislature might, in its 
 discretion, impose a common and equal 
 tax for the support of the Christian religion 
 in general; in such case, however, every 
 individual paying the tax was held to pos- 
 sess th« right of designating the religious 
 denomination to the support of which it 
 was to be applied ; or he might resolve this 
 legislative support of Christianity in gen- 
 eral into mere almsgiving, and direct his 
 tax to be applied to the maintenance of the 
 poor.* 
 
 The union of Church and State was dis- 
 solved in like manner, by acts of their re- 
 spective legislatures, in New- York, South 
 Carolina, and all the other colonies in 
 which the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 
 * See Dr. Hawks's " History of the Episcopal 
 Church of Maryland," p. 288. 
 
112 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 Avas predominant. But it is unnecessary 
 to trace the steps by which this dissolution 
 ■was accomplished in all cases. There was 
 nothing particularly important, in so far as 
 I am aware, in these details. Enough to 
 know that the dissolution did take place at 
 no distant periods after the Revolution. 
 
 Let us now return to New-England, 
 where the principle of religious establish- 
 ments was most firmly rooted, and most 
 difficult to be eradicated. 
 
 It was not until about forty years subse- 
 quent to the separation of Church and State 
 in Virginia that the example was follow- 
 ed by Connecticut. It will be recollected 
 that in the latter state the Established 
 Church was the Congregational. In 1816, 
 shortly after the close of the last war be- 
 tween the United States and Great Britain, 
 all parties that diffbred from it — Episcopa- 
 lians, Baptists, Methodists, Universalists, 
 &c. — combined to effect its overthrow. 
 These various parties having succeeded in 
 gaining a majority in the Legislature, pro- 
 ceeded to abolish the legal assessment for 
 the parish churches, and by a new law left 
 it optional to the rate-payers to support 
 either the parish church, or any other, as 
 each thought fit. The same system was 
 adopted by New-Hampshire and Maine. 
 Vermont, I believe, has at all times had 
 essentially the voluntary scheme ; that is, 
 the people of each township have support- 
 ed such churches within their respective 
 boundaries, and in such a measure, as they 
 have thought proper. 
 
 Of all the states in which there had ever 
 been any connexion between the Church 
 and the Civil Power, Massachusetts was 
 the last to come under the operation of the 
 Yoluntary principle. The fathers of that 
 colony, in the indulgence of their theocrat- 
 ic principles and ideas, had ever prided 
 themselves on the union made by the vine 
 of the Lord's planting and the State. They 
 had with great satisfaction reposed under 
 the shadow of both, and discoursed of the 
 happy fruits of such a union. Cotton Ma- 
 ther, for example, in a style peculiarly his 
 own, talks not only of the advantage, but 
 of the honour, likewise, of a religious es- 
 tablishment. " Ministers of the Gospel," 
 says he, " would have a poor time of it, if 
 they must rely on a free contribution of the 
 people for their maintenance." And again : 
 " The laws of the province (of Massachu- 
 setts) having had the royal approbation to 
 ratify them, they are the king's laws. By 
 these laws it is enacted that there shall 
 be a public worship of God in every plan- 
 tation ; that the person elected by the ma- 
 jority of the inhabitants to be so, shall be 
 looked upon as the minister of the place ; 
 and that the salary for him, which they 
 shall agree upon, shall be levied by a rate 
 upon all the inhabitants. In consequence 
 of this, the minister thus chosen by the 
 
 people is (not only Christ's, but also), in 
 reality, the hing's minister ; and the salary 
 raised for him is raised in the kmff\<! name, 
 and is the king's allowance unto him."* 
 
 Before the Revolution took place, the 
 Episcopalians had been relieved, by a spe- 
 cial act of the Legislature, from contribu- 
 ting to the support of the parish churches, 
 and their congregations had been erected 
 into incorporated societies, or poll-parish- 
 es ; that is, parishes comprising only indi- 
 viduals, and not marked by geographical 
 limits. But though the Constitution of 
 1780, which maintained the old assessment 
 for religious worship, allowed every per- 
 son to appropriate his taxes to whatever 
 society he pleased, it was still held by the 
 courts of that state, until the year 1811, 
 that a member of a territorial parish (which 
 is a corporation) could not divert the tax- 
 es imposed on him for the support of reli- 
 gious worship to the maintenance of a 
 teacher of an unincorporated society. f By 
 the statute of 1811, amended in 1823, a 
 duly-attested certificate of membership in 
 any other religious society, whether incor- 
 porated or not, sufficed to relieve the hold- 
 er of it from all taxes for the support of 
 the parish church ; but it was still the law 
 and practice of Massachusetts to regard all 
 persons, in any town or parish, who be- 
 longed to no religious society whatever, as 
 regular members of the parish or congre- 
 gational church, and taxable for the sup- 
 port of its clergy. 
 
 I have elsewhere spoken of the accu- 
 mulated evils which grew out of the con- 
 nexion between the Church and the State 
 in Massachusetts. Those evils became so 
 great, that the friends of evangelical reli- 
 gion, in other words, of the orthodox faith 
 of every name, resolved to unite in urging 
 an amendment of the Constitution of the 
 state, by which some better results might 
 be obtained. Their eflforts were crowned 
 with success. The amendment having 
 been voted by the Legislature in three 
 successive sessions, 1831-33, became part 
 of the organic law of the state, and the 
 union of Church and State was brought to 
 a close. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE niSSOLUTION OF THE UNION 
 OF CHURCH AND STATE IN THE SEVERAL 
 STATES IN WHICH IT ONCE EXISTED. 
 
 It will readily be believed that the union 
 
 * " Ratio Disciplinae ; or, Faithful Account of the 
 Disciphne professed and practised in the Churches 
 of New-England," p. 20. 
 
 t For a brief and clear view of the laws of Massa- 
 chusetts on this subject, the reader is referred to a 
 sermon of the Rev, William Cogswell, D.D., on Re- 
 ligious Liberty, preached on the day of the annual 
 Fast in Massachusetts, April 3d, 182a, and published 
 in Boston. 
 
€hap. IV.] DISSOLUTION OF UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 of Church and State, in any country where 
 it has once existed, cannot be dissolved 
 ■without some attendant inconvenience. If 
 such has been the nature of the connexion 
 that the Church has been wholly depend- 
 ant on the State for its support, for the 
 keeping of its places of worship in repair, 
 the maintenance of its pastors, and the in- 
 cidental expenses of public worship, very 
 serious embarrassments must inevitably 
 attend a sudden dissolution of such a union. 
 Such was unquestionably the case in some 
 of the States of America. In others, again, 
 in which the connexion had been one of 
 110 long duration, had never been .very 
 -close, and had not been carried out to a 
 great extent, that result was attended with 
 little and not very lasting evil. 
 
 Nowhere were the ill consequences 
 of the disestablishment of the Church 
 felt more seriously than in Virginia, and 
 this may be ascribed to several causes. 
 The worthless character of many of the 
 clergymen sent over from England had 
 bred in many places, from the very first, 
 great indifference to the Church and its 
 services. The people had become tired of 
 compulsory payments for the support of a 
 form of worship which they had ceased to 
 love or respect. Thus many became in- 
 different to religious worship of every kind, 
 and others went off to the " dissenters" — 
 the Presbyterians, Baptists, &c., when 
 there were churches of these denomina- 
 tions in their neighbourhoods. However 
 -deplorable it might be that the venerable 
 edifices in which their fathers had worship- 
 ped should be almost deserted from such a 
 cause, it was nevertheless inevitable. Not 
 that this representation applies to every 
 parish ; in many cases, the faithful and 
 consistent lives of the pastors kept their 
 ilocks, under God, in a state of prosperity. 
 In the second place, a large majority, 
 some say rather more than two thirds of 
 the Episcopal clergy* in Virginia were op- 
 posed to the Revolution, and most of these 
 returned to England. Nor are they to be 
 blamed without mercy for so doing. Many 
 of them, it must be remembered, were Eng- 
 lishmen by birth, and England was the land 
 of all their early associations. They had 
 never suffered oppression, but had ever been 
 of the party in favour with the monarch. 
 Thus nothing could be more natural than 
 that even good men among them should be 
 Tories. Others there were, doubtless, who 
 saw that the independence of the country 
 would be likely so to alter the state of 
 things as to make it impossible for them 
 to continue their delinquencies with impu- 
 nity, which they had enjoyed when respon- 
 sible only to a bishop 3000 miles off. But 
 this loyalty to the British crown was not 
 likely to find much forbearance among a 
 
 * Dr. Hawks's " History of the Episcopal Church 
 in Virginia," p. 136. 
 
 H 
 
 113 
 
 people, so many of whom were republican 
 in sentiment, and hostile for the time to 
 the mother-country; and the Episcopal 
 Church could not fail to suffer from the 
 sympathy shown by many of its clergy for 
 those who were considered the country's 
 enemies. This was, no doubt, counter- 
 acted so far by there being in the minority 
 of the clergy such stanch republicans and 
 avowed partisans of the colonies as the 
 Rev. Dr. Madison, afterward bishop of the 
 state, Drs. Griffith and Bracken, Messrs. Bu- 
 chanan, Jarratt, and others ;* while as re- 
 gards the laity, no men in all the colonies 
 entered more warmly into the Revolution 
 than did the Episcopalians of Virginia.! 
 
 In the third place, Virginia was the im- 
 mediate theatre of no small part of the 
 war, and was repeatedly overrun by the 
 armies of both sides. Now, without at- 
 tributing too much to wantonness, though 
 much, no doubt, was owing to that, it may 
 readily be supposed that the Episcopal 
 Churches, the best in the colony, would 
 be sure to be used as barracks, store- 
 houses, hospitals, «fcc., thus losing at once 
 their sacred character, and suffering much 
 in their furnishings. Partly, indeed, from 
 accident, partly, it is believed, from design, 
 not a few were destroyed by fire and other 
 causes. 
 
 In the fourth place, so engrossed were 
 all men's minds with the war, that the 
 time was very unfavourable for doing 
 good. Many of the ministers who re- 
 mained in the province found great diffi- ' 
 culty in collecting the people together, 
 or obtaining for themselves the means of 
 subsistence. Some betook themselves to 
 teaching schools, but even to that the 
 times were unfavourable. Many mere 
 boys shouldered the musket and went to 
 the war, returning no more to their homes 
 until hostilities had ceased, if death did 
 not prevent them from returning at all. 
 
 Bearing these things in mind, the state 
 of the Episcopal Churches| in Virginia 
 
 * In one instance, an Episcopal clergyman of Vir- 
 ginia, the Rev. Mr. Muhlenburg, relinquished his 
 charge, accepted a commission as colonel in the 
 American army, raised a regiment among his own par- 
 ishioners, served through the whole vsrar, and retired 
 from the service at its close with the rank of a brig- 
 adier-general. The last sermon that he ever preach- 
 ed to his people before he left for the camp, was de- 
 livered in military dress. — Thatcher's " Military Jour- 
 nal,'' p. 152. The Rev. Mr. Thurston, of Frederic 
 County, in the same state, also bore arms as a colo- 
 nel in the service of the country. 
 
 + Such as General Washington, Patrick Henry 
 (of whom we have spoken in the last chapter), Rich- 
 ard Henry Lee, the mover of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, his brother, Francis Lightfoot Lee, one 
 of the .signers, George Mason, Edmund Pendleton, 
 Peter Lyons, Paul Carrington, William Fleming, 
 William Grayson, with the famiUes of the Nelsons, 
 Meades, Mercers, Harrisons, Randolphs, and hun- 
 dreds of other names deservedly dear to Virginia. — 
 Dr. Hawks's " History of the Episcopal Church in Vir- 
 ginia" p. 137. 
 
 t Not that the damage done by the war to other 
 
114 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IIL 
 
 may be supposed to have been deplorable 
 enough on the return of peace, and that 
 they little needed the aggravation of be- 
 ing thrown for their support entirely upon 
 their own members, when these were im- 
 poverished by the length of the war, and 
 rendered by it incapable of doing much 
 for the Church, however well disposed to 
 make sacrifices in her cause. But an ex- 
 tract from the distinguished author to whom 
 I have so often had occasion to refer, will 
 give a clearer idea of the state of things 
 than I can : 
 
 " On the 19th of April, 1783, precisely 
 eight years after the first effusion of blood 
 at Lexington, peace was proclaimed to 
 the American army by order of the com- 
 mander-in-chief. Time was now afforded 
 to men to direct their attention to the 
 permanent establishment of such institu- 
 tions, civil and religious, as might com- 
 port with their desires or views of duty. 
 Much was to be done ; and rejoicing with 
 thankfulness, as now we may, in the pres- 
 ent prosperity of the Church in Virginia, 
 it is well to look back on its condition as 
 it emerged from the Revolution, and by 
 a contemplation of the difficulties which 
 stood in the way of its resuscitation, be 
 moved to the exercise of gratitude. When 
 the colonies first resorted to arms, Virgin- 
 ia in her sixty-one counties, contained nine- 
 ty-five parishes, 10-1 churches and chapels, 
 and ninety-one clergymen. When the 
 contest was over, she came out of the war 
 with a large number of her churches de- 
 stroyed or injured irreparably, with twen- 
 ty-three of her ninety-five parishes extinct 
 or forsaken, and of the remaining seventy- 
 two, thirty-four were destitute of ministe- 
 rial services ; while of her ninety-one cler- 
 gymen, twenty-eight only remained, who 
 had lived through the storm, and these, 
 with eight others who came into the state 
 soon after the struggle terminated, sup- 
 plied thirty-six of the parislies. Of these 
 twenty-eight, fifteen only had been enabled 
 to continue in the churches which they 
 supphed prior to the commencement of 
 hostilities ; and thirteen had been driven 
 from tlieir cures by violence or want, to 
 seek safety or comfort in some one of the 
 many vacant parishes, where they might 
 hope to find, for a time at least, exemption 
 from the extremity of sufTering."* 
 
 This is a dark enough picture, but it 
 must be borne in mind that the evils it rep- 
 resents were almost wholly owing to the 
 Revolutionary war and its consequences, 
 and could not have been much alleviated 
 had the Church Establishment, instead of 
 
 denoininutions was inconsideralile. The Presbyte- 
 rians (irobably siifi'ercd more in their church edifices, 
 from being far more obnoxious to the resentment of 
 the enemy, as the English were considered to be at 
 the time. 
 
 * Dr. Hawks's " History of the Episcopal Church 
 in Virginia," p. lo3, 154. 
 
 being arrested in 1776, been continued un-. 
 til 1783. But in the gloomy years that 
 followed the Revolution, the Episcopal 
 Church continued prostrate, and felt the 
 loss of her establishment most severely. 
 Then did it seem as if nothing short of 
 her utter ruin would satisfy the resent- 
 ment of her enemies. She had, indeed, 
 in the day of her power, been exclusive, 
 domineering, and persecuting; her owa 
 sins had brought upon her this severe vis- 
 itation. From her case, as well as from 
 all past experience, persecuting churches 
 should learn that a Church that oppresses, 
 will .one day be herself oppressed, and. 
 most likely by those on whose neck she 
 had placed her foot. 
 
 But let us turn to a brighter page. " The 
 Lord, after he hath afflicted, delighteth to 
 heal." So it was with the Episcopal Church 
 in Virginia. He had some good thing in 
 reserve for her, and had been preparing 
 her for it by the discipline of His rod. 
 She gradually emerged from her difficul- 
 ties. Her people learned by degrees to 
 trust in themselves, or, rather, in God, and 
 began to look to their own exertions rath- 
 er than to a tobacco-tax for the support of 
 their churches and pastors. Faithful min- 
 isters multiplied ; an excellent bishop was 
 elected and consecrated ; benevolent soci- 
 eties began to spring up ; a theological 
 school was planted within her borders, 
 where many youths of talent and piety have 
 been trained under excellent professors to 
 preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 And although the ministers and parishes 
 are not now so numerous as we have sta- 
 ted them to have been at the commence- 
 ment of the war of the Revolution, yet 
 their number is considerable, and constant- 
 ly increasing. There are ninety-five min- 
 isters, and more than one hundred 
 churches. But, above all, I do not think it 
 possible to find a body of ministers of equal 
 number, in any denomination, who, in point 
 of theological education, prudent zeal, sim- 
 ple and eflective eloquence, general use- 
 fulness, and the esteem in which they 
 are held by the people, can be regarded as 
 superior to the Episcopal clergy of the 
 present day in Virginia.* What a change ! 
 How wonderfully has all been overruled 
 by God for good ! Instead of perpetual 
 
 * This eulogy will not be thought extravagant by 
 any one that has had opportunities of knowing them. 
 1 have had the privilege, as well as the happiness, of 
 making the acquaintance of many of them, and have 
 known many more by character through sources wor- 
 thy of entire confidence. The late excellent Bishop 
 Moore was beloved by all who knew him. The pres- 
 ent bishop, Dr. Meade, enjoys the confidence and 
 esteem both of Christians and the world, in a higher 
 degree than perhaps any other minister of the Gos- 
 pel in America. The assistant bishop, Dr. Johns, 
 is a distinguished and excellent man. The profess- 
 ors m the diocesan Theological Seminary, the Rev. 
 Drs. Lippitt and Sparrow, are widely known and 
 highly esteemed by all who know them. 
 
Chap. IV.] DISSOLUTION OF UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 115 
 
 wrangling with their parishioners and the 
 law officers about the taxes on tobacco 
 levied for their support, as was formerly 
 the case, they are supported in a way 
 hereafter to be detailed ; I do not say ex- 
 travagantly or abundantly, but in general 
 comfortably, by the contributions of their 
 congregations. And instead of being dis- 
 liked, to use no harsher term, I have rea- 
 son to believe that they are universally 
 respected, and even beloved, by the mem- 
 bers of other churches. 
 
 In Maryland as well as Virginia, though 
 in a much less degree, the dissolution of 
 the union of Church and State produced 
 serious embarrassments and long-contin- 
 ued difficulty. In none of the colonies 
 had the established clergy received such 
 an ample maintenance as in Maryland. 
 Their stipends were in many cases most 
 liberal and ample for those days, so that 
 to throw them at once on the voluntary 
 support of their parishioners was a haz- 
 ardous step, and for the time led to many 
 cases of hardship. When the Revolution 
 broke out, there were twenty parishes on 
 the eastern shore of the province, and 
 twenty-four on the western ; in all, forty- 
 four. Each of these had an incumbent, 
 " though not always of the purest charac- 
 ter,"* and at the close of the war in 1783, 
 there were about eighteen or twenty re- 
 maining.f But if this diminution were 
 owing at all to the dissolution of the union 
 of Church and State, it was so in but a 
 small degree. The fact is, that about two 
 thirds of the established clergy were op- 
 posed to the war from its commencement, 
 and refused to take the oath of allegiance 
 to the new government, so that the great- 
 er part of them left the country. On the 
 return of peace, the Episcopal Church grad- 
 ually recovered from its depression, and 
 ever since it has made pretty steady prog- 
 ress, and been decidedly prosperous. The 
 late Dr. Clagget was apponited its first bish- 
 op in 1792, Its Convention was organized, 
 and canons established, by which proper 
 discipline was secured. The clergy were 
 for a loiag time less numerous than before 
 the Revolution ; not so much, however, ibr 
 want of the means of supporting them, as 
 for want of suitable men. Some minis- 
 ters did, indeed, leave their parishes, and 
 the state itself, just after the war of the 
 Revolution, and even so late as 1822, for 
 want of support ; but this was either be- 
 fore the churches had been sufficiently 
 trained to the work of raising a mainte- 
 nance for their ministers, or it arose from 
 the churches being really too weak for the 
 burden. Maryland had fifty Episcopal cler- 
 gymen in 1827 ; this number had risen to 
 seventy-two in 1838, and a considerable 
 proportion of the churches were still with- 
 
 * Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church 
 in Maryland." t Ibid., p. 301. 
 
 out ministers. At no period of its establish- 
 ment by the State was the Episcopal 
 Church of Maryland so prosperous as du- 
 ring some years back. Not that in all 
 cases the clergy are supported as they 
 ought to be, or as they were during the 
 union of Church and State ; but in point of 
 talents and sound learning, combined with 
 piety and other ministerial gifts, they are 
 immeasurably superior to their predeces- 
 sors before the Revolution. 
 
 In North and South Carolina, and in 
 New-York, though the disestablishment 
 of the Episcopal Church produced, as ia 
 other cases, a kind of syncope for a time, 
 from this it ere long recovered, and its 
 prosperity is now incomparably greater 
 than it ever was when it was supported by 
 the state. In the State of New- York it 
 may be said to have entered on its present 
 career of extraordinary prosperity with 
 the election and consecration of the late 
 Rev. Dr. John Henry Hobart, as bishop of 
 the diocese, previous to which its churches 
 and ministers were few in number com- 
 pared with the present time. Seldom has 
 a Church owed more to the energy and 
 perseverance of one man. 
 
 But in no part of the United States was 
 the proposal to disestablish the Church re- 
 ceived with more serious apprehension 
 than in New-England. The language in 
 which the celebrated Dr. Dwight, president 
 of Yale College, and author of a very valu- 
 able system of theology, as well as other 
 distinguished men of that state, deprecated 
 the measure, is still extant in pamphlets 
 and in journals, and these have often been 
 quoted in England by the friends, in oppo- 
 sition to the opponents, of the Church Es- 
 tablishment there. But it ought to be 
 known that not a single surviver at this 
 day, of all who once wrote against the 
 separation of Church and State in Connec- 
 ticut, has not long since seen that he was 
 mistaken, and has not now found to be a 
 blessing what he once regarded as a ca- 
 lamity. And had not Dr. Dwight died 
 just as the change came into operation, no 
 doubt he, too, would have changed his 
 opinion.* Twenty-seven years have now 
 elapsed since that time, and although I 
 have been much in Connecticut during the 
 last fifteen years, know many of the clergy, 
 and have conversed much with them on 
 the subject, out of the 200 or 300 once es- 
 tablished ministers of that state, I am not 
 
 * The author has often conversed on this subject 
 with the Rev. Lyman Beecher, D.D., who, when the 
 change took place, was pastor of a church in Con- 
 necticut, but is now professor in a theological semi- 
 nary at Cincinnati, Ohio. Dr. Beecher was as much 
 opposed to the dissolution as Dr. Dwight was, and 
 both preached and wrote against it. But with char- 
 actenstic candour, he hesitates not now to confess 
 that his apprehensions were quite unfounded. Few 
 men rank higher in the United States than Dr. 
 Beecher, whether as a preacher or as a writer. 
 
116 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IIL 
 
 aware of there being more than one Con- 
 gregational minister in the state who would 
 like to see the^ union of Church and State 
 restored in it. Indeed, the exception re- 
 ferred to is probably the only one in the 
 United States, among the Protestant min- 
 isters at least. Any others are most likely 
 foreigners, who have not yet entered large- 
 ly into the spirit of our institutions and our 
 people. On no point, I am confident, are 
 the evangelical clergy of the United States, 
 of all churches, more fully agreed than in 
 holding that a union of Church and State 
 would prove one of the greatest calamities 
 that could be inflicted on us, whatever it 
 may prove in other countries. This is the 
 very language I have heard a thousand 
 times from our best and ablest men when 
 speaking on the subject. 
 
 In Massachusetts, which was the last of 
 the states to abolish the union of the Church 
 and the Civil Power, the change was 
 adopted from a conviction of the evils, on 
 the one side, resulting from the union in 
 that state, and of the advantages, on the 
 other side, that would accrue from its dis- 
 solution : a conviction that led all the evan- 
 gelical denominations to combine for its 
 overthrow. In fine, after twelve years' 
 experience of the change, I apprehend not 
 a single person of influence in all their 
 I'anks will be found to regret it. 
 
 And now, throughout the whole of the 
 United States, Truth stands on its own im- 
 mutable vantage ground. So far as the 
 Civil Power is concerned, there is not the 
 slightest interference with the rights of 
 conscience or with the religious worship 
 of any one. Religious liberty,, fettered by 
 no state enactment, is as perfect as it can 
 be. Nor is any sect or denomination of 
 Christians favoured more than another. 
 All depend, under God, for their support on 
 the willing hearts and active hands of their 
 friends, while the civil government, re- 
 lieved from the ten thousand difliiculties and 
 embarrassments which a union of Church 
 and State would involve, has only to mote 
 out justice with even scales to all the citi- 
 zens, whatever may be their religious opin- 
 ions and preferences. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHETHER THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE 
 UNITED STATES HAS THE POWER TO PRO- 
 MOTE RELIGION. 
 
 It seems to be inferred by some that be- 
 cause the Constitution declares that " Con- 
 gress shall make no law respecting an es- 
 tablishment of religion, or prohibiting the 
 free exercise thereof,"* the General Gov- 
 ernment can do Rothing whatever to pro- 
 mote religion. This is certainly a mistake. 
 
 A great variety of opinions has been ex- 
 
 ♦ First of the Amendments to the Constitution. 
 
 pressed by writers on public and political 
 law on the question, How far any govern- 
 ment has a right to interfere in religious 
 matters ; but that such a right exists to a 
 certain extent, is admitted by all of them. 
 Nor can it be otherwise so long as religion 
 shall be thought necessary to the well-being 
 of society, and to the stability of govern- 
 ment itself. It is essential to the interests 
 of men, even in this world, that they should 
 be neither ignorant of, nor indifferent to, 
 the existence, attributes, and providence 
 of one Almighty God, the Ruler of the 
 universe ; and, above all, a people that be- 
 lieve in Christianity can never consent that 
 the government they live under should be 
 indifferent to its promotion, since public as 
 well as private virtue is connected indis- 
 solubly with a proper knowledge of its na- 
 ture and its claims, and as the everlasting 
 happiness of men depend upon its cordial 
 reception. 
 
 On this subject it may be interesting to 
 know the opinions of one of the most dis- 
 tinguished jurists in the United States, Mr. 
 Justice Story, one of the judges of the Su- 
 preme Court : 
 
 " The real difficulty lies in ascertaining 
 the limits to which government may right- 
 fully go in fostering and encouraging reli- 
 gion. Three cases may easily be supposed. 
 One, where a government affords aid to a 
 particular rehgion, leaving all persons free 
 to adopt any other ; another, where it cre- 
 ates an ecclesiastical establishment for the 
 propagation of the doctrines of a particular 
 sect of that religion, leaving a like freedom 
 to all others ; and a third, where it creates 
 such an establishment, and excludes all 
 persons not belonging to it, either wholly 
 or in part, from any participation in the 
 public honours, trusts, emoluments, privi- 
 leges, and immunities of the State. For 
 instance, a government may simply declare 
 that the Christian religion shall be the re- 
 ligion of the State, and shall be aided and 
 encouraged in all the varieties of sects be- 
 longing to it ; or it may declare that the 
 Catholic or Protestant religion shall be the 
 rehgion of the State, leaving every man to 
 the free enjoyment of his own religious 
 opinions ; or it may establish the doctrines 
 of a particular sect, as of Episcopalians, as 
 the rehgion of the Slate, with a like free- 
 dom ; or it may establish the doctrines of a 
 particular sect, as exclusively the religion 
 of the State, tolerating others to a limited 
 extent, or excluding all not belonging to it 
 from all public honours, trusts, emolu- 
 ments, privileges, and immunities. 
 
 " Now there will probably be found few 
 persons in this, or any other Christian 
 country, who would deliberately contend 
 that it was unreasonable or unjust to fos- 
 ter and encourage the Christian rehgion 
 generally as a matter of sound policy, as 
 , wx'U us of revealed truth. In fact, every 
 
Chap. V,] 
 
 RELIGIOUS POWER OF THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 117 
 
 American colony, from its foundation down 
 l' to the Revolution, with the exception of 
 ' Rhode Island (if, indeed, that state be an 
 exception), did openly, by the whole course 
 of its laws and institutions, support and 
 sustain, in some form, the Christian reli- 
 gion, and almost invariably gave a pecu- 
 liar sanction to some of its fundamental 
 doctrines. And this has continued to be 
 the case in some states down to the pres- 
 ent period, without the slightest suspicion 
 that it was against the principles of public 
 law or Republican liberty.* Indeed, in a 
 republic, there would seem to be a pecu- 
 liar propriety in viewing the Christian re- 
 ligion as the great basis on which it must 
 rest for its support and permanence, if it 
 be, what it has ever been deemed by its 
 truest friends to be, the religion of liberty. 
 Montesquieu has remarked, that the Chris- 
 tian religion is a stranger to mere despotic 
 power. The mildness so frequently rec- 
 ommended in the Gospel is incompatible 
 with the despotic rage with which a prince 
 punishes his subjects, and exercises him- 
 self in cruelty. t He has gone even far- 
 ther, and affirmed, that the Protestant re- 
 ligion is far more congenial with the spirit 
 of political freedom than the Catholic. 
 ' When,' says he, ' the Christian religion, 
 two centuries ago, became unhappily divi- 
 ded into Catholic and Protestant, the peo- 
 ple of the North [of Europe] embraced the 
 Protestant, and those of the South still ad- 
 hered to the Catholic. The reason is plain. 
 The people of the North have, and ever will 
 have, a spirit of liberty and independence 
 which the people of the South have not ; 
 and, therefore, a religion which has no 
 visible head is more agreeable to the inde- 
 pendency of climate than that which has 
 one.'t Without stopping to inquire wheth- 
 er this remark be well founded, it is cer- 
 tainly true that the parent country has act- 
 ed upon it with a severe and vigilant zeal ; 
 and in most of the colonies the same rigid 
 jealousy has been maintained almost down 
 to our own times. Massachusetts, while 
 she has promulgated, in her Bill of Rights, 
 the importance and necessity of the public 
 support of religion, and the worship of 
 God, has authorized the Legislature to re- 
 quire it only for Protestantism. The lan- 
 guage of that Bill of Rights is remarkable 
 for its pointed affirmation of the duty of 
 government to support Christianity, and 
 the reasons for it. ' As,' says the third 
 article, ' the happiness of a people, and the 
 good order and preservation of civil gov- 
 ernment, essentially depend upon piety, 
 religion, and morality, and as these can- 
 not be generally diffused through the com- 
 munity but by the institution of the public 
 
 * Kent's " Commentaries," sect, xxxiv., p. 35-37. 
 Rawle " On the Constitution," chap, x., p. 121, 122. 
 t Montesquieu, " Spirit of Laws," b. xxiv., c. iii. 
 j Ibid., chap. v. 
 
 worship of God, and of public instructions 
 in piety, religion, and morality, therefore, 
 to promote their happiness, and to secure 
 the good order and preservation of their 
 government, the people of this common- 
 wealth have a right to invest their Legisla- 
 ture with power to authorize and require, 
 and the Legislature shall from time to 
 time authorize and require the several 
 towns, parishes, &c., &c., to make suitable 
 provision, at their own expense, for the 
 institution of the public worship of God, 
 and for the support and maintenance of 
 public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, 
 and morality, in all cases where such pro- 
 vision shall not be made voluntarily.' Af- 
 terward there follow provisions prohibit- 
 ing any superiority of one sect over an- 
 other, and securing to all citizens the free 
 exercise of religion. 
 
 " Probably, at the time of the adoption 
 of the Constitution, and of the amendment 
 to it now under consideration, the general, 
 if not the universal, sentiment in America 
 was, that Christianity ought to receive en- 
 couragement from the State, so far as was 
 not incompatible with the private rights of 
 conscience and the freedom of religious 
 worship. An attempt to level all religions, 
 and to make it a matter of state policy to 
 hold all in utter indifference, would have 
 created universal disapprobation, if not 
 universal indignation. 
 
 " It yet remains a problem to be solved 
 in human affairs, whether any free govern- 
 ment can be permanent where the public 
 worship of God, and the support of religion, 
 constitute no part of the policy or duty of 
 the State in any assignable shape. The 
 future experience of Christendom, and 
 chiefly of the American States, must set- 
 tle this problem, as yet new in the history 
 of the world, abundant as it has been in 
 experiments in the theory of government. 
 
 " But the duty of supporting religion, 
 and especially the Christian religion, is 
 very different from the right to force the 
 consciences of other men, or to punish 
 them for worshipping God in the manner 
 which they believe their accountability to 
 Him requires. It has been truly said, that 
 ' religion, or the duty we owe to our Crea- 
 tor, and the manner of discharging it, can 
 be dictated only by reason and conviction, 
 not by force or violence.'* Mr. Locke 
 himself, who did not doubt the right of 
 government to interfere in matters of reli- 
 gion, and especially to encourage Christi- 
 anity, at the same time has expressed his 
 opinion of the right of private judgment, 
 and liberty of conscience, in a manner be- 
 coming his character as a sincere friend 
 of civil and religious liberty. ' No man, 
 or society of men,' says he, ' have any au- 
 thority to impose their opinions or inter- 
 
 * Virginia Bill of Rights. 1 Tucker's Blackstone's 
 Commentaries, Appendix, p. 29C. 
 
118 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 pretations on any other, the meanest Chris- 
 tian ; since, in matters of religion, every 
 man must know, and believe, and give an 
 account of himself.* The rights of con- 
 science are, indeed, beyond the just reach 
 of any human power. They are given by 
 God, and cannot be encroached upon by 
 human authority without a criminal dis- 
 obedience of the precepts of natural as 
 well as of revealed religion. 
 
 " The real object of this amendment was 
 not to countenance, much less to advance 
 Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or Infideli- 
 ty, by prostrating Christianity, but to ex- 
 clude all rivalry among Christian sects, 
 and to prevent any national ecclesiastical 
 establishment which should give to a hie- 
 rarchy the exclusive patronage of the na- 
 tional government. It thus cuts off the 
 means of religious persecution (the vice 
 and pest of former ages), and of the sub- 
 version of the rights of conscience in mat- 
 ters of religion, which had been trampled 
 upon almost from the days of the apostles 
 to the present age.f The history of the 
 parent country had afforded the most sol- 
 emn warnings and melancholy instructions 
 on this head ;J and even New-England, 
 the land of the persecuted Puritans, as well 
 as other colonies where the Church of 
 England had maintained its superiority, 
 would furnish out a chapter as full of the 
 darkest bigotry and intolerance as any 
 which could be found to disgrace the pages 
 of foreign annals. Apostacy, heresy, and 
 nonconformity had been standard crimes 
 for public appeals to kindle the flames of 
 persecution, and apologize for the most 
 atrocious triumphs over innocence and 
 virtue. . '"^ 
 
 " It was under a solemn consciousness 
 of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambi- 
 tion, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the 
 intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in 
 our domestic as well as foreign annals, 
 that it was deemed advisable to exclude 
 from the national government all power 
 to act upon the subject. <J The situation, 
 too, of diflferent states equally proclaimed 
 the policy, as well as the necessity, of 
 such an exclusion. In some of the states 
 Episcopalians constituted the predominant 
 sect ; in others, Presbyterians ; in others, 
 Congregationalists ; in others, Quakers ; 
 and in others, again, there was a close nu- 
 merical rivalry among contending sects. 
 It was impossible that there should not 
 arise perpetual strife and perpetual jeal- 
 ousy on the subject of ecclesiastical as- 
 cendency, if tlie National Government 
 were left free to create a re ligious estab- 
 
 * Lord King's Life of John Locke, p. 373. 
 
 t 2 Lloyd's Debates, p. 195. 
 
 t 4 Blackstone's Coininontaries, p. 41-59. 
 
 <j 2 Lloyd's Debates, p. 195-197. " "^I'he sectarian 
 spirit," said the late Dr. Corrie, " is uniformly selfish, 
 proud, and unfeeling." — Edinburgh Review, April, 
 1832, p. 135. 
 
 lishment. The only security was in ex- 
 tirpating the power. But this alone would 
 have been an imperfect security, if it had 
 not been followed up by a declaration of 
 the right of the free exercise of religion, 
 and a prohibition (as we have seen) of all 
 religious tests. Thus the whole power 
 over the subject of religion is left exclu- 
 sively to the State governments, to be act- 
 ed upon according to their own sense of 
 justice and the State Constitutions ; and 
 the Catholic and the Protestant, the Cal- 
 vinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the 
 Infidel, may sit down at the common table 
 of the national councils, without any in- 
 quisition into their faith or mode of wor- 
 ship."* 
 
 The preceding extracts from the learn- 
 ed commentator on the Constitution of the 
 United States are sufficient to show that 
 the General Government is not restrained 
 from promoting religion, though not allow- 
 ed to make any religious establishment, 
 or to do anything for the purpose of ag- 
 grandizing one denomination of Christians 
 more than another. 
 
 There is also a manifest difference be- 
 tween legislating directly for religion as 
 an end of jurisdiction, and keeping it re- 
 spectfully in view while legislating for 
 other ends, the legitimacy of which is not 
 questioned ; so that if we admit that the 
 States alone could do the former, the Gen- 
 eral Government might, at least, be com- 
 petent to the latter, and in this way the 
 harmony of the whole might be preserved. 
 
 But this restricted view of the case is 
 not necessary. All that the Constitution 
 does is to restrain Congress from making 
 any law " respecting an establishment of 
 religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of 
 the same." Everything that has no ten- 
 dency to bring about an establishment of 
 religion, or to interfere with the free ex- 
 ercise of religion. Congress may do. And 
 we shall see, hereafter, that this is the 
 view of the subject taken by the proper 
 authorities of the country. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED 
 STATES MAY JUSTLY BE CALLED INFIDEL OR 
 ATHEISTICAL. 
 
 Because no mention of the Supreme Be- 
 ing, or of the Christian religion, is to be 
 found in the Constitution of the United 
 States, some have pronounced it infidel, 
 others atheistical. But that neither opin- 
 ion is correct will appear from a moment's 
 consideration of the case. 
 
 Most certainly, the Convention which 
 
 * See Kent's Commentaries, Lecture xxiv. Rawle 
 on the Constitution, chap, x., p. 121, 122. 2 Lloyd's 
 I Debates, p. 195. 
 
Chap. VI.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 119 
 
 framed the Constitution in 1787, under the 
 presidency of the immortal Washington, 
 ivas neither infidel nor atheistical in its 
 character. All the leading men in it were 
 behevers in Christianity, and Washington, 
 as all the world knows, was a Christian. 
 Several of the more prominent members 
 were well known to be members of church- 
 es, and to live consistently with their pro- 
 fession. Even Franklin, who never avow- 
 ed his rehgious sentiments, and cannot be 
 said with certainty to have been an infidel, 
 proposed, at a time of great difficulty in 
 the course of their proceedings, that a 
 minister of the Gospel should be invited 
 to open their proceedings with prayer. 
 Many members of the Convention had 
 been members also of the Continental Con- 
 gress, which carried on the national gov- 
 ernment from the commencement of the 
 Kevolution until the Constitution went into 
 effect. Now the religious views of that 
 Congress we shall presently see from their 
 ■acts. 
 
 The framers of that Constitution seem, 
 in fact, to have felt the necessity of leav- 
 ing the subject of religion, as they left 
 many things besides, to the governments 
 of the several states composing the Union. 
 It was a subject on which these states had 
 legislated from the very first. In many of 
 them the Christian religion had been, and 
 in some it still continued to be, supported 
 by law ; in all, it had been the acknowl- 
 edged basis of their liberty and well-being, 
 and its institutions had been protected by 
 legal enactments. Nothing, accordingly, 
 could be more natural in the Convention 
 than to deem the introduction of the sub- 
 ject unnecessary. There is yet another 
 view of the subject. 
 
 " On this head," says an able writer, 
 " as on others, the Federal Constitution 
 %vas a compromise. Religion could not 
 well be introduced into it for any purpose 
 of positive regulation. There was no 
 choice but to tolerate all Christian denom- 
 inations, and to forbear entering into the 
 particular views of any. Religion was 
 likely to fare best in this way. Men who 
 loved it better than Ave do nowadays, felt 
 bound in prudence to leave it at once un- 
 aided and unencumbered by constitutional 
 provisions, save one or two of a negative 
 character. And they acted thus, not that 
 it might be trodden under foot, the pearl 
 among swine, but to the very end of its 
 greater ultimate prevalence, its more last- 
 ing sway among the people."* 
 
 There is truth, unquestionably, in these 
 remarks ; still I am of opinion that the 
 Convention, Avhile sensible that it was un- 
 wise to make religion a subject of legisla- 
 tion for the General Government, thought 
 that this, or even any mention of the thing 
 
 * " An Inquiry into the Moral and Religious Char- 
 acter of the American Government," p. 72. 
 
 at all, was unnecessary. The Constitu- 
 tion was not intended for a people that had 
 no religion, or that needed any legislation 
 on the subject from the proposed General 
 or National Government ; it was to be for 
 a people already Christian, and whose ex- 
 isting laws, emanating from the most ap- 
 propriate, or, to say the least, the most 
 convenient sources, gave ample evidence 
 of their being favourable to religion. Their 
 doing nothing positive on the subject 
 seems, accordingly, to speak more loudly 
 than if they had expressed themselves in 
 the most solemn formulas on the existence 
 of the Deity and the truth of Christianity. 
 These were clearly assumed, being, as it 
 were, so well known and fully acknowl- 
 edged as to need no specification in an in- 
 strument of a general nature, and design- 
 ed for general objects. The Bible does 
 not begin with an argument to prove the 
 existence of God, but assumes the fact, as 
 one the truth of which it needs no attempt 
 to establish. 
 
 This view is confirmed by what is to be 
 found in the Constitution itself. From the 
 reference to the Sabbath, in article I., sec- 
 tion vii., it is manifest that the framers of 
 it believed that they were drawing up a 
 Constitution for a Christian people : a peo- 
 ple who valued and cherished a day asso- 
 ciated, if I may so speak, with so large a 
 portion of Christianity. Regarding the sub- 
 ject in connexion with the circumstances 
 that belong to it, I do not think that the 
 government of the United States can just- 
 ly be called either infidel or atheistical, on 
 account of its Federal Constitution. The 
 authors of that Constitution never dream- 
 ed that they were to be regarded as treat- 
 ing Christianity with contempt, because 
 they did not formally mention it as the 
 law of the land, which it was already, much 
 less that it should be excluded from the 
 government. If the latter was intended, 
 we shall presently see that their acts, from 
 the very organization of the government, 
 belied any such intention. 
 
 Should any one, after all, regret that the 
 Constitution does not contain something 
 more explicit on the subject, I cannot but 
 say that I participate in that regret. Sure 
 I am that, had the excellent men who fra- 
 med the Constitution foreseen the infer- 
 ences that have been drawn from the omis- 
 sion, they would have recognised, in a 
 proper formula, the existence of God, and 
 the truth and the importance of the Chris- 
 tian religion. 
 
 I conclude this chapter in the language 
 of one who has ably treated this question. 
 " Consistent with themselves, the people 
 of 1787 meant by the federal arrangement 
 nothing but a new and larger organization 
 of government on principles already fa- 
 miliar to the country. The state govern- 
 ments were not broad enough for national 
 
RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 120 
 
 purposes, and the old Confederation was 
 deficient in central power. It was only 
 to remedy these two defects, not of prin- 
 ciple, but of distributive adjustment, that 
 the public mind addressed itself: innova- 
 tion, to any other end, was never thought 
 of; least of all in reference to religion, a 
 thing utterly apart from the whole de- 
 sign. So that, admitting that the Consti- 
 tution framed on that occasion does not in 
 terms proclaim itself a Christian document, 
 what then ? Does it proclaim itself un- 
 christian \ For if it is merely silent in the 
 matter, law and reason both tell us that its 
 religious character is to be looked for by 
 interpretation among the people that fash- 
 ioned it ; a people, Christian by profession 
 and by genealogy ; what is more, by deeds 
 of fundamental legislation that cannot de- 
 ceive."* 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 SHOWN TO BE CHRISTIAN BY ITS ACTS. 
 
 Anv doubts that the Constitution of the 
 United States may suggest as to the Chris- 
 tianf character of the National Govern- 
 ment will be dissipated by a statement of 
 facts. 
 
 In the first place, in transacting the af- 
 fairs of the government, the Sabbath is 
 recognised, and respect for it enjoined ; 
 not only so, but it is observed to a degree 
 rarely witnessed in other countries. All 
 public business is suspended, unless in 
 cases of extreme necessity. Congress ad- 
 journs over the Sabbath ;J the courts do not 
 sit ; the custom-houses, and all other pub- 
 lic offices, are shut, not only for a few 
 hours, or a part of it, but during the whole 
 day. 
 
 In the second place, the Christian char- 
 acter of the government is seen in the 
 proclamations that have been made from 
 time to time, calling on the people to ob- 
 serve days of fasting and prayer in times 
 of national distress, and of thanksgiving 
 for national or general mercies. Not a 
 
 * "An Inquiry into the Moral and Religious Char- 
 acter of the American Government," p. 84, 85. 
 
 + Wlien I s[)eak of the Cliristiau character of the 
 government of the United States, 1 mean that it is 
 so far regulated by the Christian religion as to par- 
 take of its spirit, and that is not infidel or ojiposcd 
 to Christianity — Christian as those of England and 
 other parts of Christendom are Christian — not that 
 every act of the government is truly conformable to 
 the requirements of Christianity. Alas ! where shall 
 we find a government whose acts are fully conform- 
 ed to these ? 
 
 } When the day for the adjournment of Congress 
 falls on Saturday, it sometimes happens that, on ac- 
 count of the accumulation of business, the session is 
 protracted through the lught into the early morning 
 of the Sabbath ; for doing which they fail not to be 
 severely censured, as they deserve, by the religious, 
 and even by some of the secular journals. 
 
 [Book IIF. 
 
 year passed during the war of the Revolu- 
 tion without the observance of such days. 
 At the commencement of that war, the 
 Congress, in one of these proclamations, 
 expressed its desire '• to have the people 
 of all ranks and degrees duly impressed 
 with a solemn sense of God's superintend- 
 ing providence, and of their duty to rely in. 
 all their lawful enterprises on his aid and 
 direction." The objects of a general fast 
 are set forth : " that they may with united 
 hearts confess and bewail their manifold 
 sins and transgressions, and by a sincere 
 repentance and amendment of life appease 
 his righteous displeasure, and through the 
 merits and mediation of Jesus Christ ob- 
 tain his pardon and forgiveness." A few 
 months later we find the following lan- 
 guage : " The Congress do also, in the 
 most earnest manner, recommend to all 
 the members of the United States, and par- 
 ticularly the officers, civil and military, 
 under them, the exercise of repentance 
 and reformation; and farther require of 
 them the strict observance of the articles 
 which forbid profane swearing and all im- 
 moralities." And in 1777, Congress called 
 upon the nation " that with one heart and 
 voice the good people may express the 
 grateful feelings of their hearts, and con- 
 secrate themselves to the service of their 
 divine Benefactor ; and that, together with 
 their sincere acknowledgments and offer- 
 ings, they may join the penitent confession 
 of their manifold sins, whereby they have 
 forfeited every favour, and their earnest sup- 
 plication that it may please God, through 
 the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to 
 forgive and blot them out of remembrance ; 
 that it may please him graciously to afford 
 his blessing on the governments of these 
 States respectively, and prosper the public 
 council of the whole ; to inspire our com- 
 manders both by land and by sea, and all 
 under them, with that wisdom and forti- 
 tude which may render them fit instru- 
 ments, under the government of Almighty 
 God, to secure to these United States the 
 greatest of all blessings — independence and 
 peace ; that it may please Him to prosper 
 the trade and manufactures of the people, 
 and the labour of the husbandman, that our 
 land may yield its increase ; to take schools 
 and seminaries of education, so necessary 
 for cultivating the principles of true liber- 
 ty, virtue, and piety, under His nurturing 
 hand ; and to prosper the means of religion 
 for the promotion and enlargement of that 
 kingdom which consisteth in righteousness, 
 [)eace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." In 
 1779, among other objects for which they 
 call on the people to pray, we find the 
 following : " That God would grant to his 
 Cliurch the plentiful effusions of divine 
 grace, and pour out his Holy Spirit on all 
 ministers of the Gospel ; that he would, 
 bless and prosper the means of education, 
 
Chap. VII] 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 121 
 
 and spread the light of Christian knowl- 
 edge through the remotest corners of the 
 earth." 
 
 Similar language is found in the procla- 
 mations of 1780, 1781, and 1782. Such 
 -was the spirit which actuated the councils 
 of the nation in the Revolution. And after 
 the Constitution had gone into effect, we 
 find, in the earlier period of its reign, that 
 days of fasting and prayer for similar bless- 
 ings were observed upon the invitation of 
 Congress. In 1812, when the last war 
 ■with England broke out, we find Congress 
 using the following language : " It being 
 a duty peculiarly incumbent in a time of 
 public calamity and war, humbly and de- 
 voutly to acknowledge our dependance on 
 Almighty God, and to implore his aid and 
 protection, therefore resolved, that a joint 
 committee of both houses wait on the 
 President, and request him to recommend 
 a day of public liumiliation and prayer, to 
 be observed by the people of the United 
 States with religious solemnity, and the of- 
 fering of fervent supplications to Almighty 
 God for the safety of these States, and 
 the speedy restoration of peace." And 
 when the peace arrived, the same branch 
 of the government called, in like manner, 
 for a day of thanksgiving, which President 
 Madison did not hesitate to recommend. 
 And though President Jackson, I regret to 
 say, had, as Mr. Jefferson had, scruples as to 
 how far he was empowered by the Consti- 
 tution to appoint, or, rather, to recommend 
 such days of fasting and prayer, and refu- 
 sed, accordingly, to do so at a time when it 
 was loudly called for by the circumstances 
 of the nation, the present president, Mr. 
 Tyler, hesitated not for a moment to call 
 upon the people to observe such a day upon 
 the death of the lamented President Harri- 
 son. And seldom has such a day been so re- 
 markably observed in any country, the peo- 
 ple flocking to their respective churches, 
 and listening with profound attention to dis- 
 courses suited to the affecting occasion. It 
 was marked, in short, with the solemnity 
 of a Sabbath. The nation felt that God, 
 who had stricken down the man whom 
 they had elevated so lately, and with such 
 enthusiasm, to the presidency, was loudly 
 calling upon them not to trust in " man, 
 whose breath is in his nostrils." The ap- 
 pointment of that fast was manifestly ac- 
 ceptable to the nation at large. 
 
 In the third place, the General Govern- 
 ment has at various times authorized the 
 employment of chaplains in the army and 
 navy, and at this moment there are such 
 in all larger vessels of war, and at twenty 
 of the chief fortresses and military sta- 
 tions.* There is also a chaplain at the gov- 
 
 * I cannot avoid remarking, however, that the ap- 
 pointment of some twenty-five chaplains in the 
 navy very strikingly illustrates the incompetency of 
 the civil power to manage spiritual matters. Most 
 
 ernment military school at West Point, for 
 the training of young officers. Moreover, 
 the Congress testifies to its interest in the 
 Christian religion, and to its sense of its 
 importance, by employing two chaplains, 
 one for the Senate and the other for the 
 House of Representatives, to open the sit- 
 tings of these bodies every day with prayer, 
 and who alternately preach every Sabbath 
 to the two houses, convened in the Hall of 
 the Representatives, at twelve o'clock. 
 
 In the fourth place, the poUcy of the 
 General Government may be considered as 
 Christian, inasmuch as it is directed, in a 
 large measure, by a Christian spirit. As 
 a people, we have preferred peace to war ; 
 we have endeavoured to act with simple 
 integrity and good faith to foreign nations. 
 With few exceptions, the General Govern- 
 ment has acted fairly to the Indians on our 
 borders ; and in the instances in which it 
 has been blamed, it is not easy to see how 
 it could have acted otherwise. To avoid a 
 civil war, it has once or twice, perhaps, 
 failed to act with sufficient promptitude in 
 protecting them from their ruthless white 
 invaders. But, generally speaking, its con- 
 duct towards the Indians has been mild and 
 benevolent. From the times of Washing- 
 ton it has ever willingly lent its aid in pro- 
 moting the introduction among them of the 
 arts of civilized life ; it has expended much 
 money in doing so ; and at this moment it 
 is co-operating with our missionary socie- 
 ties, by giving them indirect but effectual 
 aid in that quarter. But I shall have occa- 
 sion to speak elsewhere of the conduct of 
 the General Government with respect to 
 this subject. 
 
 of the chaplains in the United States navy, with the 
 exception of a few comparatively recent appoint- 
 ments, have been little qualified for labouring for the 
 salvation of from 400 to 1200 men on board a ship of 
 war. A secretary of the navy is seldom fitted to 
 make the best selection for such a post. It would be 
 better done if committed to some of the missionary 
 societies, or to them in conjunction with the secre- 
 tary. For more than twenty years after the last war 
 with England we had no chaplains in our little army, 
 but within four or live years the government, at the 
 instance of many of the officers, has appointed twen- 
 ty chaplains for as many of the chief posts. The 
 chaplains are chosen by the senior officers of each 
 post — as good an arrangement, probably, as could be 
 devised. When there were no chaplains employed, 
 by the government, the ministers in the vicinity of our 
 forts and garrisons, and the missionary societies, at- 
 tended to the spiritual interests of the officers and 
 men. The officers and men of a regiment, in some 
 cases, raised a sufficient sum among themselves for 
 the employment of a missionary, for the greater part, 
 or the whole of his time, to preach the Gospel to 
 them. Almost all our forts and garrisons are often 
 visited by ministers who volunteer to preach at cer- 
 tain stated times to the military stationed in them. 
 Thus is the Word of Life made known to men who 
 have devoted themselves to their country's service. 
 It must be borne in mind that the national army, in 
 times of peace, has seldom numbered more than 
 6000 or 8000 men. It is an interesting fact, that a 
 very considerable proportion of the officers are pious 
 men, and do much good by holding religious meet- 
 ings in their respective regiments and companies.. 
 
122 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 In the fifth place, the same spirit appears 
 in what takes place in judicial affairs. As, 
 first, the rejection of the oath of an atheist ; 
 second, the requiring of a belief in a future 
 state of rewards and punishments, in order 
 to the validity of a man's testimony ; and, 
 lastly, the administering of oaths on the 
 Bible. 
 
 In the sixth place, this appears from the 
 readiness shown by Congress in making 
 large grants of valuable public lands for the 
 support of seminaries of learning, asylums 
 for the deaf and dumb, and for hospitals, 
 although aware that the institutions thus 
 endowed were under the direction of de- 
 cided Christians, who would give a promi- 
 nent place in them to their religious views. 
 This I could show by many facts, were it 
 necessary. 
 
 But I have said enough, I trust, to prove 
 that though the promotion of religion does 
 not directly belong to the General Govern- 
 inent, but to the States, the former is nei- 
 ther hostile nor indifferent to the religious 
 interests of the country. This, indeed, is 
 not likely to be the case, so long, at least, 
 as a large proportion of our public men en- 
 tertain the respect they now show for re- 
 ligion. Such respect is the more interest- 
 ing, as it can only flow from the spontane- 
 ous feelings of the heart. They are not 
 tempted by any religious establishment to 
 become the partisans of religion. Religion 
 stands on its own basis, and seeks, not in- 
 effectually, to win the respect and affec- 
 tions of all men by its own simple merits. 
 Many of the national legislators are either 
 members of the churches, or their warm 
 supporters ; while few among them are not 
 believers in Christianity, or do not attend 
 some sanctuary of the Most High on the 
 •Sabbath. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL STATES 
 ORGANIZED ON THE BASIS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 After considering the claims of the 
 General Government to be regarded as 
 Christian in character, let us inquire how 
 far the individual States, and particularly 
 the original Thirteen, are entitled to the 
 same distinction, confining ourselves in 
 this chapter to the evidence supplied by 
 their earliest constitutions or fundamental 
 Jaws, which were mostly made during, or 
 shortly after, the Revolution. 
 
 Virginia was unquestionably a Christian 
 >state, but her Constitution is silent on the 
 subject. It was drawn up under the eye of 
 one of the greatest enemies that Christian- 
 ity has ever had to contend with in Amer- 
 ica ; but although he had influence enough 
 .to prevent the religion which he hated from 
 being mentioned in the Constitution of 
 
 Virginia, he could not obliterate all traces 
 of it from her laws. 
 
 Connecticut and Rhode Island had adopt- 
 ed no constitutions of their own when 
 that of the United States was framed. The 
 latter of these two states has been gov- 
 erned almost to this day by the charter 
 granted by Charles II. Both states were 
 of Puritan origin, and the charters of both 
 were based on Christian principles. 
 
 The first Constitution of New- York dates 
 from 1777. It strongly guarded the rights 
 of conscience and religious worship. It 
 excluded the clergy from public offices of 
 a secular nature, on the express ground 
 that " by their profession they were dedica- 
 ted to the service of God and to the cure 
 of souls," and " ought not to be diverted 
 from the great duties of their functions." 
 
 The Constitution of New- Jersey, as origi- 
 nally framed in 1776, besides guarantying 
 to every one the " inestimable privilege of 
 worshipping Almighty God in a manner 
 agreeable to the dictates of his own con- 
 science," declared that " all persons pro- 
 fessing a belief in the faith of any Protest- 
 ant sect, and who should demean them- 
 selves peaceably under the government, 
 should be capable of being members of ei- 
 ther branch of the Legislature, and should 
 fully and freely enjoy every privilege and 
 immunity enjoyed by others, their fellow- 
 citizens." Whatever may be thought of 
 the style of this instrument, it cannot be 
 denied that it favoured the professors of 
 Protestant Christianity. 
 
 The Constitution of New-Hampshire, af- 
 ter laying it down that " every individual 
 has a natural and inalienable right to wor- 
 ship God according to the dictates of his 
 conscience and his reason," says, " that 
 morality and piety, rightly grounded on 
 evangelical principles, would give the best 
 and greatest security to government, and 
 would lay in the hearts of men the strong- 
 est obligations to due subjection ;" and 
 again, " that the knowledge of these was 
 most likely to be propagated by the insti- 
 tution of the public worship of the Deity, 
 and public instruction in morality and re- 
 ligion;" therefore, to promote these impor- 
 tant purposes, " the towns" are empowered 
 to adopt measures for the support and 
 maintenance of " public Protestant teach- 
 ers of piety, religion, and morality." Al- 
 though the towns are still authorized to 
 take measures for the support of public 
 worship, that is no longer accomplished 
 by a general assessment. 
 
 The first Constitution of Massachusetts 
 was framed in 1780. In it we find the 
 following language : " That as the hap- 
 piness of a people, and the good order and 
 preservation of civil government, essen- 
 tially depend upon piety, religion, and 
 morality ; and as these cannot be gener- 
 ally diffused through a community but by 
 
Chap. VIII.] GOVERNMENTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL STATES. 
 
 123 
 
 the institution of the public worship of God, 
 and of pubUc instruction in piety, religion, 
 and morality : therefore, to promote their 
 happiness, and to secure the good order 
 and preservation of their government, the 
 people of this commonwealth have a right 
 to invest their Legislature with power to 
 authorize and require, and the Legislature 
 shall from time to time authorize and re- 
 quire the several towns, parishes, pre- 
 cincts, and other bodies politic, or religious 
 societies, to make suitable provision, at 
 their own expense, for the institution of 
 the public worship of God, and for the sup- 
 port and maintenance of public Protestant 
 teachers of piety, religion, and morality, 
 in all cases where such provision shall not 
 be made voluntarily ; and the people of 
 this commonwealth have also a right to, 
 and do, invest their Legislature with au- 
 thority to enjoin upon all the subjects an 
 attendance upon the instructions of the 
 public teachers as aforesaid, at stated 
 times and seasons, if there be any one 
 whose instructions they can conscientious- 
 ly attend." It was also ordained, that 
 '• because a frequent recurrence to the fun- 
 damental principles of the Constitution, 
 and a constant adherence to those of piety, 
 justice, moderation, temperance, industry, 
 and frugality, are absolutely necessary to 
 preserve the advantages of liberty and to 
 maintain a free government, the people 
 ought consequently to have a particular re- 
 gard to all those principles in the choice of 
 their officers and representatives ; and they 
 have a right to require of their lawgivers 
 and magistrates an exact and constant ob- 
 servance of them in the formation and ex- 
 ecution of all laws necessary for the good 
 administration of the commonwealth." 
 And, lastly, it wg,s prescribed that every 
 person " chosen governor, lieutenant-gov- 
 ernor, senator, or representative, and ac- 
 cepting the trust," shall subscribe a sol- 
 emn profession " that he believes the Chris- 
 tian religion, and has a firm persuasion of 
 its truth." 
 
 The Constitution of Maryland, made in 
 1776, empowers the Legislature " to lay a 
 general tax for the support of the Chris- 
 tian religion," and declares " that all per- 
 sons professing the Christian religion are 
 equally entitled to protection in their i-e- 
 ligious liberty." All tests are disallowed, 
 ^excepting these : an oath of office ; an oath 
 of allegiance ; " and a declaration of a be- 
 lief in the Christian religion." 
 
 The first Constitution of Pennsylvania, 
 made in the same year, requires that every 
 member of the Legislature shall make this 
 solemn declaration : " I do believe in one 
 God, the Creator and Governor of the uni- 
 verse, the rewarder of the good and the 
 punisher of the wicked ; and I do acknowl- 
 edge the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
 tament to be given by Divine inspiration." 
 
 The Constitution of Delaware, made at 
 the same period, premises, " That all men 
 have a natural and inalienable right to 
 worship God according to the dictates of 
 their own consciences and understand- 
 ings ;" and declares, " that all persons pro- 
 fessing the Christian religion ought for- 
 ever to enjoy equal rights and privileges." 
 In relation to the members of the Legisla- 
 ture, it enjoins, that every citizen who 
 shall be chosen a member of either house 
 of the Legislature, or appointed to any 
 other public office, shall be required to 
 subscribe the following declaration : " I 
 do profess faith in God the Father, and in 
 Jesus Christ his only Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore ; and 
 I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testament to be given 
 by Divine inspiration." 
 
 The Constitution of North Carolina, 
 made about the same period, declares ex- 
 pressly, " That no person who should deny 
 the being of God, or the truth of the Prot- 
 estant religion, or the Divine authority of 
 either the Old or New Testament, or who 
 should hold religious principles incompat- 
 ible with the freedom and safety of the 
 State, should be capable of holding any 
 office or place of trust in the civil govern- 
 ment of the Slate." 
 
 But the Constitution of South Carolina, 
 made in 1778, was the most remarkable of 
 all. It directs the Legislature, at its regular 
 meeting, to " choose by ballot from among 
 themselves, or from the people at large, a 
 governor and commander-in-chief, a lieu- 
 tenant-governor and privy council, all of 
 the Protestant rehgion." It prescribes 
 that no man shall be eligible to either the 
 Senate or House of Representatives, " un- 
 less he be of the Protestant religion." 
 And in a word, it ordains " that the Chris- 
 tian religion be deemed, and is hereby 
 constituted and declared to be, the estab- 
 lished religion of the land." 
 
 Provision was also made for the incor- 
 poration, maintenance, and government of 
 such " societies of Christian Protestants" 
 as choose to avail themselves of laws for 
 the purpose, and required that every such 
 society should first agree to, and subscribe 
 in a book the five following articles : 
 
 " First, That there is one eternal God, 
 and a future state of rewards and punish- 
 ments. 
 
 " Second, That God is publicly to be 
 worshipped. 
 
 "Third, That the Christian religion is 
 the true religion. 
 
 " Fourth, That the Holy Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testament are of Divine 
 inspiration, and are the rule of faith and 
 practice. 
 
 " Fifth, That it is lawful, and the duty of 
 every man, being thereunto called by those 
 who govern, to bear witness to the truth." 
 
124 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IIF. 
 
 Even more than this : the Conscript Fa- 
 thers who made the Constitution of South 
 Carohna went on to dechire, " That to 
 give the state sufficient security for the dis- 
 charge of the pastoral office, no person shall 
 officiate as a minister of any established 
 church who shall not have been chosen by 
 a majority of the society to which he shall 
 minister, nor until he shall have made and 
 subscribed the following declaration, over 
 and above the aforesaid five articles ; viz., 
 ' That he is determined, by God's grace, 
 out of the Holy Scriptures to instruct the 
 people committed to his charge, and to 
 teach nothing as required of necessity to 
 eternal salvation but that which he shall 
 be persuaded maybe concluded and proved 
 from the Scriptures ; that he will use both 
 public and private admonitions, as well to 
 the sick as to the whole, within his cure, 
 as need shall require and occasion be giv- 
 en ; that he will be diligent in prayers and 
 in reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in 
 such studies as help to the knowledge of 
 the same ; that he will be diligent to frame 
 and fashion his own self and liis family ac- 
 cording to the doctrine of Christ, and to 
 make both himself and them, as much as 
 in him lies, wholesome examples and pat- 
 terns of the flock of Christ ; that he will 
 maintain and set forward, as much as he 
 can, quietness, peace, and love, among all 
 people, and especially among those com- 
 mitted to his charge." 
 
 Who does not recognise in this Consti- 
 tution the spirit of the old Huguenot Con- 
 fession of Faith, and of the Synods of 
 France, which those who had been perse- 
 cuted in the Gallican kingdom had carried 
 with them to the New World ? 
 
 The Constitution of Georgia, made in 
 1777, says : " Every officer of the state 
 shall be liable to be called to account by 
 the House of Assembly," and that all the 
 members of that house "shall be of the 
 Protestant religion." 
 
 Such was the character of the State 
 Constitutions in the opening scenes of our 
 national existence. Of all the thirteen ori- 
 ginal states, the organic laws of one alone 
 did not expressly enjoin the Christian re- 
 ligion, and almost without exception, the 
 Protestant form of Christianity. But even 
 Virginia was, in fact, as much Christian 
 as any of them. 
 
 From all this, the reader will see how 
 the nation set out on its career. It was, 
 in every proper sense of the word, a Chris- 
 tian nation. And though the constitutions 
 of the old states luive smce been deprived 
 of what was exclusive in regard to re- 
 ligion, and the political privileges of the 
 Protestants are extended to the Rotnan 
 Catholics, without any exception that I am 
 aware of, yet the legislative action of those 
 states, as well as tliat of the new, is still 
 founded on Christianity, and is as favour- 
 
 able as ever to the promotion of the Chris- 
 tian religion. I am not sure whether the 
 Jew has equal privileges with the profess- 
 or of Christianity in every state, but these 
 he certainly has in most of them, and he 
 has everywhere the right to worship God 
 publicly, according to the rites of his re- 
 ligion. In some states he holds offices of 
 trust and influence, the law opening to 
 him as well as others access to such of- 
 fices. Thus, in the city of New- York, at 
 this moment, a descendant of Abraham, 
 who was formerly sheriff of that city, is a 
 judge of one of the courts, and discharges 
 its duties faithfully and acceptably. Jews 
 form but a small body in America, and as 
 they hold what may be called the basis of 
 the Christian religion, worship God accord- 
 ing to the Old Testament, and believe in a 
 future state of rewards and punishments, 
 such a modification of the laws as should 
 place them on the same footing with Chris- 
 tians, as respects political privileges, was 
 not deemed too latitudinarian or unsafe. 
 They surely have as good a claim to be 
 considered fit to become members of a 
 government founded on the religion of the 
 Bible, as Unitarians can pretend to, and 
 hold safer principles than the Universal- 
 ists. 
 
 I conclude by repeating, in few words, 
 that the state governments w^ere founded 
 on Christianity, and almost without excep- 
 tion, on Protestant Christianitj-. In the 
 progress of opinion on the subject of re- 
 ligious liberty, everything that looked like 
 an interference with the rights of con- 
 science in any sect was laid aside, and all 
 men whose religious principles were not 
 thought subversive of the great moral 
 principles of Christianity were admitted 
 to a full participation in civil privileges and 
 immunities. This is the present position 
 of the governments of the several states 
 in the American Union. Their legislation, 
 while it avoids oppressing the conscience 
 of any sect of religionists, is still decided- 
 ly favourable, in general, to the interests 
 of Christianity ; the unchristian element, 
 if I may so term it, is too insignificant, 
 taking the country as a whole, to exert an. 
 influence of any importance on the nation- 
 al legislation. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LEGISLATION OF THE STATES SHOWN TO 
 BE IN FAVOUR OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 We have said that the organic laws of 
 the state governments have been so far 
 modified as to extend political rights to 
 citizens of all shades of religious opinions ; 
 that in every state the rights of conscience 
 are guarantied to all men ; and in these 
 respects, the whole twenty- six states and 
 three territories composing the American 
 
•Chap. IX.] 
 
 LEGISLATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL STATES. 
 
 125 
 
 IJnion are as one. But we must not be 
 understood as meaning thereby, that irre- 
 ligion and licentiousness are also guaran- 
 tied by the organic laws, or by any laws 
 whatever. This would be absurd. Rights 
 of conscience are religious rights, that is, 
 rights to entertain and utter religious opin- 
 ions, and to enjoy public religious worship. 
 Now this expression, even in its widest ac- 
 ceptation, cannot uiclude irreligion ; opin- 
 ions contrary to the nature of religion, sub- 
 versive of the reverence, love, and service 
 due to God, of virtue, morality, and good 
 manners. What rights of conscience can 
 atheism, irreligion, or licentiousness pre- 
 tend to 1 It may not be prudent to disturb 
 them in their private haunts and secret re- 
 tirements. There let them remain and 
 hold their peace. But they have no right, 
 by any law in the United States that I am 
 aware of, to come to propagate opinions 
 and proselytize. Such attempts, on the 
 contrary, are everywhere opposed by the 
 laws, and if, at times, these laws are eva- 
 ded, or their enforcement intentionally in- 
 termitted, this does not proceed from any 
 question of their being just, but from a 
 conviction that, in some circumstances, it 
 is the less of two evils not to enforce them. 
 It is sometimes the best way to silence a 
 noisy, brainless lecturer on atheism, to let 
 him alone, and the immoral conduct of 
 some preachers of unrighteousness is the 
 best refutation of their impious doctrines. 
 At times, however, another course must 
 be pursued. The publication of licentious 
 books and pictures, profane swearing, blas- 
 phemy, obscenity, the interruption of pub- 
 lic worship, and such like offences, are 
 punishable by the laws of every state in 
 the American Union. Now, whence had 
 these laws their origin, or where do we find 
 their sanction 1 Take the laws against 
 profane swearing. Where did men learn 
 that that is an offence against which the 
 laws should level its denunciations ? Sure- 
 ly from the Bible, and nowhere else. 
 
 Not more than one state, if even one, is 
 supposed to have no laws for the due ob- 
 servance of the Sabbath. But whence 
 came such regulations^ From the light 
 of Nature ? From the conclusions of hu- 
 man wisdom] Has philosophy ever dis- 
 covered that one day in seven should be 
 consecrated to God ^ I am aware that expe- 
 rience, and a right knowledge of the animal 
 economy, show that the law setting apart 
 one day in seven is good, favourable to hu- 
 man happiness, and merciful to the beasts 
 of burden. But the Sabbath is of God ; and 
 putting aside some dim traditions and cus- 
 toms among nations near the spot where 
 the Divine command respecting it was first 
 given to Moses, or of the people in whose 
 code it afterward held a permanent place, 
 we find it only in the Bible. 
 
 But it is not only by the statute law of 
 
 the United States that such offences are 
 forbidden ; they are punishable likewise 
 under the common law, which has force 
 in those states as well as in England. Of 
 this admirable part of the civil economy, 
 Christianity is not merely an inherent, it 
 is a constituent part. This, though denied 
 by Mr. Jefferson, Dr. Cooper, and others, 
 has been so decided by many of the ablest 
 judges in the land. For it has been held, 
 that while the abolition of religious estab- 
 lishments in the United States necessari- 
 ly abolishes that part of the common law 
 which attaches to them in England, it does 
 nothing more, and thus many offences still 
 remain obnoxious to it, on the ground of 
 their being contrary to the Christian re- 
 ligion. 
 
 A person was indicted at New- York, in 
 1811, for aspersing the character of Jesus 
 Christ, and denying the legitimacy of his 
 birth. He was tried, condemned, fined, and 
 imprisoned. On that trial, Chief-justice 
 Kent, still living, and believed to be sec- 
 ond to none in the country in point of legal 
 knowledge, expressed himself as follows : 
 
 " The people of this state, in common 
 with the people of this country, profess the 
 general doctrines of Christianity as the 
 rule of their faith and practice ; and to 
 scandalize the Author of these doctrines 
 is not only, in a religious point of view, ex- 
 tremely impious, but, even in respect to 
 the obligations due to society, is a gross 
 violation of decency and good order. No- 
 thing could be more offensive to the virtu- 
 ous part of the community, or more inju- 
 rious to the tender morals of the young, 
 than to declare sucli profanity lawful. It 
 would go to confound all distinction be- 
 tween things sacred and profane." "'No 
 government," he maintained, " among any 
 of the polished nations of antiquity, and 
 none of the institutions of modern Europe 
 (a single monitory case excepted), ever 
 hazarded such a bold experiment upon the 
 solidity of the public morals as to permit 
 with impunity, and under the sanction of 
 their tribunals, the general rehgion of the 
 community to be openly insulted and de- 
 famed." " True," he adds, " the Constitu- 
 tion has discarded religious establishments. 
 It does not forbid judicial cognizance of 
 those offences against religion and moral- 
 ity which have no reference to any such 
 establishment, or to any particular form of 
 government, but are punishable because 
 they strike at the root of moral obligation, 
 and weaken the security of the social ties. 
 To construe it as breaking down tlie com- 
 mon law barriers against licentious, wan- 
 ton, and impious attacks upon Christia,ni- 
 ty itself, would be an enormous perversion 
 of its meaning."* 
 
 These just opinions were fully sustain- 
 
 * Johnson's " Reports," p. 290. 
 
126 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book UT. 
 
 ed by the decision pronounced in Penn- 
 sylvania, at the trial of a man indicted for 
 blasphemy, not against God directly, but 
 against the Bible ; the design charged upon 
 him being that of " contriving and intend- 
 ing to scandalize and bring into disrepute 
 and vilify the Christian religion and the 
 Scriptures of truth." On that occasion, 
 the late Judge Duncan said, that " even if 
 Christianity were not a part of the law of 
 the land, it is the popular religion of the 
 country ; an insult to which would be in- 
 dictable, as tending to disturb the public 
 peace ;" and added, " that no society can 
 tolerate a wilful and despiteful attempt to 
 subvert its religion."* 
 
 The application of the common law, by 
 the courts of Pennsylvania, to the protec- 
 tion of clergymen living in the discharge 
 of their official duties, confirms all that has 
 been said respecting the light in which 
 Christianity is regarded by the state gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 Farther, every state has laws for the 
 protection of all religious meetings from 
 disturbance, and these are enforced when 
 occasion requires. Indeed, 1 am not aware 
 of any offence that is more promptly pun- 
 ished by the police than interfering with 
 religious worship, whether held in a church, 
 in a private house, or even in the forest. 
 
 All the states have laws for the regula- 
 tion of church property, and of that devo- 
 ted to religious uses. In some states, ev- 
 ery religious body, immediately on being 
 organized, is pronounced de facto incorpo- 
 rated ; and in none, generally, is there any 
 difficulty in procuring an act of incorpora- 
 tion, either for churches or benevolent so- 
 cieties. 
 
 No state allows the oath of an atheist to 
 be received in a court of justice, and in one 
 only, in so far as I am aware, is that of a 
 disbeliever in -d future state of rewards and 
 punishments received as evidence. That 
 state is New- York, where the law requires 
 simply the belief in a state of rewards 
 and punishments ; in other words, if a man 
 believes that there is a God who punishes 
 men for evil actions, and rewards them 
 for their good ones, whether in this world 
 or in that which is to come, his oath will be 
 received in a court of justice. Of course, 
 the man who believes neither in the exist- 
 ence of (iod, nor in any sort of divine pun- 
 ishment, cannot be sworn, nor his testimo- 
 ny be allowed, in a court in that state. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LEGISLATION OF THE STATES OFTEN 
 BEARS FAVOURABLY, THOUGH INCIDENTAL- 
 LY, ON THE CAUSE OF RELIGION. 
 
 If there be no Established Church in 
 any of the states at the present time, it is 
 
 * II Sergeant and Kawle's Reports, p. 394. 
 
 not, as we have shown, from any want of 
 power in the states to create such an es- 
 tablishment, but because it has been found 
 inexpedient to attempt promoting religion 
 in that way. Experience has shown that 
 with us all such establishments have been,, 
 upon the whole, more injurious than bene- 
 ficial. They have been renounced because, 
 from the nature of the case, they could 
 never be made to operate in such a way 
 as not to do some injustice to one portion 
 or other of the citizens. 
 
 To this general conviction we must as- 
 cribe what appears at first sight to be an 
 anomaly ; the power to aid religion by le- 
 gal enactment expressly conferred in the 
 Constitutions of some of the states,* and 
 yet that power suffered to lie dormant, nor 
 is there tlie least prospect of its ever being 
 exercised again. But although the states 
 have thought it best for the interests of re- 
 ligion itself, as well as most equitable to 
 all classes of the inhabitants, to relinquish 
 all attempts to promote religion by what 
 is called an establishment, yet they have 
 deemed it neither unwise nor unjust to 
 pursue the same end indirectly. Several 
 instances of this kind have been stated al- 
 ready ; we may notice a few more. 
 
 The states do much to promote educa- 
 tion in all its stages, though in doing so 
 they often assist the cause of religion, in 
 what might be considered nearly the most 
 direct manner possible. For instance, they 
 aid colleges directed by religious men, and 
 that, too, without stipulating for the sliglit- 
 est control over these institutions. On this 
 we shall yet have occasion to speak more 
 at large, and we introduce it here merely 
 to indicate what the states are thus doing 
 for Christianity in the way of concurrence 
 with other bodies. Some states have giv- 
 en considerable sums to endow colleges at 
 the outset. Others contribute annually to 
 their support, and this while well aware 
 that the colleges aided by such grants are 
 under a decided religious influence. So is 
 it also with the academies, of which there 
 are several even in the smallest states, and 
 many in the largest. Young men are in- 
 structed in the classics and mathematics 
 at these, preparatory to being sent to col- 
 lege, and as many of them are conducted 
 by ministers of the Gospel and other reli- 
 gious men, they are nurseries of vast im- 
 portance both for the Church and the State. 
 
 Again, by promoting primary schools, 
 the states co-operate in promoting reli- 
 gion ; for mere intellectual knowlege, al- 
 though not religion, greatly facilitates its 
 diffusion by means of books. In the six 
 New-England States, it is long since pro- 
 vision was first made by law for the good 
 education of every child wliose parents 
 choose to avail themselves of it ; and, ac- 
 
 * Maryland, New-Hampshire, and South Carolina. 
 
Chap. XI.] 
 
 LEGISLATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL STATES. 
 
 127 
 
 cordingly, hardly is there an adult native 
 of those states to be found wlio cannot 
 read. Some uneducated persons there are, 
 especially in Maine, New-Hampshire, and 
 Rhode Island, but they are few compared 
 with what may be found in other lands. 
 In all the six states, except Connecticut, 
 each " town" is required to assess itself for 
 as many schools as it may need. Connec- 
 ticut has a school fund of above 2,000,000 
 dollars, yielding an annual revenue of above 
 112,000 dollars, and this maintains schools, 
 a part of the year at least, in every school 
 district of the state. In New- York, Penn- 
 sylvania, and Ohio, there are efficient pri- 
 mary school systems in operation, sup- 
 ported by law, and capable of supplying all 
 the youth with education. The state sup- 
 port consists partly of the interest of per- 
 manent slate funds set apart for the pur- 
 pose, partly of money raised in each of the 
 townships by assessment. The systems 
 pursued in New-Jersey and Delaware, 
 though less efficient, are highly useful. 
 ■ Efforts are making in several of the West- 
 ern States to introduce a like provision, and 
 a good deal is done in the Southern States 
 to educate the children of the poor, by 
 means of funds set apart for that purpose. 
 
 The instruction given in the primary 
 schools of the United States depends for 
 its chivracter upon the teachers. Where 
 these are pious, they find no difficulty in 
 giving a great deal of religious instruction ; 
 where they are not so, but little instruc- 
 tion is given that can be called religious. 
 The Bible is read in most of the schools. 
 
 Several of the states have liberally con- 
 tributed to the establishment of asylums 
 for the deaf and dumb, and for the blind, 
 almost all of which institutions are under 
 a decidedly religious influence. The gov- 
 ernments of several states containing large 
 cities, have done much in aid of the efforts 
 of philanthropic individuals and associa- 
 tions for establishing Retreats or Houses 
 of Refuge, where young offenders who 
 have not gone hopelessly astray may be 
 placed for reformation. These institutions 
 have been greatly blessed. 
 
 Before concluding my remarks on the 
 indirect bearing of the State legislation in 
 America upon religion, I have a few words 
 to say on one or two subjects connected 
 ■with religion, but different from those al- 
 ready mentioned. One is marriag-e, which, 
 with us, is in a great degree a civil institu- 
 tion, regulated by the laws of each state, 
 prescribing how it should be performed. 
 In so far as it is a contract between the 
 parties, under proper circumstances of age, 
 consent of friends, sufficient number of 
 witnesses, &c., it has, with us, no neces- 
 sary connexion with religion. In all of 
 the states it may take place, if the parties 
 choose, before a regularly ordained minis- 
 ter of the Gospel, and be accompanied with 
 
 religious services. The civil power de- 
 cides within what degrees of consanguin- 
 ity and affinity it may take place. On this 
 point, and this mainly, can any collision 
 take place between the ecclesiastical and 
 civil authorities. For instance, the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
 has lately decided, or, rather, repeated a de- 
 cision given indirectly some years ago, 
 that a man may not marry his deceased 
 wife's sister, and pronounced all such mar- 
 riages to be contrary to the Scriptures, and' 
 incestuous. Such marriages, on the other 
 hand, are expressly allowed by the laws, 
 of Connecticut, and are not forbidden by 
 those of any other state excepting Virgin- 
 ia. In all cases of this kind, a man must 
 make his election as to which he will obey 
 — the Church or the State. As condem- 
 nation by the former subjects a man to^ 
 no civil penalties, all that he can suffer is 
 excommunication. 
 
 As for divorces, they are wholly regula- 
 ted by the civil government, and fall 
 within the jurisdiction of the States. In 
 some they are allowed for very few cau- 
 ses ; much more looseness of practice pre- 
 vails in others. In South Carolina, I un- 
 derstand that no divorce has been granted 
 since it became a state. Ip some states 
 it belongs to the legislatures to grant di- 
 vorces, and in others to tiie courts of law. 
 
 What are called mixed marriages, or 
 marriages between Protestants and Roman 
 Catholics, which have given rise to so 
 much trouble of late in some countries of 
 Europe, occasion no difficulty with us. 
 Marriage, by our laws, being a civil con- 
 tract, is held valid at common law when- 
 ever the consent of the parties, supposing 
 there is no legal impediment, is expressed 
 in a way that admits of proof. The refu- 
 sal of a priest to grant the nuptial benedic- 
 tion, or the sacrament of marriage, except 
 upon conditions to which the parties might 
 not be willing to agree, would be of little 
 consequence. They have only to go to 
 the civil magistrate, and they will be mar- 
 ried without the slightest difficulty. No 
 Roman Catholic priest, or Protestant min- 
 ister in the United States, would dare to 
 refuse to perform the ceremony of mar- 
 riage, unless for most justifiable reasons ; 
 for if he did, he would soon hear of it through 
 the press, which is with us an instrument 
 for correcting any little instances of tyr- 
 anny or injustice with which any man, no 
 matter who, may think fit to annoy per- 
 sons placed in any sense under his au- 
 thority. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IN WHAT CASES THE ACTION OF THE CIVIL AU- 
 THORITY MAY BE DIRECTED IN REFERENCE 
 TO RELIGION. 
 
 Besides the incidental bearing which the 
 
128 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 legislation of the individual states has 
 upon religion, and which sometimes comes 
 not a little to its help, there are cases in 
 •which the civil authority intervenes more 
 directly, not in settUng points of doctrine, 
 but in determining questions of property ; 
 and these are by no means of rare occur- 
 rence where there are conflicting claims 
 in individual churches. This, indeed, has 
 happened twice at least, in reference to 
 property held by large religious denomina- 
 tions. The first of these cases occurred 
 in New-Jersey, and on that occasion the 
 courts decided upon the claims to certain 
 property, urged by the Orthodox and the 
 Hiclcsites, two bodies into which the So- 
 ciety of Friends, or Quakers, has been di- 
 vided throughout the United States. And 
 although the trial took place on a local 
 cause, or, rather, for a local claim, yet the 
 principle upon which it was decided affect- 
 ed all the property held by Quaker socie- 
 ties in the state. 
 
 The second case occurred recently in 
 Pennsylvania, where the Supreme Court 
 had to decide upon the claims of the Old 
 and New School, to certain property be- 
 longing to the General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church, on its being divided 
 into two separate bodies, each of which 
 assumed the name of the Presbyterian 
 Church. Here the court had of necessity 
 to decide which of the two ought by law 
 to be considered the true representative 
 and successor of the Presbyterian Church 
 before its division. The decision, how- 
 ever, did not rest on doctrinal grounds, but 
 wholly on the acts of the bodies them- 
 selves, the court refusing to take up the 
 question of doctrines at all, as not being 
 ■within their province. Not so in the case 
 of the Quakers just referred to. There 
 the court considered the question of doc- 
 trine, in order to determine which body 
 ■was the true Society of Friends. 
 
 I apprehend that I have now said enough 
 to place the nature of the mutual relations 
 between Church and State in America 
 fairly before the reader, and will dismiss 
 the subject by giving some extracts from 
 a communication which the Hon. Henry 
 "Wheatoji, ambassador from the United 
 States to the Court of Berlin, has had the 
 goodness to address to me, and which pre- 
 sents, in some respects, a resume, or sum- 
 mary of what may be said on this subject : 
 
 " In answer to your first query, I should 
 say that the State does not view the Chris- 
 tian Church as a rival or an enemy, but 
 rather as an assistant or co-worker in the 
 religious and moral instruction of the peo- 
 ple, which is one of the most important 
 duties of civil government. 
 
 " It is not true that the Church is treated 
 as a stranger by the state. 
 
 " There arc ample laws in all the states 
 of the American Union for the observance 
 
 of the Sabbath, the securing of Church 
 property, and the undisturbed tranquillity 
 of public worship by every variety of Chris- 
 tian sects. The law makes no distinction 
 among these sects, and gives to no one 
 the predominance over tlie others. It pro- 
 tects all equally, and gives no political 
 privileges to the adherent of one over those 
 of another sect. 
 
 " The laws of the several states author- 
 ize the acquisition and holding of church 
 property, under certain limitations as to 
 value, either by making a special corpora- 
 tion for that purpose, or through the agen- 
 cy of trustees empowered under general 
 regulations for that purpose. Without go- 
 ing into detail on this subject, it is enough 
 to say that they proceed upon the princi- 
 ple of allowing the church to hold a suffi- 
 cient amount of real and personal property 
 to enable it to perform its appropriate func- 
 tions, and, at the same time, to guard against 
 abuse, by allowing too great an amount of 
 wealth to be perpetually locked up mmort- 
 mam by grants and testamentary disposi-' 
 tions ad pios usus. In some of the states 
 of the Union, the English statute of mort- 
 main has been introduced, by which reli- 
 gious corporations are disabled from ac- 
 quiring real property unless by special 
 license of the government. In others, the 
 capacity to acquire it is regulated and lim- 
 ited by the special acts of legislation in- 
 corporating religious societies. The ec- 
 clesiastical corporations existing before 
 the Revolution, which separated the United 
 States from the parent country, continue 
 to enjoy the rights and property which 
 they had previously held under acts of Par- 
 liament, or of the provincial Legislatures. 
 
 " Blasphemy is punished as a criminal 
 offence by the laws of the several states. 
 
 " Perjury is, in like manner, punished as 
 a crime ; the form of administering the 
 oath being accommodated to the conscien- 
 tious views of different religious sects. 
 The Quakers are allowed to affirm solemn- 
 ly ; the Jews swear upon the scriptures of 
 the Old Testament only ; and certain Chris- 
 tian sects with the uplifted hand. 
 
 " There has been much discussion among 
 our jurists as to how tlie oaths of infidels 
 ought to be considered in courts of justice. 
 But, so far as I recollect, the general re- 
 sult is to reject the oath of such persons 
 only as deny the being of God, or a future 
 state of rewards and punishments, without 
 absolutely requiring a belief in revealed 
 religion. 
 
 " The laws regulating marriage with us 
 are founded on the precepts of Christian- 
 ity ; hence polygamy is absolutely forbid- 
 den, and punished as a crime under the de- 
 nomination of bigamy. Marriages between 
 relations by blood in the ascending or de- 
 scending lines, and between collaterals in 
 the first degree, are absolutely forbidden in 
 
Chap. I.] 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE. 
 
 129 
 
 all the states ; and in some, all marriages 
 within the Levitical degrees are also for- 
 bidden. 
 
 " The common law of England, which 
 requires consent merely, without any par- 
 ticular form of solemnization, to render a 
 marriage legally valid, is adopted in those 
 states of the American Union which have 
 not enacted special legislative statutes on 
 the subject. In some of the states mar- 
 riage is required to be solemnized in the 
 presence of a clergyman or magistrate. 
 
 " All our distinguished men, so far as I 
 know, are Cliristians of one denomination 
 or other. A great reaction has taken place 
 ■within the last thirty years against the tor- 
 rent of infidelity let in by the superficial 
 philosophy of the eighteenth century. 
 
 " I believe the separation of Church and 
 State is, with us, considered almost, if not 
 universally, as a blessing." 
 
 With these extracts, which give the 
 views of one of the most distinguished 
 statesmen and diplomatists of America, 
 and which confirm the positions we have 
 advanced on all the points to which they 
 refer, we close our remarks on the exist- 
 ing relations between the Church and State 
 ia that country. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 REVIEW OF THE GROUND WHICH WE HAVE 
 GONE OVER. 
 
 We have now arrived at the close of the 
 Third Book of this work. 
 
 We have traced the religious character 
 of the early colonists who settled in Amer- 
 ica ; the religious establishments which 
 they planted ; the happy and the unhappy 
 influences of those establishments ; their 
 
 overthrow and its consequences ; and, final- 
 ly, the relations which have subsisted be- 
 tween the churches and the civil govern- 
 ments since the Revolution. We are now 
 about to enter upon the consideration of 
 the resources which the churches have 
 developed since they have been compelled 
 to look, in dependance upon God's bless- 
 ing, to their own exertions, instead of rely- 
 ing on tlie arm of the state. 
 
 A review of the ground which we have 
 gone over may be given almost in the very 
 words of an able author, to whom we have 
 been repeatedly indebted. 
 
 1. " The first settlers of the United States 
 went to it as Christians, and with strong 
 intent to occupy the country in that char- 
 acter. 
 
 2. " The lives they lived there, and the 
 institutions they set up, were signalized 
 by the spirit and doctrine of the religion 
 they professed. 
 
 3. " The same doctrine and spirit, de- 
 scending upon the patriots of the federal 
 era, entered largely into the primary State 
 Constitutions of the Republic, and, if anal- 
 ogy can be trusted, into the constructive 
 meaning of the Federal Charter itself. 
 
 4. " Christianity is still the popular reli- 
 gion of the country. 
 
 5. "And, finally, notwithstanding some 
 untoward acts of individual rulers, it is to 
 this day, though without establishments, 
 and with equal liberty to men's conscien- 
 ces, the religion of the laws and of the 
 government. If records tell the trutli — if 
 annals and documents can outweigh the 
 flippant rhetoric of licentious debate, our 
 public institutions carry still the stamp of 
 their origin : the memory of better times 
 is come down to us in solid remains ; the 
 monuments of the fathers are yet standing ; 
 and, blessed be God, the national edifice 
 continues visibly to rest upon them."* 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE IN AMERICA; ITS ACTION AND 
 
 INFLUENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE THE GREAT AL- 
 TERNATIVE. THE NATURE AND VASTNESS 
 
 OF ITS MISSION. 
 
 The reader has remarked the progress of 
 Religious Liberty in the United States from 
 the first colonization of the country until 
 the present time, and traced the eff'ects of 
 its successive developments in modifying 
 the relations between the churches and 
 the state. 
 
 He has seen that when that country be- 
 gan to be settled by European emigrants, 
 
 in the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, freedom of conscience and the rights 
 of the immortal mind were but little un- 
 derstood in the Old World. Those even 
 who fled to the New, to enjoy this greatest 
 of all earthly blessings, had but an imper- 
 fect apprehension of the subject and its 
 bearings. That which they so highly pri- 
 zed for themselves, and for the attainment 
 of which they had made such sacrifices, 
 they were unwilling to accord to others. 
 Not that men we re not al lo wed, in ev- 
 
 * " An Inquiry into the Moral and Religious Chat- 
 acter of the American Govemment," p. 139, 140. 
 
130 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 ery colony, to entertain whatever opinions 
 they chose on the subject of religion, if 
 they did not endeavour to propagate them 
 when contrary to those of the Estabhshed 
 Church, where one existed. In the colo- 
 nies where the greatest intolerance exist- 
 ed, men were compelled to attend the Na- 
 tional Church, but they were not required, 
 in order to be allowed a residence, to make 
 a profession of the established faith. This 
 was the lowest amount possible of reli- 
 gious liberty. Low as it is, however, it is 
 not yet enjoyed by the native inhabitants 
 of Italy, and some other Roman Catholic 
 countries. 
 
 But it was not long before a step in ad- 
 vance was made by Virginia and Massa- 
 chusetts, of all the colonies the most rigid 
 in their views of the requirements of a 
 Church Establishment. Private meetings 
 of dissenters for the enjoyment of their own 
 modes of worship began to be tolerated. 
 
 A second step was to grant to such dis- 
 senters express permission to hold public 
 meetings for worship, without releasing 
 them, however, from their share of the 
 taxes to support the Established Church. 
 
 The third step which religious freedom 
 made consisted in relieving dissenters from 
 the burden of contributing in any way to 
 the support of the Established Church. 
 
 And, finally, the fourth and great step 
 was to abolish altogether the support of 
 any church by the state, and place all, of 
 every name, on the same footing before the 
 law, leaving each church to support itself 
 by its own proper exertions. 
 
 Such is the state of things at present, 
 and such it will remain. In every state, 
 liberty of conscience and liberty of worship 
 are complete. The government extends 
 protection to all. Any set of men who wish 
 to have a church or place of worship of 
 their own, can have it, if they choose to 
 erect or hire a building at their own 
 charges. Nothing is required but to com- 
 ply with the terms which the law prescribes 
 in relation to holding property for public 
 uses. The proper civil authorities have 
 nothing to do with the creed of those who 
 open such a place of worship. They can- 
 not offer the smallest obstruction to the 
 opening of a place of worship anywhere, 
 if those who choose to undertake it comply 
 with the simple terms of the law in relation 
 to such property. 
 
 Nor can the police authorities interfere 
 to break up a meeting, unless it can be 
 proved to be a nuisance to the neighbour- 
 hood by the disturbance which it occasions, 
 or on account of the inunoral practices 
 winch may be committed in it ; not on ac- 
 count of the particular religious faith which 
 may be there taught. All improper med- 
 dling with a religious meeting, no matter 
 whether it is held in a church or in a pri- 
 vate house, would not be tolerated. 
 
 On the other hand, as we have shown^ 
 neither the General Government nor that 
 of the States does anything directly for the 
 maintenance of public worship. Religion 
 is protected, and indirectly aided, as has 
 been proved, by both ; but nowhere does 
 the civil power defray the expenses of the 
 churches, or pay the salaries of ministers 
 of the Gospel, excepting in the case of a 
 few chaplains connected with the public 
 service. 
 
 Upon what, then, must Religion rely T 
 Only, under God, upon the efforts of its 
 friends, acting from their own free will, in- 
 fluenced by that variety of considerations 
 which is ordinarily comprehended under 
 the title of a desire to do good. This, in 
 America, is the grand and only alternative. 
 To this principle must the country look for 
 all those eff"orts which must be made for its 
 religious instruction. To the consideration 
 of its action, and the development of its 
 resources, the book upon which we now 
 enter is devoted. 
 
 Let us look for a moment at the work 
 which, under God's blessing, must be ac- 
 complished by this instrumentality. 
 
 The population of the United States irr' 
 1840 was, by the census, ascertained to be 
 17,068,666 souls. At present (January, 
 1844) it surpasses 18,500,000. Upon the 
 voluntary principle alone depends the reli- 
 gious instruction of this entire population,, 
 embracing the thousands of churches and 
 ministers of the Gospel, colleges, theologi- 
 cal seminaries. Sunday-schools, missionary 
 societies, and all the other instrumentalities 
 that are employed to promote the knowl- 
 edge of the Gospel from one end of the 
 country to the other. Upon the mere un- 
 constrained good-will of the people, and 
 especially of those among them who love 
 the Saviour and profess His name, does 
 this vast superstructure rest. Those may 
 tremble for the result who do not know 
 what the human heart is capable of doing 
 when left to its own energies, moved and 
 sustained by the grace and the love of God. 
 
 Still more : not only must all the good 
 that is now doing in that vast country, and 
 amid more than 18,500,000 of souls, be con- 
 tinued by the voluntary principle, but the 
 increasing demands of a population aug- 
 menting in a ratio to which the history of 
 the world furnishes no parallel, must bo 
 met and supplied. And what this will re- 
 quire may be conceived when we state the 
 fact that the annual increase of the popu- 
 lation during the decade from 1840 to 1850 
 cannot be short of 500,000 upon an aver- 
 age ! From 1790 to 1800, the average an- 
 nual increase of the inhabitants of the 
 country was 137,609 ; from 1800 to 1810 it 
 was 193,388 ; from 1810 to 1820 it was 
 239,831 ; from 1820 to 1830 it was 322,878 ; 
 from 1830 to 1840 it was 420,174. At this 
 rate the annual increase from 1840 to 1850 
 
Chap. II.] 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE. 
 
 131 
 
 will, upon an average of the years, exceed 
 500,000. And the whole increase of the ten 
 years will exceed 5,000,000 of souls. To 
 augment the number of ministers of the 
 Gospel, churches, &c., so as adequately to 
 meet this annual demand, will require great 
 exertion. 
 
 At the first sight of this statistical view 
 of the case, some of my readers will be 
 ready to exclaim that the prospect is hope- 
 less. Others will say. Wo to the cause 
 of religion if the government does not put 
 its shoulders to the wheel ! But I answer, 
 not only in my own name, but dare to do 
 it in that of every well-informed American 
 Christian, " No ! we want no more aid from 
 the government than we receive, and what 
 it so cheerfully gives. The prospect is not 
 desperate so long as Christians do their 
 duty in humble and heartfelt reliance upon 
 God." If we allow that 80,000 of this half 
 a million of souls which constitutes the 
 annual increase of the population are under 
 five years of age, and therefore need not be 
 taken into account in calculating the re- 
 quired increase of church accommodation 
 "which must be annually made, as being too 
 young to be taken to the sanctuary, we have 
 420,000 persons to provide for. This would 
 require annually the building or opening of 
 420 churches, holding 1000 persons each, 
 and an increase of 420 ministers of the 
 Gospel ; or, what would be much more 
 probable, 840 churches, each holding on an 
 average 500 persons ; and a sufficient num- 
 ber of preachers to occupy them. That 
 that number should be 840 would certainly 
 be desirable ; and yet a smaller number 
 could suffice ; for in many cases one minis- 
 ter must, in order to find his support, preach 
 to two or more congregations. So, if 840" 
 churches be not built every year, something 
 equal to this in point of accommodation 
 must be either built or found in some way 
 or other. Sometimes schoolhouses answer 
 the purpose in the new settlements ; some- 
 times private houses, or some public build- 
 ing, can make up for the want of a church. 
 
 Now we shall see in the sequel to what 
 extent facts show that provision is actually 
 made to meet this vast demand. For the 
 present, all that I contemplate in giving 
 this statistical view of the subject is, to en- 
 able the reader to form some idea of the 
 work to be accomplished on the voluntary 
 principle in America, if religion is to keep 
 progress with the increase of the popula- 
 tion. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FOUNDATION OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE 
 TO BE SOUGHT FOR IN THE CHARACTER AND 
 HABITS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED 
 STATES. 
 
 Some minuteness of detail will be found 
 
 I necessary in order to give tlie reader a 
 I proper idea of the manifestations of what 
 has been called the voluntary principle iii 
 the United States, and to trace it through- 
 out all its many ramifications there. But, 
 before entering upon this, I would fain 
 give him a right conception of the charac- 
 ter of the people, as being that to which 
 the principle referred to mainly owes its 
 success. 
 
 Enough has been said in former parts 
 of this work to show, that whether we look 
 to the earlier or later emigrations to Amer- 
 ica, no small energy of character must 
 have been required in the emigrants before 
 venturing on such a step : and with regard 
 to the first settlers in particular, that no- 
 thing but the force of religious principle 
 could have nerved them to encounter the 
 difficulties of all kinds that beset them. 
 But if great energy, self-reliance, and en- 
 terprise be the natural attributes of the 
 original emigrant, as he quits all the en- 
 dearments of home, and the comforts and 
 luxuries of states far advanced in civiliza- 
 tion, for a life in the woods, amid wild 
 beasts, and sometimes wilder men, pesti- 
 lential marshes, and privations innumera- 
 ble, the same qualities are very much 
 called forth by colonial life, after the first 
 obstacles have been overcome. It accus- 
 toms men to disregard trifling difficulties, 
 to surmount by their own eflTorts obstacles 
 which, in other states of society, would 
 repel all such attempts, and themselves to 
 do many things which, in diff"erent circum- 
 stances, they would expect others to do 
 for them. 
 
 Moreover, the colonies were thrown very 
 much on their own resources from the first. 
 England expended very little upon them. 
 Beyond maintaining a few regiments from 
 time to time, in scattered companies, 
 at widely-separated points, and supplying 
 some cannon and small arms, she did al- 
 most nothing even for the defence of the 
 country. In almost every war with the 
 Indians, the colonial troops alone carried on 
 the contest. Instead of England helping 
 them, they actually helped her incompara- 
 bly more in her wars against the French, in 
 the Canadas, and in the provinces of New- 
 Brunswick and Cape Breton, when they 
 not only furnished men, but bore almost 
 the whole charge of maintaining them. 
 Then came the war of the Revolution, 
 which, in calling forth all the nation's en- 
 ergies during eight long years, went far to 
 cherish that vigour and independence of 
 character which had so remarkably distin- 
 guished the first colonists. 
 
 And aUhough in some of the colonies 
 tlie Church and State were united from 
 the first, the law did little more than pre- 
 scribe how the churches were to be main- 
 tained. It made some men give grudging- 
 ly, who would otherwise have given little 
 
132 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 or nothing ; while, at the same time, it lim- 
 ited others to a certain fixed amount, who, 
 if left to themselves, would perhaps have 
 given more. 
 
 With the exception of a few thousand 
 pounds for building some of the earliest 
 colleges, and a few more, chiefly from 
 Scotland, for the support of missionaries, 
 most of whom laboured among the Indians, 
 I am not aware of any aid received from 
 the mother-country, or from any other part 
 of Europe, for religious purposes in our 
 colonial days. I do not state this by way 
 of reproach, but as a simple fact. The 
 Christians, not only of Great Britain, but 
 of Holland and Germany also, were ever 
 willing to aid the cause of religion in the 
 colonies ; they did what they could, or, 
 rather, what the case seemed to require, 
 and the monuments of their piety and lib- 
 erality remain to this day. Still, the col- 
 onists, as was their duty, depended mainly 
 on their own efforts. In several of the 
 colonies there was from the first no Church 
 Establishment ; in two of those which pro- 
 fessed to have one, the state never did 
 anything worth mention for the support of 
 the chu relies ; and in all cases the dissent- 
 ers had to rely on their own exertions. 
 In process of time, as we have seen, the 
 union of Church and State came gradually 
 to an end throughout the whole country, 
 and all religious bodies were left to their 
 own resources. 
 
 Thus have the Americans been trained 
 'vO exercise the same energy, self-reliance, 
 and enterprise in the cause of rehgion 
 •which they exhibit in other affairs. Thus, 
 as we shall see, when a new church is 
 called for, the people first inquire whether 
 they cannot build it at their own cost, and 
 ask help from others only after having 
 done all they think practicable among 
 themselves ; a course which often leads 
 them to find that they can accomplish by 
 their own efforts what, at first, they hard- 
 ly dared to hope for. 
 
 Besides, there has grown up among the 
 truly American part of the population a 
 feeling that religion is necessary even to 
 the temporal well-being of society, so that 
 many contribute to its promotion, though 
 not themselves members of any of the 
 churches. This sentiment may be found 
 in all parts of the United States, and es- 
 pecially among the descendants of the first 
 Puritan colonists of New-England. 1 shall 
 have occasion hereafter to give an illus- 
 tration of it. 
 
 These remarks point the reader to the 
 true secret of the success of the voluntary 
 plan in America. The people feel tliat 
 they can help theniselves, and that it is at 
 once a duty and a privilege to do so. Should 
 a church steeple come to the ground, or 
 the roof be blown away, or any other such 
 accident happen, instead of looking to 
 
 some government official for the means of 
 needful repair, a few of them put their 
 hands into their pockets, and supply these 
 themselves, without delay or the risk of 
 vexatious refusals from public functiona- 
 
 ries. 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 HOW CHURCH EDIFICES ARE BUILT IN THE 
 CITIES AND LARGE TOWNS. 
 
 The question has often been proposed to 
 me during my residence in Europe, " How 
 do you build your churches in America, 
 since the government gives no aid ?" 
 
 Different measures are pursued in differ- 
 ent places. I shall speak first of those 
 commonly adopted in the cities and large 
 towns. There a new church is built by 
 what is called " colonizing :" that is, the 
 pastor and other officers of a large church, 
 which cannot accommodate all its mem- 
 bers, after much conference, on being sat- 
 isfied that a new church is called for, pro- 
 pose that a commencement be made by 
 certain families going out as a colony, to 
 carry the enterprise into effect, and engage 
 to assist them with their prayers and coun- 
 sels, and, if need be, also with their purses. 
 Upon this, such as are willing to engage 
 in the undertaking go to work. Some- 
 times individuals or families from two or 
 more churches of the same denomination 
 coalesce in the design. 
 
 Or a few gentlemen, interested in reli- 
 gion, whether all or any of them are mem- 
 bers of a church or not, after conferring on 
 the importance of having another church in 
 some part of the city where an increase of 
 the population seems to require it, resolve 
 that one shall be built. Each then subscribes 
 what he thinks he can afford, and subscrip- 
 tions may afterward be solicited from oth- 
 er gentlemen of property and liberality in 
 the place, likely to aid such an undertaking. 
 Enough may thus be obtained to justify a 
 commencement ; a committee is appointed 
 to purchase a site for a building, and to su- 
 perintend its erection. When finished, it 
 is opened for public worship, a pastor is 
 called, and then the pews, which are gen- 
 erally large enough to accommodate a fam- 
 ily each, are disposed of at a sort of auc- 
 tion to the highest bidder. In this way, 
 the sum which may be required, in addition 
 to the original subscriptions, is at once 
 made up. The total cost, indeed, is some- 
 times met by the sums received for the 
 pews, but much depends upon the situation 
 and comfort of the building, and tlie popu- 
 larity of the preacher. 
 
 The pews are always sold under the 
 condition of punctual payment of the sums 
 to be levied upon them annually, for the 
 pastor's support and other expenses ; fail- 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 CHURCHES IN CITIES AND TOWNS. 
 
 133 
 
 ing which, after allowing a reasonable time, 
 they are resold to other persons. But if 
 all the required conditions be fulfilled, they 
 become absolutely the purchaser's, and 
 may be bequeathed or sold like any other 
 property. 
 
 Instead of being sold in fee-simple, the 
 pews are sometimes merely rented from 
 year to year. This prevails more in large 
 towns and villages than in cities, and in 
 such cases the churches must be built sole- 
 ly by " subscription," as it is called, that 
 is, by sums contributed for that special ob- 
 ject. Should these prove, in the first in- 
 stance, insufficient, a second, and perhaps 
 a third subscription follows, after a longer 
 or shorter interval. 
 
 The seats in some churches, even of our 
 largest cities, are free to all. Such is the 
 case with all the Quaker, and most of the 
 Methodist meeting-houses ; these are oc- 
 cupied on what is called the " free-seat" 
 plan, and have the advantage of being at- 
 tended with less restraint, especially by 
 strangers or persons who may not have the 
 means to pay for seats. But there are 
 disadvantages also in this plan. Families 
 who regularly attend, and who may bear 
 the expense of the church, have no certain 
 place where all may sit together, and in 
 case of being delayed a little longer than 
 usual, may find it difficult to get seats at 
 all. The Methodist churches, according- 
 ly, are coming more and more into the 
 other plan in our large cities. Where they 
 have not done so, and also in the Quaker 
 meeting-houses, the males occupy one half 
 of the house, the females the other ; a rule, 
 however, observed more constantly in the 
 latter than in the former body. Church 
 edifices, or meeting-houses, on the free- 
 seat plan, must, of course, be built by sub- 
 scription alone. 
 
 A more common practice in forming 
 new congregations, and erecting church 
 edifices, is this : The families who engage 
 in the undertaking first obtain some place 
 for temporary service — the lecture-room 
 attached to some other church, a court- 
 house, a schoolroom, or some other such 
 building* — and there they commence their 
 
 * In Philadelphia there is a building called the 
 Academy, built for Mr. Whitfield's meetings, the 
 upper part of which is now divided into two rooms, 
 each capable of containing 400 or 500 people, and 
 both constantly used as places of worship, one per- 
 manently by the Methodists. The other has been 
 occupied temporarily by colonies, which have grown 
 into churches, and then gone off to houses which 
 they have built for themselves. In this way that one 
 room, as I have often been told, has been the birth- 
 place, as it were, of more than twenty different 
 churches. It is rented to those who wish to occupy 
 it by the corporation, to which it belongs. In the 
 lower story there are schools held throughout the 
 week. 
 
 The chapel of the University of New-York is used 
 for the same purpose ; and the Court-houses through- 
 out all the land, and even some of the State-houses — 
 that is, those in which the Legislatures of the several 
 
 regular Sabbath services at the usual hours. 
 After announcing their intention by public 
 advertisement, they proceed to organize a 
 church, that is, a body of believers, accord- 
 ing to the rules of the communion to which 
 they belong. If Presbyterians, the Pres- 
 bytery appoints a committee to organize 
 the church according to the Book of Dis- 
 cipline, by the appointment and consecra- 
 tion to office of ruling elders, after which 
 it falls under the care of the Presbytery. 
 A pastor is next called and regularly in- 
 ducted. Meanwhile, the congregation may 
 be supposed to be increasing, until strong 
 I enough to exchange their temporary for a 
 permanent place of worship. In this way 
 new swarms are every year leaving the 
 old hives, if 1 may so speak, in our large 
 cities, and new church edifices are rising 
 in various localities where the population 
 is extending. 
 
 The church edifices in the chief towns 
 and cities are, generally speaking, large 
 and substantial buildings, especially in the 
 more densely-settled districts. Those in 
 the suburbs are often smaller, and not ex- 
 pected to be more than temporary, as they 
 give place to larger and better structures 
 in a few years. In the cities and larger 
 towns, whether on the Atlantic slope or 
 in the Valley of the Mississippi, they are, 
 in nine cases out of ten, built of brick ; a 
 few are of stone ; and in the New-England 
 cities and towns of second and third rate 
 size, they are often built of wood. 
 
 As for the cost of church edifices, it is 
 difficult to speak precisely where the coun- 
 try is so extensive. In the suburbs of our 
 large cities on the seaboard, from Port- 
 land, in Maine, to New-Orleans, some may 
 not have cost more than from 5000 to 10,000 
 dollars ; but in the older and more densely- 
 peopled parts of those cities, they generally 
 cost 20,000 dollars and upward. Some have 
 cost 60,000 or 80,000, and yet are compara- 
 tively plain, though very chaste and sub- 
 stantial buildings. A few have cost above 
 100,000,* without including such as Trinity 
 Church at New-York, belonging to the Epis- 
 copalians, or the Roman Catholic Cathedral 
 at Baltimore, for these very elegant and ex- 
 pensive buildings have cost at least 300,000, 
 if not more.f There may have been, in 
 
 States assemble— are allowed to be used as places 
 of worship on the Sabbath in a case of exigency. 
 
 * The church in which the late eloquent Dr. Ma- 
 son was last settled as a minister in New- York, cost, 
 I believe, rather more than 100,000 dollars. It was 
 an excellent, large, tasteful, substantial, brick build- 
 ing. Yet it, and some others in the lower parts of 
 the city, whence business is driving the people to 
 the upper part, have been torn down, and their sites 
 are covered with shops and counting-rooms. The 
 congregations have mainly emigrated to about a mile 
 and a half, or two miles northward. So matters go 
 in oar London. 
 
 t Trinity Church is not vet finished. It is a re- 
 markably fine specimen of Gothic architecture I 
 have not heard what the cost wUI be, but, including 
 
134 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 some cases, a useless expenditure of mon- 
 ey on interior decorations, but in general, 
 the churches, even in our largest cities, 
 are neat and rather plain buildings exter- 
 nally, but exceedingly comfortable within. 
 
 The village churches of New-England 
 are, for the most part, constructed of wood ; 
 that is, of beams framed together and cov- 
 ered with boards : and being almost univer- 
 sally painted white and surmounted with 
 steeples, they have a beautiful appearance. 
 The church-going bell every Sabbath sends 
 forth its notes far and wide amid the hills 
 and dales of that interesting country. In 
 other parts of the Atlantic States, though 
 often of wood, like those of New-England, 
 they are still oftener of brick or stone, or 
 of unpainted frames and boards, which is 
 especially the case in the South. 
 
 Any one may be satisfied, by careful in- 
 quiry, that even our cities and large towns, 
 as respects churches, may well bear a com- 
 parison with the best supphed in any part 
 of Europe. Boston, for instance, in 1840, 
 had fifty-eight churches, many of which 
 could accommodate from 1000 to 1500 per- 
 sons, and that for a population of about 
 88,000 souls. New-York had that year 
 159 churches for about 310,000 inhabitants ; 
 namely, forty-one Presbyterian, of all 
 shades ; fourteen Reformed Dutch ; twen- 
 ty-seven Episcopal ; eighteen Methodist ; 
 eighteen Baptist ; eight Roman Catholic ; 
 nine African (Methodist, Episcopal, Bap- 
 tist, and Presbyterian) ; five Friends' meet- 
 ing-houses ; three Lutheran ; three Mora- 
 vian ; three synagogues (there are now 
 five or six) ; two Unitarian ; three Univer- 
 salist ; four Welsh and smaller denomina- 
 tions ; and two Mariners' churches. This 
 is from a published statement which may 
 be depended upon as rather within the 
 truth. Tlie church accommodation of the 
 Protestant population is in much higher 
 proportion to their numbers than that of 
 the Roman Catholics to theirs, partly ow- 
 ing, no doubt, to the liturgical services of 
 the latter requiring less church accommo- 
 dation than the " sermon preaching" of 
 the former. 
 
 Philadelphia is better supplied with 
 churches than New- York. Those of all the 
 leading denominations there have greatly 
 increased during the last few years. The 
 Methodists, I learn from one of their best- 
 informed ministers, have, in the course of 
 the last fifteen years, built in the city and 
 suburbs above twenty churches, most of 
 which are capacious buildings ; and the 
 Episcopalians and Presbyterians have in- 
 creased tlie number of theirs nearly in the 
 same proportion. But our second and third 
 rate cities and large towns are far better 
 supplied than either of these two places. 
 Salem, in Massachusetts, for a i)()|)ulation 
 
 the value of the ground, I should thuik it cannot be 
 less than 300,000 dollars, and may amount to 500,000. 
 
 of 16,000 souls, has fifteen churches ; New- 
 Haven, for about 14,000 souls, has thirteen, 
 many of which are of large size ; Pough- 
 keepsie, on the Hudson, has 9000 inhabi- 
 tants and twelve churches ; Troy had, in 
 1840, a population of 25,000 souls, and fif- 
 teen churches, and several of those very 
 large. Newark, in New-Jersey, has about 
 20,000 inhabitants and seventeen churches; 
 Rochester 22,000 inhabitants and twenty- 
 two churchers. 
 
 On this head the reader is referred to 
 the works of Drs. Reed and Matheson, and 
 to that of Dr. Lang, as containing much ac- 
 curate information with respect to church 
 accommodation in the United States. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW CHURCHES ARE BUILT IN THE NEW SET- 
 TLEMENTS. 
 
 But it is in the building of places of wor- 
 ship in the new settlements of the Western 
 States, and in the villages that are spring- 
 ing up in the more recently-peopled parts 
 of those bordering on the Atlantic, that 
 we see the most remarkable development 
 of the voluntary principle. Let me illus- 
 trate by a particular case what is daily 
 occurring in both these divisions of the 
 country. 
 
 Let us suppose a settlement commen- 
 ced in the forest, in the northern part of 
 Lidiana, and that in the course of three or 
 four years a considerable number of emi- 
 grants have established themselves within 
 a mile or two of each other, in the woods. 
 Each clears away by degrees a part of the 
 surrounding forest, and fences in his new 
 fields, in the midst of which the deadened 
 trees still stand very thickly. By little 
 and little the country shows signs of occu- 
 pation by civilized man. 
 
 In the centre of the settlement a little 
 village begins to form around a tavern and 
 a blacksmith's shop. A carpenter places 
 himself there as at a convenient centre. 
 So do the tailor, the shoemaker, the wag- * 
 on-maker, and the hatter. Nor is the son 
 of ^sculapius wanting; perhaps he is most 
 of all needed ; and it will be well if two or 
 three of his brethren do not soon join him. 
 The merchant, of course, opens his maga- 
 zine there. And if there be any prospect 
 of the rising village, tliough the deadened 
 trees stand quite in the vicinity of the 
 streets, becoming the seat of justice for a 
 new county, there will soon be half a 
 dozen young ex{)ounders of the law to in- 
 crease the population, and offer their ser- 
 vices to those who have suffered or com- 
 mitted some injustice. 
 
 Tilings will hardly have reached this 
 point before some one amid this hetero- 
 geneous population, come from different 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 CHURCHES IN NEW SETTLEMENTS. 
 
 135 
 
 points of the older states, intermixed with 
 wanderers from Europe — Irish, Scotch, or 
 German — proposes that they should think 
 of having a church, or, at least, some place 
 of worship. It is ten chances to one if 
 there be not one or more pious women, or 
 some pious man with his family, who sigh 
 for the privileges of the sanctuary, as once 
 enjoyed by them in the distant East. What 
 is to be done 1 Some one proposes that 
 they should build a good large school- 
 house, which may serve also for holding re- 
 Jigious meetings, and this is scarcely soon- 
 er proposed than accomplished. Though 
 possibly made of mere logs and very plain, 
 it will answer the purpose for a few years. 
 Eeing intended for the meetings of all de- 
 nominations of Christians, and open to all 
 preachers who may be passing, word is 
 sent to the nearest in the neighbourhood. 
 Ere long, some Baptist preacher, in pass- 
 ing, preaches in the evening, and is follow- 
 ed by a Presbyterian and a Methodist. 
 By-and-by the last of these arranges his 
 circuit labours so as to preach there once 
 in a fortnight, and the minister of some 
 Presbyterian congregation, ten or fifteen 
 miles off, agrees to come and preach once 
 a month. 
 
 Meanwhile, from the increase of the in- 
 habitants, the congregations, on the Sab- 
 bath particularly, become too large for the 
 schoolhouse. A church is then built of 
 framed beams and boards, forming no mean 
 ornament to the village, and capable of 
 accommodating some 200 or 300 people. 
 Erected for the public good, it is used by 
 all the sects in the place, and by others 
 besides. For were a Swedenborgian min- 
 ister to come and have notice given that 
 he would preach, he might be sure of find- 
 ing a congregation, though, as the sect is 
 small in America, and by many hardly so 
 much as heard of, he might not have a 
 single hearer that assents to his views. 
 But it will not be long before the Presby- 
 terians, Methodists, or Baptists feel that 
 they must have a minister on whose ser- 
 vices they can count with more certainty, 
 and hence a church, also, for themselves. 
 And at last the house, which was a joint- 
 stock affair at first, falls into the hands of 
 some one of the denominations and is 
 abandoned by the others, who have mostly 
 provided each one for itself. Or it may 
 remain for the occasional service of some 
 passing Roman Catholic priest, or Uni- 
 versalist preacher.* 
 
 Such is the process continually going 
 on in the West, and, indeed, something of 
 
 * In some places in the Southwestern States, the 
 primitive and temporary churches built for all de- 
 iiommations, in the new villages or settlements, are 
 called " Republican churches ;" that is, churches 
 for the accommodation of Ihe public rather than for 
 any one sect. Large schoolhouses, also, erected for 
 ■the double purpose of teaching and preaching, are 
 called Republican meeting-houses. 
 
 a like kind is taking place every year, in 
 hundreds of instances, throughout all the 
 states. Settlers of one denomination are 
 sometimes sufficiently numerous in one 
 place to build a church for themselves at 
 the outset, but in most cases they hold their 
 first meetings for worship in schoolrooms 
 or private houses. 
 
 The rapid increase of the population in 
 some of the new villages and towns of the 
 West, when favourably situated for trade, 
 is astonishing, and strikes one particularly 
 in its early stages. Thus, when in the 
 State of Alabama in February, 1831, I vis- 
 ited the town of Montgomery in company 
 with a worthy Baptist minister, in the 
 course of an extensive tour through the 
 Western States in behalf of one of our 
 benevolent societies. It was then hardly 
 more than a large village. On the night 
 of the second of the two days we spent in 
 it, we preached in a large schoolhouse, 
 which, if I remember rightly, was the only 
 place for holding rehgious meetings exist- 
 ing there at the time. We had a good 
 congregation, though a circus was held 
 hard by. Just three years after, when re- 
 peating the same tour, I spent a Sabbath 
 and one or two days more at the same 
 spot, but under amazingly different circum- 
 stances. In the morning I preached in a 
 Presbyterian cliurch built of frames and 
 covered with boards, and every way com- 
 fortable, to at least 600 persons. The 
 church, which reckoned 100 members, had 
 got a young man as pastor, to whom they 
 gave a yearly stipend of $1000. At night 
 1 preached in a Baptist church, built of 
 brick, but not quite finished, which could 
 hold 300 persons at least. Besides these, 
 there were one Methodist Episcopal and 
 one Protestant Methodist church, each, in 
 so far as I can recollect, as large as the 
 Baptist church. Then there was an Epis- 
 copal church, not less in size, though prob- 
 ably with a smaller congregation, than the 
 Baptist church. And, withal, there was a 
 Roman Catholic church, though not a large 
 one, I believe. All this after an interval 
 of only three years ! Eventful years they 
 had been. A revival of religion, which 
 took place during one of them, had brought 
 many souls to the knowledge of salvation. 
 
 This was, it is true, an extraordinary 
 case, yet something very similar in kind, 
 although not in degree, is going on at a 
 great many points in the West. I know 
 not what reverses the town of Montgom- 
 ery may have since undergone, but what I 
 have stated occurred, 1 know, between the 
 years 1831 and 1834. 
 
 On the Genesee River,afew nides above 
 its entrance into Lake Ontario, m the State 
 of New- York, stands a town, incorporated 
 as a city, called Rochester. The place is 
 famous for the vast quantity of flour made 
 at its mills. Twenty-five years ago, it 
 
136 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 could show but a few houses scattered here 
 and there, where now there is a well-buih 
 and flourishing city, containing, when I 
 was there about two years ago, 22,000 in- 
 habitants, and twenty-two churches, many 
 of which were large and fine buildings, 
 capable of accommodating congregations 
 of from 1000 to 1200 persons each. Among 
 these churches there were two for Ger- 
 mans, and another, I learned, was soon to 
 be erected for French and Swiss. 
 
 Churches and church property of every 
 description are held, in the United States, 
 by trustees chosen by the congregation to 
 which they belong. The laws of almost 
 every state provide for this. These trus- 
 tees, who may be two, three, or more in 
 number, are authorized to act for the con- 
 gregation, to whom they report, from time 
 to time, the state of the common funds. 
 They are charged, in most cases, with the 
 collection of the pastor's salary, as well 
 as with the general collection and outlay 
 of money for the congregation. Without 
 their consent the church edifice cannot be 
 given to any other than the ordinary reli- 
 gious services of the sanctuary. 
 
 In some cases, several, if not all of the 
 churches in a city, belonging to a particu- 
 lar communion, are held by a common 
 board of trustees. All the Methodist Epis- 
 copal churches of New- York are so held. 
 One corporation has the proprietorship of 
 four of the Reformed Dutch churches in 
 that city, and another holds Trinity Church, 
 and perhaps some others belonging to tlie 
 Protestant Episcopal denomination. In all 
 denominations, according to general prac- 
 tice, each particular church and congrega- 
 tion has its own trustees, and manages its 
 own " temporal" affairs, being such as re- 
 late to the church edifice, the ground on 
 which it stands, and any other property or 
 stocks belonging to it ; and it is only on 
 questions of riglit to property that the Civil 
 Courts, or even the State Legislatures, or 
 Congress itself, can ever meddle with the 
 affairs of the churches. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE DEVELOPED. — HOW 
 THE SALARIES OF THE PASTORS ARE RAISED. 
 
 Under this head we find different meas- 
 ures adopted by different churches, and in 
 different parts of the country. 
 
 Universally where the seats and pews 
 are the property of individuals or families, 
 and generally where they are rented by the 
 year, the salaries of the pastors, and some- 
 times all the incidental expenses, are raised 
 by a certain yearly, half-yearly, or quarterly 
 rate upon each pew. The proportion for 
 each pew is fixed by the trustees, or by the 
 elders, or by a committee appointed for 
 that special purpose, but in most cases by 
 
 the trustees, where there are such. Where 
 the seats are free, as is the case with very 
 many churches of all denominations in the 
 interior of the country, the minister's sal- 
 ary is raised by yearly subscription. In the 
 Methodist Episcopal churches, with few 
 exceptions, the ministers are supported by 
 collections among the members, quarterly 
 public collections, &c. Sometimes, also, 
 recourse is partially had to subscriptions, 
 especially where there are " stationed" or 
 non-itinerating ministers. 
 
 Among the Protestant denominations, 
 the amount of the pastor's salary is deter- 
 mined, in most cases, by the churches 
 themselves. In the Methodist churches, 
 the amount is fixed by the General Confer- 
 ence. In ordinary cases, he receives so 
 much for himself, a like sum for his wife, 
 and so much for each of his children, ac- 
 cording to their ages, with certain perqui- 
 sites besides, such as a family dwelling- 
 house, a horse, &c., making up altogether 
 a comfortable maintenance for himself and 
 his household. The collections of each 
 •' circuit" are expected, generally speaking, 
 to suflice for the salaries of the ministers 
 who occupy them, any deficiency being 
 made up from funds which the Conference 
 may have in hand for meeting such contin- 
 gencies. The clergy of all evangelical 
 denominations, with two exceptions, re- 
 ceive fixed salaries from their people, and 
 are expected to devote themselves to their 
 proper vocation, and to " live by the altar." 
 The exceptions are a part of the ministers 
 of the Baptist Church, and all the Quaker 
 preachers. These support themselves by 
 their labour, or from other sources, and 
 preach on the Sabbath. 
 
 The Baptists agree with the Methodists 
 in not considering a college education, or 
 an acquaintance with the Greek, Latin, and 
 Hebrew tongues, or the natural and moral 
 sciences, indispensable for a preacher of 
 the Gospel ; hence by far the greater 
 number of them have had only an English 
 education, together with such theological 
 knowledge, derived from English sources, 
 as has qualified them, in the opinion of the 
 authorities in their churches, for underta- 
 king to preach the Gospel. In both these 
 denominations, however, there are not a 
 few truly learned men, who have passed 
 through the curriculum of some college, 
 and have diligently added to the acquire- 
 ments of their preparatory course. The 
 regular itinerating ministers of the Metho- 
 dist churches receive salaries, and devote 
 themselves wliolly to their ministerial call- 
 ing ; wliereas very many of the Baptist 
 ministers, as has boon already stated, es- 
 pecially in the Southern and Western, and 
 to a certain extent in the Middle States, 
 receive no salaries at all, or none of any 
 consequence, so that they must support 
 themselves in some other way. 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 SALARIES OF THE PASTORS. 
 
 137 
 
 The preachers among the Friends, who, 
 as the reader is probably aware, may be 
 women as well as men, receive no regular 
 salaries ; but those of them who, under the 
 belief that they have a call from the Spirit 
 to give themselves wholly to the work, 
 travel through the country, visiting the 
 Friends' " meetings," and preaching in other 
 places, generally, nay, always, if their own 
 means are not abundant, receive consider- 
 able presents. 
 
 It is not easy to give any very satisfac- 
 tory answer to the question, Whether the 
 ministers of the Gospel are well supported 
 in the United States 1 Using that phrase 
 in the sense which many attach to it, I 
 should say, in giving a general reply to the 
 question, that they are not. That is to 
 say, few, if any, of them receive salaries 
 that would enable them to live in the style 
 in which the wealthiest of their parishion- 
 ers live. Their incomes are riot equal to 
 those of the greater number of lawyers 
 and physicians, though these are men of no 
 better education or higher talents than 
 great numbers of the clergy possess. None 
 of the ministers of the Gospel in the United 
 States derive such revenues from their offi- 
 cial stations as many of the parochial cler- 
 gy of England have, to say nothing of the 
 higher dignitaries of the Church in that 
 country. There are few, if any, of them 
 who, with economy, can do more than live 
 upon their salaries ; to grow rich upon 
 them is out of the question.* 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, the greater num- 
 ber of the salaried ministers in the United 
 States are able, with economy, to live com- 
 fortably and respectably. This holds true 
 especially as respects the pastors of the 
 Atlantic, and even of the older parts of the 
 Western States. In New-England, if we 
 except Boston, the salaries of the Congre- 
 gational, Episcopal, and Baptist pastors 
 are, in the largest towns, such as Provi- 
 dence, Portland, Salem, Hartford, New- 
 Haven, &c., from 800 to 1200 dollars; in 
 the villages and country churches they vary 
 from 300 or 400 to 700 or 800, besides 
 which the minister sometimes has a " par- 
 sonage" and "glebe," that is, a house and 
 a few acres of land, and, in addition to all, 
 
 * The statements made by foreigners, in writing 
 about the United States, are sometmies sufficiently 
 ludicrous. For instance, M. Beaumont, in his " Ma- 
 ne, ou Esclavage au.x Etats-Unis," accounts for the 
 great number of churches there by the great number 
 of mmisters of the Gospel. He says that the minis- 
 try is not only very honourable, but very lucrative 
 also ; that most of the preachers make a fortune in a 
 few years, and then retire from the ministry, which 
 is the cause of there bemg so few old men in the pul- 
 pits of that country. Anything more absurd on such 
 a subject I cannot imagme. But I will do M. Beau- 
 mont the justice to say, that I do not blame him so 
 much as the stupid creatures who gave him such in- 
 formation. The gay Frenchman probably did not 
 set his foot in more than half a dozen churches when 
 in America, and of these not one, it is likely, was 
 Protestant. 
 
 he receives a good many presents. His 
 marriage fees are of some amount. In 
 other parts of the country, and especially 
 in the West, the clergy are not so well 
 provided for. The practice in New-England 
 of giving them presents, whether casually 
 or regularly, and at some set time, does not 
 prevail elsewhere to the same degree. 
 
 The salaries of the clergy in the largest 
 and wealthiest churches of the principal 
 cities are handsome, though generally no 
 more than adequate.* Fifteen hundred 
 dollars, 1800, 2000, 2500, are the sums com- 
 monly given, and, in a few cases, 3000, 
 3500, and even 4000. The Presbyterian 
 Church in New-Orleans, I believe, gives 
 its pastor 5000, and the highest of all is that 
 of one of the bishops in the Episcopal 
 Church, which, I have been told, is 6000. f 
 
 Some churches have permanent funds, 
 which go far towards the pastor's support. 
 The corporation of the collegiate churches 
 of the Reformed Dutch Church in New- 
 York, four in number at present, has 
 enough from this source to pay the sala- 
 ries of the four pastors. The corporation 
 of Trinity Church (Episcopal) possesses 
 vast funds, the income from which has en- 
 abled the trustees to contribute largely 
 towards the building of churches in the 
 State of New- York. Three of the Pres- 
 byterian churches in Newark, New-Jersey, 
 which is nine miles from New- York, and 
 contains 20,000 inhabitants, have perma- 
 nent funds sufficient for the support of their 
 public services- 
 
 But, generally speaking, a permanent 
 fund is found to be rather injurious than ben- 
 eficial to the churches in the United States. 
 If out of debt, that is, if they owe nothing 
 for their church edifices, lecture-rooms, 
 vestry-rooms, &c., they need no endow- 
 ment ; the hearts of the people will do the 
 rest. I speak of the churches in the old- 
 er parts of the country. The measures 
 we take for the support of churches in the 
 new settlements, and which are weak as 
 yet, I shall show hereafter. 
 
 It often happens that ministers are not 
 
 * The clergy are expected to be examples of hos- 
 pitality and benevolence. They entertain a great 
 deal of company at their houses. Nothing is more 
 common than for ministers of the Gospel, when 
 visiting any place, whether in town or country, to 
 stay with their brethren ; and no men among us give 
 so much, in proportion to their means, to ail the re- 
 ligious and philanthropic enterprises, as our pastors 
 of every denomination. 
 
 t I refer to the Bishop of New-York, who, if he 
 has to pay for a suffragan to take his place as pastor 
 of a church, or co-pastor with others in two or three 
 churches, as well as bear his travclhng expenses 
 when visiting his diocese — as I doubt not is the 
 case— will not have more than is necessary to sup- 
 port a large family in so expensive a city as New- 
 York. 
 
 As for New-Orleans, it is the most expensive city 
 for supporting a family in the whole Union, and 5000 
 dollars there would in that respect be not more than 
 half the sum in Philadelphia. 
 
i38 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 -so amply or punctually provided for as 
 they ought to be, through their own fault, 
 and that of the ecclesiastical body to which 
 they belong. Were the duty of support- 
 ing well the ministry, preached as often 
 and as plainly as it should be, they would 
 be better provided for. As it is, they are 
 enabled to live, with great economy, in 
 comfort, and a faithful pastor will nowhere 
 Jbe allowed to starve. It is a great matter, 
 .too, that in no country in the world are 
 .ministers of the Gospel more respected 
 by the people. A great many of them are 
 well-educated men, and, with few excep- 
 tions, possess agreeable manners. Many 
 of them belong to families of the first rank 
 in the country :* and as they can at least 
 give their children a good education, with 
 the advantages of which, as well as of a 
 good character, and the good name of their 
 lathers, they are almost invariably pros- 
 perous, and often form aUiances with the 
 wealthiest and most distinguished families 
 in the country. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL ARE BROUGHT 
 FORWARD, AND HOW THEY BECOME SETTLED 
 PASTORS. 
 
 All denominations of evangelical Chris- 
 tians in the United States hold it to be of 
 the highest and most solemn importance, 
 that no man should enter the holy minis- 
 try without well-founded scriptural evi- 
 dence to his own mind and conscience, 
 that he is " called of the Holy Ghost" to 
 take that office upon him ; nor is he admit- 
 ted to it until he has satisfied the proper 
 authorities of the church to which he be- 
 longs of the manifestation of that " call," 
 and of his possessing, in addition to an un- 
 blemished character, the talents and ac- 
 quirements necessary to his being a com- 
 petent expounder of God's Word. 
 
 For a man to take upon him this sacred 
 and responsible office merely that he may 
 obtain an honourable place in society, or 
 gain a decent livelihood, would be held in 
 the highest degree wrong, dangerous to his 
 own soul, and ruinous to tlie spiritual inter- 
 ests of all who might be committed to his 
 charge. Evangelical Christians may dif- 
 
 * I could mention, were it proper, many instances 
 of this. One or two I may state without violating 
 the rules of propriety. No man stood higher in Amer- 
 ican society than the late General Van Rensselaer, 
 of Albany. One of his sons is labouring as a faithful 
 .minister in New-Jersey. The late Hon. Samuel L. 
 Southard, of New-Jersey, was a man of distinguii^hed 
 talents, who had raised himself to the highest offices 
 in the government of his native state, as well as in 
 that of the Union, and died Vice-President of the 
 same. One of his sons is a most worthy rector of 
 an K[)iscopal church in New-Jersey. Mr. Southard, 
 I judge from the name, which is common m France, 
 was of Huguenot origin. 
 
 fer somewhat as to the nature and amount 
 of the required evidence of conversion, but 
 all agree as to the necessity of having a 
 truly regenerated ministry ; it being obvi- 
 ous, that none should preach the Gospel 
 who have not tasted its power, and sub- 
 mitted their hearts and lives to its trans- 
 forming influence. How shall a man who 
 does not possess " repentance towards 
 God and faith towards our Lord Jesus 
 Christ," explain the nature of these to his 
 fellow-men? And how can he who has 
 not been made to exclaim, " Wo unto me 
 if I preach not the Gospel!" discharge the 
 office of a preacher with that earnest de- 
 sire for the glory of God his Saviour, and 
 for the eternal welfare of men, which alone 
 can be approved in heaven, or be success- 
 ful on earth ? A regenerated and devoted 
 ministry must be the first of all earthly 
 blessings to a church, and it is the only 
 instrument that can effectually secure the 
 morals of a community, and the stability 
 of a government. In these sentiments I 
 feel assured all evangelical Christians in 
 the United States will concur. No great- 
 er curse could, in their opinion, befall a 
 church, next to the abandonment of the 
 true Gospel, than to have an unconverted 
 ministry thrust upon it ; and, indeed, the 
 latter evil would soon be followed by the 
 former. 
 
 Pious youths are brought forward to the 
 ministry in various ways. Such persons 
 are sometimes found in the situation of 
 apprentices to mechanical trades, or of 
 clerks, or shopmen, or following the plough 
 on their father's farm. The pastor, or 
 some member of the church to which they 
 belong, having discovered their talents, 
 may think these might be employed to ad- 
 vantage in the ministry, instead of being 
 buried in such engagements. But their 
 own desires shoidd first be ascertained, 
 and should they be found longing to pro- 
 claim a crucified Saviour to the world, 
 they ought to be encouraged, while cher- 
 ishing this feeling, to put themselves into 
 a position for finding and following the 
 will of God. 
 
 It is probably at the prayer-meeting, the 
 Subbath-schooljOr the i3ible-class, of which 
 1 shall have occasion to speak at large here- 
 after, that the character and abilities of 
 sucli young persons oftenest show them- 
 selves ; and from these nurseries of the 
 Church have come forth great numbers of 
 men who are now engaged in the minis- 
 try throughout the linited States. Many 
 young men, also, who have entered our col- 
 leges witli other views, become converted 
 there, and are called to preach the Gospel. 
 When a pious youth of promising talents, 
 and with a strong bent to the ministry, is 
 found without the requisite education, or 
 the means of obtaining it, he is recom 
 mended to the Education Societies, which 
 
Chap. VI.] 
 
 SETTLEMENT OF PASTORS. 
 
 139 
 
 have proved a great blessing to our church- 
 es ; and when approved of, he is carried 
 through the course of instruction which 
 the church to which he belongs requires 
 in all who would enter the ranks of its 
 ministers. 
 
 The process is much shorter in those 
 churches which, without exacting a course 
 of classical and scientific education at col- 
 Jege, or the regular divinity course of a 
 theological school, require only a well- 
 grounded knowledge of the Scriptures in 
 the English tongue, and of the doctrines 
 which they contain. After a suitable ex- 
 amination on the part of the proper church 
 authorities, the candidate is permitted to 
 exercise his gifts for a season, in order to 
 ascertain whether he is likely to prove an 
 acceptable and useful preacher ; and if the 
 result be favourable, he receives full ordi- 
 nation from the proper quarter. 
 
 Among the Methodists, the preachers 
 spring from the Classes, as they are called. 
 At the meetings of these companies of 
 professed believers and inquirers, the gra- 
 ces and gifts of pious young men are most 
 commonly discovered. In due time they 
 are brought forward to the quarterly meet- 
 ing of all the classes of the district. They 
 are there recommended to the notice of 
 the presiding elder, and by him are au- 
 thorized to teach and preach for a time, 
 but not to administer the ordinances of 
 haptism and the Lord's Supper. After- 
 ward they receive ordination from the 
 hands of the bishop, first as deacons, and 
 subsequently as presbyters or priests, and 
 are employed to preach the Gospel, either 
 as travelling or stationed ministers. In the 
 Congregational Churches, young men are 
 consecrated to the ministry by a council 
 of ministers, commonly called an " asso- 
 ciation ;" among the Presbyterians, by a 
 presbytery ; among the Episcopalians, by 
 a bishop. 
 
 In all the churches of the United States, 
 except the Methodists and Roman Catho- 
 lics, the pastors are chosen by the people 
 to whom they preach. Among the Metho- 
 dists they are appointed by the Annual Con- 
 ference, at which a bishop presides, regard 
 being had to the wishes which may be ex- 
 pressed by the people in favour of certain 
 ministers, as peculiarly fitted, in point of 
 character and talents, for specific localities. 
 The appointment of the priests to their re- 
 spective churches among the Roman Cath- 
 olics rests wholly with the bishops. 
 
 When a church belonging to any of the 
 other denominations loses its pastor, by 
 "his death or removal to some other place, 
 inquiry is first made for some one not yet 
 settled, or who, if settled, would not ob- 
 ject to change his charge, and who, it is 
 thought, would prove acceptable to the 
 .flock. The person fixed upon is invited to 
 preach a few times, and should he give 
 
 satisfaction, the congregation agree to call 
 him to be their pastor, in doing which they 
 must proceed according to the established 
 rules of the religious body to which they 
 belong. Thus, in the Presbyterian Church, 
 no call to become pastor of a vacant church 
 can be presented to any one without the 
 consent of the Presbytery within whose 
 bounds the vacancy has taken place ; nor 
 can it be accepted without the consent of 
 the Presbytery to which the minister who 
 has received it belongs. 
 
 In the Congregational churches of New- 
 England, the practice in calling a pastor 
 has been for the church or body of the 
 communicants to make out a call, and for 
 this to be followed by another from the 
 whole congregation, or, rather, from the 
 males who contribute towards the support 
 of public worship, the amount of the prof- 
 fered salary being stated in the latter call. 
 In the Presbyterian, and most other church- 
 es, each pewholder, or each head of a fam- 
 ily who subscribes towards the pastor's sal- 
 ary for himself and household, and others 
 who subscribe only for themselves, ai-e al- 
 lowed a voice in the call. Such is the 
 more common practice, and yet there are 
 Presbyterian churches in which none but 
 members that are communicants can vote 
 in calling a pastor. If the people are to 
 be allowed a voice in calling their pas- 
 tors, it will be found difficult to withhold 
 that right from those who, though not 
 communicants, contribute as much, and 
 perhaps more, than those who are. Nor 
 in a church and congregation in which the 
 people have been well instructed in the 
 truth, and where religion prospers, does 
 any evil of much consequence commonly 
 result from such an extension of the right 
 of voting on such occasions. For when 
 men have been faithfully instructed in the 
 Gospel, it is found that even the uncon- 
 verted will readily join in calling an effi- 
 cient minister, even although he be not 
 only orthodox, but very zealous and faith- 
 ful. Such men have sufficient discrimina- 
 tion to know, and often they will say it, 
 that if ever they are to become the reli- 
 gious men they hope one day to be, they 
 need a faithful pastor to secure that great 
 blessing. Such men have sense enough 
 to know that a light-minded, worldly, cold 
 preacher of the Gospel is not likely to 
 prove a blessing to them or their families. 
 But when church and congregation have 
 long been hearing " another Gospel," have 
 become hardened in error, and strongly at- 
 tached to damnable heresies, it were ab- 
 surd to expect the unconverted to prefer 
 and seek for a faithful minister. Such a 
 state of things should not be allowed to 
 occur. And then, with respect to all de- 
 nominations that have a government en- 
 compassing and controlling the churches 
 connected with them, there is, in the last 
 
140 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV, 
 
 resort, a power to prevent the settlement 
 of unworthy ministers in the churches un- 
 der their care. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE DEVELOPED IN 
 HOME MISSIONS. AMERICAN HOME MISSION- 
 ARY SOCIETY. 
 
 Thus much has the voluntary principle 
 done for the longest-settled and most 
 densely-peopled parts of the country. Let 
 us now see what it does for new and thin- 
 ly-peopled regions, where hundreds of new 
 congregations are rising annually, without 
 the means of maintaining the institutions 
 of the Gospel by their own efforts. Such 
 churches are to be found not only in the 
 new settlements of the Far West, but also 
 in the growing villages of the East. 
 
 This inability to support the public 
 preaching of the Gospel often arises from 
 the number of sects to be found in new 
 settlements, and even in some districts of 
 the older states. In this respect diversity 
 of sects sometimes causes a serious though 
 temporary evil, not to be compared with 
 the advantage resulting from it in the long 
 run. It is an evil, too, which generally 
 becomes less and less every year in any 
 given place ; the little churches, however 
 weak at first, gradually becoming, through 
 the increase of population, strong and in- 
 dependent, and what is now an evil disap- 
 pearing, or, rather, as I hope to prove, be- 
 ing converted into a blessing. 
 
 The most obvious way of aiding such 
 feeble churches is, to form societies for 
 this express object among the older and 
 more flourishing churches in the Atlantic 
 States. This has been done, and in this 
 the voluntary principle has beautifully de- 
 veloped itself, particularly during the last 
 fifteen years. It began with some denom- 
 inations not long after the Revolution ; and 
 early in this century we find missionary 
 societies formed among the Congregation- 
 al churches of Massachusetts and Connec- 
 ticut, for the purpose of sending ministers 
 to " the West," that is, the western part of 
 the State of iNew-York.* The " Far West" 
 to them was the northern part of Ohio, 
 which was then beginning to be the resort 
 of emigrants. The faithful men sent by 
 these societies into the wilderness were 
 greatly blessed in their labours, and to 
 them, under God, many of the now flour- 
 ishing churches of those regions owe their 
 existence. Missionary societies were sub- 
 sequently formed in the other New-Eng- 
 land States, for supplying destitute places 
 
 * I have seen the maps which some of these pio- 
 neer missionaries made of the portions of tlie State 
 of New-York which He west of Albany, in the years 
 1796-97. What is now a dcnsely-.setlled country 
 was then ahno.st a terra incot^nUa. At present, the 
 West, or frontier country, is al)out a thousand miles 
 west of Albany, instead of lying just beyond it. 
 
 within their own bounds with the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel, as well as to help in send- 
 ing it to other parts of the country. 
 
 Two societies were formed, likewise, for 
 the same object, among the Presbyterians 
 and Reformed Dutch in the city of New- 
 York, about the year 1819, and these sup- 
 ported a goodly number of missionaries,, 
 chiefly in the new and feeble churches in 
 the state of that name. In 1826 they were 
 united into one body, and now form the 
 American Home Missionary Society.* 
 
 This society, from its very outset, has 
 advanced with great vigour, and been di- 
 rected with singular zeal and energy. At 
 its first meeting in 1827, it reported that 
 in the course of the year that had closed 
 it had employed 169 ministers, who had 
 laboured in 196 congregations and mission- 
 ary districts. Its receipts for the same 
 period amounted to 20,031 dollars. This 
 auspicious commencement must be as- 
 cribed to its having assumed all the en- 
 gagements of the Domestic Missionary So- 
 ciety, out of which it sprang. The Society 
 soon drew into affiliation with it all the 
 State Domestic Missionary Societies of 
 New-England, some of which, such as 
 those of Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
 were of long standing and well estab- 
 lished.! 
 
 It would be interesting to trace the his- 
 tory of an institution which has been so 
 much blessed to a vast number of new and 
 poor churches throughout all the states 
 and territories of the American Confedera- 
 cy. But we can only present a summary 
 of its operations at two epochs, during the 
 sixteen years that it has been distributing^ 
 blessings with a liberal hand. 
 
 In the year ending May 1st, 1835, the 
 
 * The epithet American, employed by this society 
 and others, which do not comprise all the religious 
 denominations, has been greatly objectied to as sa- 
 vouring of arrogance, and as if intimating that the 
 whole of America belonged to them exclusively as a 
 field of labour. Such an idea probably never enter- 
 ed the minds of those who use the word in the de- 
 nomination of their societies. All that they mean in 
 employing it is, to signify that the field to which 
 their attention is directed is not a single state, or a 
 few states, but the whole country. The American 
 Home Missionary Society embraces the orthodox 
 Congregational churches in New-England and out 
 of it, the New School Presbyterians, and, to some 
 extent, the Reformed Dutch, Lutheran, and German 
 Reformed Churches. 
 
 t These societies, in a great degree, manage their 
 own affairs, appoint and support the missionaries 
 who labour within their bounds, and pay over the 
 surplus of their collections, if they have any, to the 
 American Home Missionary Society. If they need 
 help from that society at any tune, they receive it. 
 In the year 1843 the Maine Missionary Society em- 
 ployed sixty-eight missionaries (four fifths of all the 
 Congregational churches in that state were planted 
 i)y this society) ; that of New-Hampshire, forty-sev- 
 en-; that of Veruiont, fifty-three ; that of Massachu- 
 setts, seventy-eight ; that of Connecticut, thirty-nine ; 
 and that of Rhode Island, three ; making, in all, 289 
 missionaries sustained in young and feeble churches 
 in the six New-England States. 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 HOME MISSIONS. 
 
 Ul 
 
 society employed 719 agents and mission- 
 aries. Of these, 481 were settled as pas- 
 tors, or employed as " stated supplies," in 
 single congregations ; 185 extended their 
 labours to two or three congregations 
 each, and fifty were employed on larger 
 districts. In all, 1030 congregations, mis- 
 sionary districts, and fields of agency, were 
 thus supplied in whole or in part. The 
 persons added to the churches under the 
 care of the Society's missionaries that 
 year were estimated at 5000 ; namely, 1700 
 by letters of recommendation from other 
 churches, and 3300 by examination on 
 profession of their faith. Several of the 
 churches were reported to have been 
 blessed with seasons of more than ordina- 
 ry interest in religion ; in the Sunday- 
 schools attached to them there were about 
 40,000 scholars, and about 12,000 persons 
 attended the Bible-classes. The number 
 of persons who had joined the temperance 
 associations had reached 70,000. The ex- 
 penditure amounted to 83,394 dollars ; the 
 receipts to 88,863. 
 
 Let us now turn to what was done by 
 the Society in the year ending 1st May, 
 1843. During that year it had 848 mis- 
 sionaries and agents, of whom 623 had been 
 in its service the preceding year, and 225 
 ■were employed for the first time. These 
 men laboured in all the States and Terri- 
 tories of the Union ; a few, also, in Cana- 
 da, and one in Texas. The number of Pres- 
 byterian and Congregational churches in 
 Iowa and Wisconsin* had been greatly aug- 
 mented in the course of the year by the 
 Society's means. The number of congre- 
 gations and missionary stations occupied 
 was 1047, and the Sunday-schools and Bi- 
 ble-classes, under the direction of the mis- 
 sionaries, were attended by 68,400 persons. 
 In 308 congregations the sum of 13,000 
 dollars had been collected for religious and 
 benevolent societies, and many of the feeble 
 churches had contributed largely for them, 
 in aid of missions to the heathen. There 
 had been revivals in 233 churches, and 
 6858 conversions were reported as their 
 fruits. And it was estimated that there 
 were 146,000 members of temperance so- 
 cieties in the fields of the Society's opera- 
 tions. The disbursements of the society 
 were 107,823 dollars ; the receipts 100,804. 
 
 The plan pursued by this society, and 
 by all the other societies and boards es- 
 tablished for the promotion of home mis- 
 sions, is never to support a missionary at 
 its sole charges, if it can be avoided ; but 
 to give 100, or 150, or 200 dollars, rarely 
 more than 100 or 120, to a young and fee- 
 ble church, or two congregations near to 
 each other, on condition of their making 
 
 * In the autumn of the year which is just termi- 
 nated (1S43), this society sent thirty-eight young and 
 well-educated ministers of the Gospel into the Ter- 
 jilories of Wisconsin and Iowa. 
 
 up the deficiency in the missionary's sala- 
 ry. Thus they are stimulated and encour- 
 aged to help themselves, and as soon as 
 they can walk alone, if I may use the ex- 
 pression, the Society leaves them for oth- 
 ers which have been just organized, and 
 which need assistance. In this way hun- 
 dreds of congregations have been built up, 
 and hundreds are at this moment emerging 
 from the weakness of childhood into the 
 vigour of youth and manhood. In no case, 
 however, does the Society do anything to- 
 wards the erection of church edifices. The 
 people must find these for themselves, and 
 this they willingly do. The cheapness of 
 materials in the new settlements, and in 
 the villages of the interior, renders it easy 
 to erect such houses as will suffice until 
 the flock gathers strength, and can do 
 something more. 
 
 The Society engages, in some cases, 
 men of talent and experience to travel over 
 a given district, and to ascertain at what 
 points the people attached to one or other 
 of the denominations which it represents 
 might, with proper efforts, be formed into 
 Congregations. The labours of such agents 
 are of the utmost importance, and they 
 necessarily receive their whole salaries 
 from the Society. 
 
 It is a beautiful feature in our institu- 
 tions for domestic missions, that while en- 
 couraging and stimulating new and feeble 
 congregations to do their utmost to secure 
 for themselves the regular enjoyment of 
 Gospel ordinances,* they cultivate the kind- 
 ly feelings of churches in the older parts 
 of the country, and more favourably situa- 
 ted. Many of the latter support one mis- 
 sionary, and some of them several each, in 
 the new and destitute settlements, through 
 the agency of the American Home Mission 
 Society. Nay, there are juvenile societies 
 in the Sunday-schools that support each 
 of them one, and some even two or three 
 missionaries, if not more. Individuals are 
 to be found in the Atlantic States who 
 support a missionary each, and thus preach 
 the Gospel, as they say, " by proxy." Still 
 more, there are persons in New- York and 
 other cities, who have each paid the entire 
 salary and travelling expenses of an agent 
 labouring in a large district. One of these, 
 with whom I have long been acquainted, a 
 hatter, of by no means great fortune, who 
 works with his hands at the trade, gave 
 600 dollars for years to support one such 
 labourer in Ohio. Beautiful as this is, it 
 is perhaps a finer sight still to see churches 
 and congregations, which were aided by 
 the Society in their day, now in their turn 
 bearing a part, if not the whole expense 
 of a missionary labouring in a congrega- 
 tion not yet emerged from the feeble state 
 
 * It is believed that the churches aided by the 
 Society raise, in one way and another, nearly three 
 times as much as they receive ! 
 
142 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 which they once were in themselves. And 
 there are now many such throughout the 
 United States. 
 
 In 1805 there was scarcely a Presby- 
 terian or Congregational church in the dis- 
 trict now covered by the seventeen most 
 westerly counties of New-York. A few 
 missionaries were sent thither at different 
 times, but tlie increase was small until the 
 Agency for Home Missions, now in con- 
 nexion with the American Home Mission- 
 ary Society, was established there in 1826. 
 Now there are on this field 380 Presbyte- 
 rian and Congregational churches, contain- 
 ing, it is supposed, 30,000 communicants. 
 During the fifteen years of its operations, 
 the American Home Missionary Society 
 has aided 264 of those churches, and nearly 
 100 of them are now able to sustain the 
 Gospel without assistance. The churches 
 have nearly doubled since 1826, and the 
 communicants have probably trebled. Such 
 is the wonderful work God has wrought in 
 this section of the state. Such has been 
 the triumph of the Gospel. It is indeed 
 the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in 
 our eyes. 
 
 Passing by other facts showing the col- 
 lateral good accomplished by this effort to 
 plant the Gospel in Western New- York, 
 we mention, that many of the foreign mis- 
 sionaries are the sons of those churches. One 
 of them is now pastor of a church at the 
 Sandwich Islands of 7000 members, prin- 
 cipally gathered through the blessing of 
 God on his labours. Besides repaying the 
 parent society more than $60,000 expend- 
 ed on this field, those churches have given 
 $40,000 to send the Gospel to the more 
 destitute beyond them. Nor is this all ; 
 they have been most generous helpers of 
 every good cause. In 1839, this small part 
 of a state, where home missions have been 
 vigorously sustained, paid to the American 
 Board of Foreign Missions $14,000. 
 
 We conclude our notice of this society 
 by giving the following extract from its 
 Fourteenth Annual Report: 
 
 " The results, indeed, of that mysterious 
 and wonder-working influence which a God 
 of grace exerts through the ministry of 
 reconciliation, and which he connects with 
 the missionary enterprise, all surpass finite 
 comprehension. While the missionaries 
 are preaching Christ and Him crucified to 
 the living, they are laying broad and deep 
 the foundations of many generations ; they 
 are setting in motion trains of moral influ- 
 ences, which will not cease when they are 
 dead ; they are kindling up lights in Zion, 
 which will shine brighter and brighter unto 
 the perfect day. Churches, that were near 
 unto death, are quickened, and become able 
 of themselves to sustain the Gospel, and to 
 hand down its blessings to those who shall 
 come after them. New churches are or- 
 ganized, to tlirow open their portals to the 
 
 fathers, and the children, and the children's 
 children, through many generations, and to 
 send out their influences to the ends of the 
 world. The organization, or resuscitation 
 of a church — Heaven's own institution — 
 that may stand through all coming time, 
 and bring its multitudes of redeemed ones 
 to glory, is a great event. And to plant 
 such churches, wherever there are souls 
 to be gathered into them, our country over, 
 and nurture them till they no longer need 
 our aid, but become our most efl!icient fel- 
 low-labourers in hastening forward the uni- 
 versal reign of the Son of God, is surely a 
 GREAT WORK ! And yet, this is the work 
 in which infinite condescension and mercy 
 permits us, as friends of home missions, 
 to engage, and some of which it is our- 
 privilege here to record." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF DOMESTIC MISSIONS,. 
 UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE GENERAL 
 ASSEMBLY. 
 
 Presbyterianism owes its foundation in 
 the United States chiefly to persons who 
 had been exiled from Scotland on account 
 of their religious principles, and to Presby- 
 terian emigrants from the north of Ireland. 
 These were joined in many places by set- 
 tlers from New-England, who had no ob- 
 jections to unite with them in forming 
 congregations on Presbyterian principles. 
 Presbyterians of Scottish and Irish origin 
 coalesced in other places with Huguenots 
 from France, and with colonists originally 
 of the Dutch or German Reformed Church- 
 es. Thus did Presbyterian congregations 
 begin to be formed towards the close of the 
 seventeenth century. The first preachers 
 were from Scotland, Ireland, and New- 
 England. They were few in number at 
 first, and were often invited to preach in 
 neighbourhoods where some resident Pres- 
 byterians might desire to hear the Gospel 
 preached by men of the same religious 
 principles with themselves. 
 
 The first presbytery was constituted in 
 1705, and the first synod in 1716. After 
 that the work of home missions began to 
 acquire greater consistency. Ministers 
 were sent out on preaching tours among 
 the small Presbyterian flocks, or, rather, 
 scattered groups of Presbyterian families, 
 particularly in the Middle and Southern 
 provinces. In 1741, the synod was divided 
 into two bodies, one retaining the old name 
 of Synod of Philadelphia, the other calling 
 itself the Synod of New- York. The for- 
 mer, soon after being constituted, had its at- 
 tention dravvn, " not only to the wants of 
 the people within their immediate bounds, 
 but to those also of the emigrants who 
 were rapidly extending themselves through 
 
Chap. VIII.] 
 
 HOME MISSIONS. 
 
 143 
 
 Virginia and North Carolina." They wrote, 
 accordingly, to the General Assembly of 
 the Church of Scotland, asking for minis- 
 ters to preach in these colonies, and for 
 assistance in establishing a seminary for 
 the education of suitable young men for 
 the ministry. A letter was also addressed 
 to the deputies of the Synods of North and 
 South Holland, in which they expressed 
 their willingness to unite with the Calvin- 
 istic Dutch churches in promoting the 
 common interests of religion. 
 
 At the first meeting of the Synod of New- 
 York in 1745, the circumstances of the 
 people of Virginia were brought before 
 them, and the opinion unanimously ex- 
 pressed that Mr. Robinson* was the proper 
 person to visit that colony. He visited it 
 accordingly, and on that, as well as on a 
 former visit, was the instrument of doing 
 much good. He was followed by the 
 Rev. Samuel Davies, formerly mentioned. 
 
 In 1758, the two synods were merged 
 in the one Synod of New- York and Phila- 
 delphia, and from that time domestic mis- 
 sions began to receive considerable atten- 
 tion, and collections for that object were 
 ordered to be made in the churches. In 
 1767, or 1768, the synod had an overture, 
 or proposal, sent from the Presbytery of 
 New- York, " that there should be an annu- 
 al collection in every congregation ; that 
 every presbytery should appoint a treasu- 
 rer to receive and transmit the funds thus 
 obtained ; that the synod should appoint a 
 general treasurer, to whom all these pres- 
 byterial collections should be sent ; and 
 that every year a full account of the re- 
 ceipts and disbursements should be printed 
 and sent down to the churches." This 
 was the germe of the present Board of Mis- 
 sions. In the same year petitions for 
 " supplies" were received from twenty-one 
 places in Virginia, North Carolina, and 
 Georgia. 
 
 Collections were thenceforward made in 
 the churches. In 1772, it was ordered that 
 a part of these moneys should be appropri- 
 ated to the purchase and distribution of use- 
 ful religious books, and to the promotion 
 of the Gospel among the Indians. Two 
 years afterward, it was seriously contem- 
 plated to send missionaries to Africa ; but 
 on the war of the Revolution breaking out 
 in the following year, the project fell to the 
 ground. Even during the war there was a 
 considerable demand for ministers from 
 destitute congregations, and to meet this 
 many faithful ministers made missionary 
 
 * This Mr. Robinson was a remarkable man. His 
 manners were plain, his eloquence simple, animated, 
 and attractive. He had but one eye, and was from 
 that circumstance called " one-eyed Robinson." The 
 Rev. Dr. Alexander, professor in the Theological 
 Seminary at Princeton, New-Jersey, saj-s, th^t it was 
 no uncommon thing for people to go twenty, thirty, 
 and even forty iiules, to hear him preach a single 
 sermon. 
 
 tours, at no small personal hazard from the 
 dangers of war. Measures were taken in 
 1788 for forming the General Assembly, 
 which was organized in 1789, and at its 
 very first meeting much attention was paid 
 to the subject of missions. 
 
 " It is believed," says one of the most 
 distinguished living ministers of the Pres- 
 byterian Church, "that at this time (1789) 
 there was not in the United States another 
 religious denomination, besides the Presby- 
 terian, that prosecuted any domestic mis- 
 sionary enterprise, except that then, as 
 since, the Methodists sent forth their cir- 
 cuit-preachers in all directions."* 
 
 In the year 1800, the Rev. Mr. Chapman 
 was appointed a missionary in the western 
 part of the State of New- York, and to his 
 labours we must so far ascribe the great 
 diffusion of Presbyterianism in that impor- 
 tant section of the country. In 180'2, the 
 General Assembly appointed a " standing 
 committee," to attend to the greatly-in- 
 creased interests of the missionary cause — • 
 a measure which led to a farther extension 
 of the work. A correspondence was com- 
 menced with all the known missionary so- 
 cieties of Europe. The committee gave 
 much of its attention to the coloured popu- 
 lation, a class among whom the late Joha 
 Holt Rice, D.D., one of the most distin- 
 guished ministers that the Presbyterian 
 Church in the United States has ever pos- 
 sessed, laboured as a missionary during 
 seven years. 
 
 In 1816, the General Assembly enlarged 
 the powers of the standing committee, and 
 gave it the title of " the Board of Missions, 
 acting under the authority of the General 
 Assembly." Many missionaries went forth 
 under its auspices, to labour among the 
 destitute Presbyterian congregations that 
 were continually forming in the Southern 
 and Western States. Meanwhile, many 
 local societies, under the direction of syn- 
 ods, presbyteries, and other bodies, had 
 sprung up, and were separately prosecuting 
 the same objects to a considerable extent. 
 
 The General Assembly again took up the 
 subject of missions in 1828, and farther en- 
 larged the powers of the Board, fully au- 
 thorizing it to establish missions, not only 
 in destitute parts of the United States, but 
 among the heathen abroad. Such, how- 
 ever, was the demand for labourers at 
 home, especially in the Western States 
 and Territories, that nothing of importance 
 could be done for foreign lands. It was 
 found, besides, that home and foreign mis- 
 sions could not well be united under one 
 board, so that in the course of a few years 
 the latter were committed to the charge of 
 another board, appointed for that purpose 
 by the Assembly. Of its operations we 
 shall have occasion to speak elsewhere. 
 
 * " History of the Missions of the Presbyterian 
 Church," by the Rev. Ashbel Green, D.D. 
 
144 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 The cause of domestic missions in the 
 Presbyterian Church now went on with 
 fresh vigour, and the synodical and pres- 
 byterial societies becoming either merged 
 in the Assembly's board, or affiliated with 
 it, the whole assumed a more consolidated 
 form and greater consistency. From 1828 
 to 1843, the missionaries increased from 
 31 to 290. The Report for the latter year 
 presents a summary of 296 missionaries 
 employed ; 900 Sunday-schools, attended 
 by at least 30,000 scholars, connected with 
 the churches under their care ; 4800 mem- 
 bers added to the churches, of whom 3600 
 upon examination of their faith, and 1200 
 upon letters of recommendation from other 
 churches ; the receipts were about 35,000 
 dollars, and the expenditures exceeded 
 31,000. 'J'he average expense of each mis- 
 sionary is 130 dollars. The Board pursues 
 the wise course of simply helping congre- 
 gations that as yet are unable to maintain 
 pastors, by granting them so much on their 
 undertaking to make up the deficiency. 
 
 Such is a brief notice of the operations 
 of the Home Missions of the General As- 
 sembly of that branch of the Presbyterian 
 Church commonly called the Old School, 
 to distinguish it from another branch call- 
 ed the New School. The Board has been 
 instrumental, under God, in giving a per- 
 manent existence to some hundreds of 
 churches. The divine blessing has been 
 remarkably vouchsafed to its efforts. Its 
 affairs are managed with great wisdom 
 and energy, and the Church is much in- 
 debted to the Rev. Ashbel Green, D.D., 
 for the deep interest which, during a long 
 life, he has felt in this cause, and for the 
 devotedness with which he has laboured 
 to promote it. Nor can it fail to be a great 
 consolation to him, in his declining days, 
 to see his love and zeal for this enterprise 
 crowned with abundant success. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOME MISSIONS OF THE EPISCOPAL, BAPTIST, 
 AND REFORMED DUTCH CHURCHES. 
 
 A SOCIETY was formed in the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church of the United States, 
 for tlu^ promotion of Home and Foreign 
 Missions, in the year 1822. During the 
 first thirteen years of its existence, that is, 
 up to 1835, it liad employed fifty-nine la- 
 bourers in its home missions, occupying 
 stations in various parts of the Union, but 
 chiefly in the West. The society was re- 
 organized in 1835, and, as now constituted, 
 is under the dircttioii of a IJoard of thirty 
 members, apijointcd by the General Con- 
 vention of the Church. The bishops, to- 
 gether with such persons as had become 
 patrons of the society previously to the 
 meeting of the Convention in 1829, are 
 
 members of the Board, and to it is com- 
 mitted the whole subject of missions. But 
 the better to expedite the business intrust- 
 ed to it, the Home and Foreign deparfc- 
 inents are directed, respectively, by two 
 committees, each consisting of four cler- 
 gymen and four laymen, under the presi- 
 dency of the bishop of the diocess in which 
 the committee resides, and both commit- 
 tees are ex officio members of the Board. 
 
 It is only since 1835 that the home mis- 
 sions of the society have been prosecuted 
 with much vigour, but every year now 
 bears witness to the increasing interest 
 felt by the Episcopal churches of the Uni- 
 ted States in the work of building up 
 churches in the new settlements, and oth- 
 er places where none of that communion 
 had before existed. 
 
 During the year ending 21st June, 1843, 
 the Board had employed ninety-four mis- 
 sionaries, and that they did not labour 
 without effecting much good, is apparent 
 even from the imperfect statements of the 
 Report. The number of communicants in 
 84 out of the 180 places to which the mis- 
 sionaries had extended their labours was 
 2190 ; and that of the children under cate- 
 chetical instruction was 2014. The income 
 for the home missions, collected through- 
 out the thirty diocesses into which the coun- 
 try is divided, was $38,835. From 1822 to 
 1841, 186 stations had been adopted as fields 
 of special, permanent, and, as far as practi- 
 cable, regular labour. During the same pe- 
 riod eighty church edifices had been erect- 
 ed in those stations, and Uie number of 
 these once aided, but no longer requiring 
 assistance, was forty-four. 
 
 From this it will be seen that this soci- 
 ety has not laboured in vain, but that it, 
 likewise, is an instrument by which church- 
 es that have long been favoured with the 
 Gospel, and highly prize it, are enabled to 
 assist others, until they, too, have grown 
 up into a vigorous independence of foreign 
 aid. " Freely ye have received ; freely 
 give ;" this admonition and command 
 should never be forgotten. It is the true 
 basis of the whole Voluntary System. 
 
 We shall only add, that the missionaries 
 employed by the Board of the Episcopal 
 Church are chiefly confined to the Western 
 States and Territories. 
 
 The American Baptist Home Missionary 
 Society was instituted in 1832, and has 
 b(ien eminently useful since in building up 
 churches of that denomination, both in the 
 West and in many of the Atlantic States, 
 where the assistance of such an institu- 
 tion was required, as well as in establish- 
 ing Sunday-schools and Bible-classes. Its 
 great field of labour, however, like that of 
 all the other Societies and Boards for do- 
 mestic missions, has been the " Valley of 
 the Mississippi." It has numerous branch- 
 es and auxiliaries in all parts of the United 
 
■Chap. X.] 
 
 HOME MISSIONS. 
 
 14.5 
 
 States ; and during the year ending in May, 
 1843, had ninety-three agents and mis- 
 sionaries in its own immediate service, and 
 275 in that of its auxiUaries, making a total 
 of 368, all of whom were ministers of the 
 Gospel, and believed to be faithful and ca- 
 pable labourers. They preached statedly 
 at 762 stations, and had travelled 175.035 
 miles 1 They reported 4920 conversions 
 and baptisms, the organization of fifty 
 churches, and the ordination of twenty- 
 three ministers. By their instrumentality 
 6520 persons had been induced to join the 
 temperance societies; 11,742 young per- 
 sons had been gathered into Sunday-schools 
 and Bible-classes, taught by about 1500 
 teachers. The receipts of the parent soci- 
 ety and its auxiliaries, amounted to $40,583. 
 
 In addition to what the regular Baptists 
 are doing for home missions, it ought to 
 be stated that the Free-Will Baptists have 
 a Home Missionary Society, which em- 
 ploys some six or eight men. 
 
 The General Synod of the Reformed 
 Dutch Church has a Board of Domestic 
 Missions, which is now prosecuting, with 
 zeal and wisdom, the work of gathering 
 together new congregations, and fostering 
 them during their infancy, wherever it can 
 find openings for so doing. For several 
 years past it has been extending its oper- 
 .ations, and during that ending in June, 
 J 843, it aided forty-seven new or feeble 
 churches and two stations. Five of these 
 were in the Western States, and in these 
 five missionaries were occupied in preach- 
 ing the Gospel. The receipts for that pe- 
 riod amounted to $5127. 
 
 If the truth is to be carried into every 
 hamlet and neighbourhood of the United 
 States, it can only be by all denominations 
 of evangelical Christians taking part in the 
 enterprise ; and it is delightful to trace the 
 proofs of this conviction being widely and 
 deeply felt. All are actually engaged in 
 the good work, and send forth and support 
 missionaries in some portion or other of 
 ' the country. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOME MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
 CHURCH. 
 
 It has been said, with truth, that the 
 Methodist Church is in its very struc- 
 ture emphatically missionary, and it is an 
 inexpressible blessing that it is so, as the 
 United States strikingly prove. The whole 
 country is embraced by one General Con- 
 ference ; it is again subdivided into thirty- 
 two Annual Conferences, each including 
 a large extent of country, and divided into 
 districts. Each district comprehends sev- 
 eral circuits, and within each circuit there 
 are from five or six to above twenty preach- 
 ing places 
 
 K 
 
 Ordinarily, as often as once in the fort- 
 night, a circuit-preacher conducts a regu- 
 lar service at each of these preaching pla- 
 ces, whether it be a church, schoolroom, 
 or a dwelling-house. In the largest towns 
 and villages such services are held on the 
 Sabbath, and on a week-day or evening 
 in other places, and thus the Gospel is 
 carried into thousands of remote spots, in 
 which it never would be preached upon 
 the plan of having a permanent clergy, 
 planted in particular districts and parishes. 
 
 It was a remark, I believe, of the cele- 
 brated Dr. Witherspoon, that " he needed 
 no other evidence that the Rev. John Wes- 
 ley was a great man, than what the system 
 of itinerating preaching presented to his 
 mind, and of which that wonderful man 
 was the author." The observation was a 
 just one. It is a system of vast importance 
 in every point of view ; but that from which 
 we are at present to contemplate it is, its 
 filling up a void which must else remain 
 empty. Of its other advantages we shall 
 have to speak in another place. 
 
 But, capable as the system is of being 
 made to send its ramifications into almost 
 every corner of the country, and to carry 
 the glad tidings of salvation into the most 
 remote and secluded settlements, as well 
 as to the more accessible and populous 
 towns and neighbourhoods, many places 
 were found, particularly in the South and 
 West, so situated as to be beyond the 
 reach of adequate supply from itinerant la- 
 bourers ; a fact which led to the formation 
 of the Missionary vSociety of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church in 1819. 
 
 This society, like that of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church, was formed for the 
 double object of promoting missions at 
 home and abroad. Reserving the latter 
 for future notice, I turn at present to the 
 former. According to the twenty-fourth 
 annual report, being that for 1843, I find 
 that it employed 210 missionaries within 
 the limits of the United States, exclusive 
 of those labouring among the Indians, 
 whether within or immediately beyond 
 those limits. The churches enjoying the 
 services of these missionaries comprised 
 above 30,000 members, and many of them 
 had flourishing Bible-classes and Sunday- 
 schools. The report also states, that 
 among the members of the Society's mis- 
 sionary churches, there were not fewer 
 than 13,320 coloured people. 
 
 Perhaps of all the fields cultivated by 
 this society, the two most interesting, and, 
 in some respects, most important, are 
 those presented by the slaves in the ex- 
 treme Southern States, and by the German 
 emigrants found in great numbers in our 
 chief cities. The missions among the for- 
 mer were commenced in 1828,* and origi- 
 
 * I speak here of missions technically so called, 
 for, in Iheir ordinary labours, the Methodists, from 
 
146 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 nated in a proposal made by the Hon. 
 Charles C. Piackney, a distinguished Chris- 
 tian layman of the Episcopal Church in 
 South CaroHna, and which has been car- 
 ried into effect with much success, the 
 slaveholders themselves, in many places, 
 if not all, being pleased to have the mis- 
 sionaries preacli the Gospel to their people. 
 
 The following paragraph from the report 
 of 1841 will give the readej^ some idea of 
 the hazardous nature of this work : " In 
 the Southern and Southwestern Conferen- 
 ces, it will be seen, under the head of do- 
 mestic missions, that, with commendable 
 zeal and devotion, our missionaries are 
 still labouring in the service of the slaves 
 upon the rice-fields, sugar and cotton plant- 
 ations, multitudes of whom, though des- 
 tined to toil and bondage during their earth- 
 ly pilgrimage, have by their instrumental- 
 ity been brought to enjoy the liberty of the 
 Gospel, and are happily rejoicing in the 
 blessings of God's salvation. In no por- 
 tion of our work are our missionaries call- 
 ed to endure greater privations, or make 
 greater sacrifices of health and life, than 
 in these missions among the slaves, many 
 of which are located in sections of the 
 Southern country which are proverbially 
 sickly, and under the fatal influence of a 
 climate which few white men are capable 
 of enduring, even for a single year. And 
 yet, notwithstanding so many valuable mis- 
 sionaries have fallen martyrs to their toils 
 in these missions, year after year there are 
 found others to take their places, who fall 
 likewise in their work, ' ceasing at once to 
 work and to live.' Nor have our superin- 
 tendents any difficulty in finding missiona- 
 ries ready to fill up the ranks which death 
 has thinned in these sections of the work, 
 for the love of Christ, and the love of the 
 souls of these poor Africans in bonds, con- 
 strain our brethren in the itinerant work 
 of the Southern conferences to exclaim, 
 'Here are we, send us!' The Lord be 
 praised for the zeal and success of our 
 brethren in this self-denying and self-sac- 
 rificing work." 
 
 Not less interesting are the Society's 
 missions among the (Jermans resident in 
 the chief towns and cities of the Valley of 
 the Mississippi, Beginning at Pittsburgh 
 and Alleghany Town, on the right bank of 
 the Alleghany, opposite Pittsburgh, it has 
 missionaries among these foreigners in 
 many of the chief towns on the Ohio, such 
 as Wheeling, Marietta, Portsmouth, Mays- 
 ville, ("inciniiali, Lawrenceburg, New Al- 
 bany, &c., as well as in towns remote from 
 the river, such as Dayton and Chiliicothe. 
 
 the first, have had mtich to do with the slaves in the 
 South, as well as with the free negroes of the North. 
 In fact, no other tjody of Christians, perhaps, has 
 done so much good to the iinforfiuiatc children of 
 Africa in the United States as the followers of John 
 Wesley. 
 
 It has a mission, also, at St. Louis, on the 
 Upper Mississippi. The churches gathered 
 by the Society's missionaries from among 
 the Germans in those places had no fewer 
 than 1366 members in 1843, and of these 
 more than 200 had been Roman Catholics. 
 Yet this work had commenced only a few 
 years before. Twenty missionaries were 
 engaged in it, and several of these were- 
 men of considerable talent and learning, as 
 well as zeal. One of them, the Rev. Mr. 
 Nast, at Cincinnati, conducts a religious 
 paper with a circulation of above 1500 
 copies, and which seems to be doing good. 
 
 The Society has a mission, likewise, 
 among the Germans, reckoiied at 30,000 
 at least, in the city of New- York. The 
 income of this excellent and efficient soci- 
 ety, for the year ending April 20th, 1843,. 
 amounted to 109,452 dollars, and its ex- 
 penditure, including both its foreign and 
 domestic missions, was 145,035. 
 
 Here I close these brief notices of the 
 home missions of the chief evangelical 
 churches in the United States. They will- 
 give the reader some idea of the mode in 
 which new and feeble congregations are 
 aided by the older and stronger until able 
 to maintain the institutions of religion 
 themselves. The societies which we have 
 passed under review in these four chap- 
 ters supported, in all, nearly 1900 ministers 
 of the Gospel, in the year 1843, in new,, 
 and, as yet, feeble churches and flocks^ 
 Year after year many of these cease to re- 
 quire assistance, and then others are taken 
 up in their turn. Be it remembered, that 
 the work has been systematically prosecu- 
 ted for no long course of time. Twenty 
 years ago, in fact, the most powerful and 
 extensive of these societies did not exist ; 
 others were but commencing their opera- 
 tions. It is an enterprise with respect to 
 which the churches have as yet but par- 
 tially developed their energies and resour- 
 ces ; still, they have accomplished enough 
 to demonstrate how much may be done by 
 the voluntary principle towards the calling 
 into existence of churches and congrega- 
 tions in the settlements rapidly forming,, 
 whether in the new or the old states. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE DEVELOPED. IN- 
 FLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE ON 
 EDUCATION. OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 
 
 We have seen how the voluntary prin- 
 ciple operates in America in relation to 
 the building of churches, and also the sup- 
 port of ministers of the Gospel In the new 
 settlements forming every year, more or 
 less, in all quarters. W^e now come to 
 consider its influence on education. Hun- 
 dreds of ministers, it will be perceived, are 
 
Chap. XI.] 
 
 PRIMARY SCHOOLS. 
 
 147 
 
 required to meet the demands of the rap- 
 idly-augmentmg population. Where are 
 these to come from ] Besides, in a coun- 
 try where the right of suffrage is almost 
 universal, and where so much of the order, 
 peace, and happiness, that are the true ob- 
 jects of all good government, depend on 
 officers chosen in the directest manner 
 from among themselves, these must be in- 
 structed before they can become intelli- 
 gent, virtuous, and capable citizens. Igno- 
 rance is incompatible with the acquisition 
 or preservation of any freedom worth pos- 
 sessing ; and, above all, such a republic as 
 that of the United States must depend for 
 its very existence on the wide diffusion of 
 sound knowledge and religious principles 
 among all classes of the people. Let us, 
 therefore, trace the bearings of the volun- 
 tary principle upon education, in all its 
 forms, among the various ranks of society 
 in the United States. We shall begin with 
 primary schools. 
 
 It may well be imagined that emigrants 
 to the New World, who fled from the Old 
 with the hope of enjoying that religious 
 freedom which they so much desired, 
 would not be indifferent to the education 
 of their children. Especially might we 
 expect to find that the Protestant colo- 
 nists, who had forsaken all for this boon, 
 would not fail to make early provision for 
 the instruction of their children, in order 
 that they might be able to read that Book 
 which is the " religion of Protestants." 
 And such we find to have been the fact. 
 Scarcely had the Puritans been settled half 
 a dozen years in the colony of Massachu- 
 setts before they began to make provision 
 for public primary schools, to be supported 
 by a tax assessed upon all the inhabitants.* 
 And such provision was actually made, not 
 only in Massachusetts, but in every New- 
 England colony. And such provision ex- 
 ists to this day in all the six New-England 
 States. Schools are maintained in every 
 school district, during the whole or part of 
 every j'ear, by law. 
 
 With the exception of the State of Con- 
 necticut, where all the public schools are 
 maintained upon the interest of a large 
 school fund, primary instruction is provi- 
 ded for by an annual assessment — a school 
 
 * The small colony of Plymouth, as soon as it was 
 in some measure settled, se: about providing schools 
 for the children, and fhis was several years before 
 the colony of Massachusetts Bay was planted. 
 
 But if the New-England Puritans were zealous in 
 the cause of education and learning, the Virginia 
 colonists seem not to have had any such spirit, for 
 one of their governors, Sir William Berkeley, in 1670, 
 in replying to the inquiries addressed to him by the 
 Lords of Plantations, says, " I thank God, the7e are no 
 free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have 
 them these hundred years ; for learning has brought 
 disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and 
 printing has divulged them, and libels against the 
 best government. God keep us from both !" — Hm- 
 ing's Laws of Virginia, Appendi.t. 
 
 being taught, in every school district, by a 
 master for the older youth during winter, 
 and by a mistress for the little children 
 during summer. Wherever we find the 
 descendants of the Puritans in America, 
 we find a people who value education as 
 the first of all earthly blessings ; and when 
 a colony from New-England plants itself, 
 whether amid the forests of Ohio, or on 
 the prairies of Illinois, two things are ever 
 considered as indispensable alike to their 
 temporal and to their spiritual and their 
 eternal welfare — a church and a school- 
 house. 
 
 Nor was this thirst for education con- 
 fined to the New-England Puritans ; it pre- 
 vailed to no small degree among the Scotch 
 and Irish Presbyterians, the Huguenots, 
 the early German emigrants ; among all, 
 in fact, who had fled from Europe for the 
 sake of their religion. It is owing to this 
 that primary education has been diffused 
 so widely throughout the United States, 
 and that no less effective legal provision 
 has been made at length for the support 
 of common schools in New- York, Penn- 
 sylvania, and in Ohio, than in the New- 
 England States, and to a considerable ex- 
 tent, also, in New-Jersey and Delaware, 
 while in all the others it has led to the 
 adoption of measures for the education of 
 the children of the poor, and to the crea- 
 tion of school funds, which, taken together 
 with other means, promise one day to be 
 available for the education of all classes. 
 
 The white population of the United States 
 amounted in 1840 to 14,189,218, of which 
 immber it was ascertained that 549,693 per- 
 sons, above twenty years of age, could 
 neither read nor write. A large propor- 
 tion of these must have been foreigners — 
 Irish, Germans, Swiss, and French — as is 
 evident from 13,041 of them being found in 
 the six New-England States, where educa- 
 tion is nearly as universal as can well be 
 imagined. That a native of either sex, in 
 short, above the age of twenty, may be 
 found in Connecticut or Massachusetts 
 who cannot read, is not denied ; but that 
 there should be 526 such persons in the 
 former of these states, and 4448 in the lat- 
 ter, cannot be believed by any one who 
 knows the condition of the people there. 
 The greater number were not native Amer- 
 icans, and of those that remained the ma- 
 jority were idiots. 
 
 By the census of 1840, it appears that 
 the number of primary or common schools 
 amounted to 47,209, attended by 1,845,245 
 scholars ; of whom 468,264 were taught at 
 the pubhc charge, the remainder at that 
 of their parents and friends. From this it 
 will be seen that education in America de- 
 pends very much on the Voluntary Princi- 
 ple. But though primary schools were in 
 all parts of the country originated and sus- 
 tained at first, as in most of the states it 
 
148 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 continues to be, by tlie people themselves, 
 or, rather, by the friends of education, state 
 after state is beginning to be induced by 
 the efforts of these to make a legal provis- 
 ion, to a certain extent at least, for the in- 
 struction of all who may choose to avail 
 themselves of it, for in this they do not see 
 that they violate any rights of conscience. 
 
 The right of giving instruction is, in the 
 United States, universal. Even where 
 there is an all-pervading system of public 
 schools, any number of families may join 
 together, and employ any teacher for their 
 children whom they may prefer. Nor has 
 that teacher to procure any license or 
 "brevet of instruction" before entering on 
 the duties of his office. His employers 
 are the sole judges of his capacity, and 
 should he prove incapable or inefficient, 
 the remedy is in their own hands. The 
 teachers employed by the state pass an 
 examination before a proper committee. 
 In all the states where there is a legal pro- 
 vision for primary schools, there is a year- 
 ly report from each to a committee of the 
 townsliip, from which, again, there is a re- 
 port to a county committee, and that, in its 
 turn, sends a report to the Secretary or 
 School Commissioner of tlie state. 
 
 In most cases, a pious and judicious 
 teacher, if he w'ill only confine himself to 
 the great doctrines and precepts of the 
 Gospel, in wliich all who hold the funda- 
 mental truths of the Bible are agreed, can 
 easily give as mucli religious instruction 
 as he chooses. Where the teacher him- 
 self is not decidedly religious, much reli- 
 gious instructicn cannot be expected ; nor 
 should any but religious teachers attempt 
 to give anything more than general moral 
 instruction, and make the scholars read 
 portions of the Scriptures, and of other 
 good books. 
 
 The Bible is very generally used as a 
 reading book in our primary schools, though 
 in some places, as at St. Louis, the Roman 
 Catholics have succeeded in excluding it, 
 and they have been striving to do the same 
 in the city of New- York. In so far as re- 
 lates to pui)lic school.s, I see no other 
 course but that of leaving the question to 
 the people themselves ; the majority deci- 
 ding, and leaving the minority tbe alterna- 
 tive of supporting a school of their own. 
 This will generally be done by Protestants 
 rather than give up the Bible. 
 
 In most parts of the United States, it has 
 been found extremely difficult to procure 
 good teachers, few men being willing to 
 devote their lives to that occupation in a 
 country so full of openings in more lucra- 
 tive and inviting professions and employ- 
 ments. Hence very incompetent teach- 
 ers — not a few from Ireland and other 
 parts of the British dominions — are all 
 that can be found. 'I'his is particularly 
 the case in the Middle, Southern, and West- 
 
 ern States. But it is an evil which dimin- 
 ishes with the increase of population, and, 
 besides, much attention has of late been 
 paid to the training of teachers. A very 
 laudable effijrt is now making in New- 
 England, and also in New-York, and some 
 other states, to attach a library of suitable 
 books to each school. The plan is excel- 
 lent, and promises much good. 
 
 Primary instruction in the United States 
 owes almost everything to Religion, as 
 the most efficient of all the principles that 
 prompts to its promotion. Not that the 
 Protestants of that country interest them- 
 selves in the primary schools for the pur- 
 pose of proselytizing children to their 
 views, but rather that at these schools the 
 youth of the nation may be qualified for 
 receiving religious instruction eflectually 
 elsewhere, and for the due discharge of 
 their future duties as citizens. And, how- 
 ever much they may wish to see i-eligious 
 instruction given at the common schools, 
 they will not for a moment give in to the 
 opinion that all is lost where this cannot 
 be accomplished. Primary instruction, 
 even when not accompanied with any re- 
 ligious instruction, is better than none ; 
 and in such cases, they that love the Gos- 
 pel have other resources — in the pulpit, 
 the family altar, the Bible-class, and the 
 Sabbath-school. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES. 
 
 But if Primary Schools in the United 
 States owe much to religion. Grammar- 
 schools and Academies, which may be call- 
 ed secondary institutions, owe still more. 
 
 In 1647, only twenty-seven years after 
 the settlement of the Puritans in New- 
 England, we find the colony of Massachu- 
 setts Bay making a legal provision, not 
 only for primary, but for secondary schools 
 also. " It being one chief project of Sa- 
 tan," says the statute, " to keep men from 
 the knowledge of the Scriptures by dis- 
 suading from the use of tongues ; and to 
 the end that learning may not be buried 
 in the graves of our forefathers in Church 
 and Commonwealth, the Lord assisting our 
 endeavours ; therefore be it enacted, that 
 every township, after the Lord hatli in- 
 creased them to the number of fifty house- 
 holders, shall appoiiU one to teach all chil- 
 dren to write and read ; and where any 
 town shall increase to the number of 100 
 families, they shall set up a grammar- 
 school, the masters thereof being able to 
 instruct youth so far as they may be fitted 
 for the university." Such was the origin 
 of the grammar-schools of New-England, 
 and now they arc so numerous that not 
 only has almost every county one, but 
 
Chap. XII.] 
 
 GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES. 
 
 149 
 
 many of the more populous and wealthy 
 possess several. 
 
 Not only so ; all the other states have 
 incorporated academies and grammar- 
 schools in very considerable numbers. 
 Some, by a single act, have made an ap- 
 propriation for the establishment of one 
 such institution in every county within 
 their jurisdiction. Thus, in Pennsylvania, 
 many years ago, 2000 dollars were granted 
 for the erection of a building for a gram- 
 mar-school, at the seat of justice for each 
 county, and a board of trustees, with pow- 
 er to fill up vacancies as they might occur 
 in their numbers, was appointed for each. 
 These buildings are now occupied by mas- 
 ters who teach the higher branches of an 
 English education, and, in most cases, also 
 the Latin and Greek languages, besides 
 such instruction in the mathematics, and 
 other studies, as may qualify the pupils 
 for entering college. Like provisions have 
 been made by other states, and even the 
 newest of them in the West are continual- 
 ly encouraging learning by passing such 
 acts. In no case, however, does a state 
 endow such an institution. A grant is 
 made at the outset for the edifice that may 
 be required ; in most cases, this is all that 
 is done by the state, after which the insti- 
 tution has to depend upon the fees paid by 
 the scholars for the support of the master 
 or masters employed. In some instances, 
 as in the State of New- York, the grammar- 
 school has a yearly subsidy from the state ; 
 in which case, there is usually some con- 
 dition attached to the grant, such as the 
 giving of gratis instruction to a certain 
 number of poor lads, or of youths intend- 
 ing to become teachers of primary schools. 
 But in most, even of the cases in which 
 they have been aided by the state, these 
 institutions have not only been privately 
 commenced and carried to a certain point 
 previously to such assistance, but owe 
 much more afterward to the spontaneous 
 support of their friends. Indeed, in all 
 parts of the country, grammar-schools, and 
 some of these the very best, may be found 
 which owe their existence purely to indi- 
 vidual or associated efforts. Such is the 
 " Burr Seminary," in the town of Man- 
 chester, in the State of Vermont, which 
 originated in a legacy of 10,000 dollars, left 
 by a gentleman of the name of Joseph 
 Burr,* for the education of poor and pious 
 young men for the ministry. By the terms 
 
 * Mr. Burr had been for many years a resident at 
 Manchester, in Vermont. By patient industry and 
 upright dealings, he acquired a fortune estimated at 
 150,000 dollars at the time of his death. A large 
 part of this sum he bequeathed to the American Bi- 
 ble Society, American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions, .A^merican Home Missionary Soci- 
 ety, and American Education Society, besides en- 
 dowing a professorship in one college, and contribu- 
 ting largely to the same object in another. And in 
 addition to all this, by the above bequest of 10,000 
 dollars he founded the Seminary that bears his name. 
 
 of his will, in case of an equal sum being 
 raised by the citizens of the place for the 
 erection of a suitable building, the purchase 
 of apparatus, library, «fec., then his legacy of 
 10,000 dollars might be invested as a perma- 
 nent fund, the interest of which was to be 
 applied to paying for the education of such 
 young men as he should designate. This 
 was done even beyond the extent required 
 by the testator. A large and commodious 
 edifice was erected, containing rooms for 
 the recitation of lessons, lectures, library, 
 philosophical apparatus, &c. The school 
 was opened on the 15th of May, 1833, and 
 the number of scholars for the first term 
 was 146 ; many of whom were pious youths, 
 devoting themselves to study with a view 
 to the ministry. The institution still flour- 
 ishes under the instructions of excellent 
 men ; and being situated in a secluded and 
 moral village in the midst of the Green 
 Mountains, where living is cheap, it is at- 
 tended by choice youths, some thirty or 
 forty of whom are educated gratuitously. 
 Such, again, is " Philips' Academy," at 
 Andover, in Massachusetts, about twenty 
 miles north of Boston. Founded in 1778, 
 by the joint liberality of two brothers, the 
 Hon. Samuel Philips, of Andover, and the 
 Hon. John Philips, of Exeter, New-Hamp- 
 sliire, it, two years afterward, received a 
 charter of incorporation from the state. 
 The fund supplied by these two brothers 
 was afterward augmented by the bequest 
 of a third, the Hon. William Philips, of 
 Boston. 
 
 This Academy, which is one of the best 
 endowed in the United States, has been 
 truly a blessing to the cause of Religion 
 and Learning. By the terms prescribed 
 by its pious founders, it is open to all youth 
 of good character, but they have placed it 
 under the control of Protestants, and the 
 religious instruction given must be ortlio- 
 dox in the true sense of the word. In- 
 struction is required to be given in the 
 English, Latin, and Greek languages ; in 
 writing, arithmetic, and music ; in the art 
 of speaking ; also in practical geometry, 
 logic ; and any other of the liberal arts, 
 sciences, or languages, as opportunity and 
 ability may from time to time admit, and 
 the trustees shall direct. As the educa- 
 tion of suitable young men for the minis- 
 try was a leading consideration with the 
 founders, so has the institution been, in this 
 respect, abundantly blessed. Many such 
 youths have here pursued their preparato- 
 ry studies ; and in 1808, availing them- 
 selves of a provision contained in the plan 
 marked out by the founders, the trustees 
 ingrafted on the institution, or, rather, es- 
 tablished in the same village, and under the 
 same direction, a Theological Seminary, 
 which has become one of the most distin- 
 guished of the kind in the United States, and 
 will call for more ample notice hereafter. 
 
150 
 
 A large proportion of the grammar- 
 schools and academies in the United 
 States, whether incorporated or not, are 
 under the direction and instruction of min- 
 isters of the Gospel of different evangeli- 
 cal denominations. These ministers, in 
 some cases, devote their whole time to the 
 work of academical instruction ; in other 
 cases, they have also the charge of a 
 church or congregation, and as they have 
 to perform the double duties of pastor and 
 head of a grammar-school, they have usu- 
 ally an assistant teacher in the latter. The 
 teachers in these academies are often pi- 
 ous young men, of small pecuniary re- 
 sources, who, after completing their stud- 
 ies at college, betake themselves to this 
 employment for a few years, in order to 
 find the means of supporting themselves 
 while attending a theological school. But 
 whether ministers of the Gospel, or grad- 
 uates fresh from college, such teachers 
 generally communicate instruction of a de- 
 cidedly religious character. The Scrip- 
 tures are daily read ; the school is usually 
 opened and closed with prayer ; and in 
 many cases, a Bible-class, comprising all 
 the pupils, meets on the Sabbath after- 
 noon, or morning, for the study of the Sa- 
 cred V^olume. Thus, by the favour of God 
 resting on these institutions, and making 
 them effectual to the converting of many 
 of the youths that attend them, they prove 
 blessings to the Church of Christ, as well 
 as to the State. 
 
 I may add, that within the last ten or 
 twenty years, a great many excellent in- 
 stitutions for the education of young ladies 
 have sprung up in different parts of the 
 United States, through associated or indi- 
 vidual efforts. The course of instruction 
 at these is excellent and extensive, embra- 
 cing all branches of valuable knowledge 
 proper for the sex. Upon many of these, 
 also, God has caused his blessing to de- 
 scend, and has brought not a few of the 
 young persons attending them to the 
 knowledge of Himself. They are gener- 
 ally conducted by ladies ; but the teachers 
 in some cases are gentlemen, clergymen 
 especially, assisted by pious ladies. In no 
 other country, probably, has the higher ed- 
 ucation of females made greater progress 
 than in the United States during the last 
 few years. The Christian community 
 there begins to feel that mothers have, in 
 a great measure, the formation of the na- 
 tional character in their hands. 
 
 According to the census of 1840, the 
 Grammar-schools and Academies for both 
 sexes in the United States amounted to 
 3242, attended by 164,159 pupils. 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. [Book IV. 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 In the census of the United States for 
 1840, the nun)ber of universities and col- 
 leges is put down at 173, and that of stu- 
 dents at 16,233. This, however, includes 
 not only the Theological, Medical, and Law 
 schools, but several other institutions im- 
 properly called colleges. A more accu- 
 rate list makes the colleges amount to 
 103, and the students to 9607. But even 
 this estimate includes several institutions, 
 which, though incorporated as colleges, are 
 scarcely so far organized as to be entitled 
 to the name. In some cases, too, the stu- 
 dents in the preparatory departments are 
 reckoned along with the under-graduates, 
 properly so called, that is, the students in 
 the four regular classes of seniors, juniors, 
 sophomores, and freshmen, into which the 
 students of our colleges are divided. 
 
 It would be absurd to compare the col- 
 leges of America with the great universi- 
 ties of Europe. The course of studies is 
 widely different. For while sufficiently 
 comprehensive in almost all the colleges 
 that deserve that name, it is not to be com- 
 pared, in general, as respects depth and ex- 
 tent of investigation in particular branch- 
 es, with that of the older universities of 
 Europe. But, upon the whole, the educa- 
 tion to be had at one of our colleges bet- 
 ter capacitates a man for the work that is 
 likely to await him in America than would 
 that which the universities of Europe could 
 give him, if one may be allowed to judge 
 from experience. 
 
 In almost all instances, the colleges in 
 the United States have been founded by 
 religious men. The common course in es- 
 tablishing them is as follows : A company 
 is organized, a subscription list opened, 
 and certain men of influence in the neigh- 
 bourhood consent to act as trustees. A. 
 charter is then asked from the Legislature 
 of the state within which the projected in- 
 stitution is to be placed, and a grant in 
 aid of the funds at the same time solicited. 
 The charter is obtained, and with it a 
 few thousand dollars, perhaps, by way ol 
 assistance. What else is required for the 
 purcliase of a site, erecting buildings, pro- 
 viding a library, apparatus, &c., &c., must 
 be made up by those interested in the proj- 
 ect. Thus have vast sums been raised, 
 particularly during the last twenty years,' 
 for founding colleges in all parts of the 
 country, especially in the West. A great 
 portion of these sums have been subscribed 
 by persons in the neighbourhood, and more 
 directly interested in the success of the 
 undertakings subscribed for ; but in many 
 cases, money to a large amount has been 
 obtained from the churches along the At- 
 lantic coast. 
 
 Sixty-two of the 103 colleges in the 
 
^HAP. XIIL] 
 
 COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 151 
 
 United States have been opened within the 
 last twenty-five years. Many of these are, 
 of course, in their infancy, and not very 
 well organized. Without reckoning grants 
 made by the states, it would be difficult 
 to find one that has not cost its founders 
 above 10,000 dollars, and many have cost 
 them twice that sum. Several* have cost 
 even 50,000 dollars, if not more, while, at the 
 same time, several of the older colleges, 
 such as Yale, New-Jersey, Rutgers, Will- 
 iams, Hamilton, &c., have raised large 
 sums by voluntary effort among their re- 
 spective friends, for the purpose of aug- 
 menting the advantages they offer to the 
 students that attend them. Upon the whole, 
 I consider that it were not too much to 
 say, that from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 dollars 
 have been raised by voluntary subscrip- 
 tions and donations for the erection and en- 
 dowment of colleges, since the year 1816. 
 
 I have said that the state gives some 
 aid to many such enterprises. But, except- 
 ing the Universities of Virginia, Alabama, 
 Michigan, and those of Ohio and Miami, 
 both in the State of Ohio, and Jefferson 
 College in Mississippi, and Jefferson Col- 
 lege in Louisiana, I am not aware of any 
 in the country that can be said to have been 
 ■wholly endowed by the government of any 
 state. The Universities of North Caroli- 
 na and Georgia, and Columbia College in 
 South Carolina, may possibly be so far aid- 
 ed by the states in which they are respect- 
 ively situated, as to have something like 
 an endowment, but the aid so rendered, I 
 apprehend, is far from sufficient. So, also. 
 Congress has aided from time to time 
 " Columbian College," situated near Wash- 
 ington City, and within the District of Co- 
 lumbia,! but the aid so received has never 
 been at all adequate to the purposes for 
 ■which it was required. 
 
 There are not above six or seven col- 
 leges or universities in the United States 
 -over which the civil or political govern- 
 ments can exercise any direct control. It 
 is well that it is so. A State Legislature, or 
 Congress itself, would be found very unfit 
 to direct the affairs of a college or univer- 
 sity. Wherever, in fact, they have re- 
 served such power to themselves in the 
 i.harters they have granted, they have 
 sooner or later nearly, if not altogether, 
 
 ■* For instance, Pennsylvania College, at Gettys- 
 burg, Pennsylvania ; Centre College, at Danville, 
 Kentucky ; Illinois College, at Jacksonville, Illinois ; 
 Western Reserve College, Ohio ; to say nothing of 
 some of the Roman Catholic colleges, which have 
 not cost much less, from first to last, than 50,000 
 dollars ; Amherst College, in Massachusetts, has cost 
 more than that sum, probably; while the Universi- 
 ty of New- York has cost three or four times that 
 amount. 
 
 t This college comes properly within the sphere 
 of the legislation of Congress, and is the only one 
 that does so. All the others come under the juris- 
 diction of the several states within whose territories 
 cthey stand. 
 
 ruined the institutions on which they have 
 laid their unhallowed hands. A college or 
 university is no place for party politics, 
 and so well is this understood, that the 
 Legislatures of the several states hesitate 
 not to grant a college charter to a body of 
 respectable citizens, and to appoint at once 
 the persons recommended as trustees or 
 directors, with power to fill up the vacan- 
 cies that may occur ; after which, these 
 office-bearers, having sworn to do nothing 
 in that capacity contrary to the laws and 
 Constitution of the country, are empow- 
 ei'ed to manage and govern the proposed 
 college according to their own best judg- 
 ment, and the regulations they may lay 
 down to that effect. While acting within 
 the limits prescribed by the charter and 
 their oath, that charter must remain invio- 
 late. So it has been determined by the 
 Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 I have said that almost every college ex- 
 isting in the country may be traced to re- 
 ligious motives, and how true this is, will 
 appear from the fact, that of the 103 col- 
 leges now in operation, twelve are under 
 the influence of the Protestant Episcopval 
 Church, eleven under that of the Metho- 
 dists, twelve under that of the Baptists, 
 forty-two under that of the Presbyterians 
 and Congregationalists ; one is Lutheran, 
 one German Reformed, two Dutch Re- 
 formed, two Cumberland Presbyterian ; 
 eleven are Roman Catholic, one Univer- 
 salist, one Unitarian, and the religious 
 character of seven of them I do not know. ■ 
 In this calculation I place each institution 
 under the church to which its president 
 belongs. This rule is the best that I know, 
 and although it does not hold in every case, 
 the exceptions are few ; and, without any 
 exception, it indicates the general faith by 
 which the institution is influenced. 
 
 Thus we see that of these 103 universi- 
 ties and colleges, eighty-three are under de- 
 cided evangelical and orthodox influence. 
 Their presidents, and, I may add, many of 
 their professors, are known to be religious 
 men, and sound in the faith ; all of the for- 
 mer, with three or four exceptions, are 
 ministers of the Gospel, and many of them 
 men of great eminence in the Church. 
 The seven colleges whose religious char- 
 acter I do not know, are probably under 
 evangelical influence ; all of the seven, I 
 have reason to believe, are Protestant. 
 I need not say how much cause for grati- 
 tude to God we have, that so many young 
 men of the first families, and possessing 
 fine talents, should be educated in colleges 
 that are under the influence of evangelical 
 principles. In many of them the Bible is 
 studied by the students every Sabbath, un- 
 der the guidance of their teachers. In all 
 they receive a great deal of religious in- 
 struction, and are daily assembled for 
 prayers. God has often visited sonxe of 
 
152 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 them with the outpourings of his Spirit. 
 Not that this religious instruction is intend- 
 ed to proselytize from one Protestant and 
 evangelical church to another. In that re- 
 spect, a Presbyterian father might with all 
 safety commit his son to an Episcopalian, 
 Methodist, or Lutheran college. Here I 
 speak from facts that I myself have known. 
 Several of the most distinguished dignita- 
 ries of the Episcopal Cliurch were educa- 
 ted at Princeton College, New-Jersey, a 
 Presbyterian institution, and founded by 
 Presbyterians. Some of them received 
 their first religious convictions there, and 
 yet, I believe, they can testify that no office- 
 bearer of that college ever attempted to 
 bring them over to the Presbyterian 
 Church. Any advice of that kind, on the 
 contrary, would have been that they should 
 join the church in which they were born, 
 that is, the Episcopal.* 
 
 As none of the universities but that of 
 Harvard, situated in the town of Cam- 
 bridge, not far from Boston, have all the 
 four faculties of literature, law, medicine, 
 and theology, with that exception they 
 ought rather to be called colleges. The 
 theology at Harvard is Unitarian. Several 
 of the other universities have faculties of 
 medicine attached to them. On the other 
 hand. Yale College, at New-Haven, in Con- 
 necticut, ought rather to be called a uni- 
 versity, for it has all the four faculties, and 
 is attended by far more students than go 
 to Harvard. 
 
 I may add, that Harvard University was 
 the first literary institution established in 
 the United States. It was founded in 1638, 
 eight years after Massachusetts Bay, and 
 eighteen after Plymouth was first colo- 
 nized ; so that there were not many more 
 than 5000 settlers at the time in all New- 
 England. Hardly had the forests been 
 cleared away for the streets of their settle- 
 ments, when they began to project a col- 
 lege or university. And yet these were 
 the Puritans now so much vilified and slan- 
 dered ! Great were the efforts made by 
 those exiles to attain their object. The 
 General Court granted for tlie erection of 
 a proper edifice a sum equal to a year's 
 rate of the whole colony. John Harvard, 
 who had come to the New World only to 
 die, bequeathed to the college half his es- 
 tate, and all Jiis library. Plymouth and Con- 
 necticut often sent their little offerings, as 
 did the eastern towns within the bounda- 
 ries of the i)resent Slate of Maine. The 
 rent of a ferry was made over to it. All 
 the famihes in the Puritan settlements each 
 gave once a donati on of at least twelve 
 
 ♦ The Rev. Dr. M'llvaine, the distinguished Bish- 
 op of Ohio, and the no less excellent, th(nip;h per- 
 haps le.ss known assistant Bishop of Virginia, the Rev. 
 Dr. Johns, were both educated and converted at 
 Princeton College. The late Bishop Ilobart, ofNew- 
 York, was educated in that institution, and was for 
 Bome time a tutor there. 
 
 pence, or a peck of corn, while larger gifts- 
 were made by the magistrates and wealth- 
 ier citizens. It was for a long time the 
 only college in New-England, and in its 
 halls the great men of the country were 
 educated. For a century and a half it was 
 a precious fountain of living waters for the 
 Church of God. But, alas ! for the last 
 half century, or nearly so, it has been in, 
 the hands of men who hold " another gos- 
 pel" than that held by its pious founders.* 
 The second college founded in the Uni- 
 ted States was that of William and Mary, 
 at Williamsburg, in Virginia, in 1693. The 
 third was Yale College above mentioned, 
 founded in 1700. The fourth was Prince- 
 ton College, New-Jersey, founded in 1746. 
 The University of Pennsylvania dates from 
 1755 ; Columbia College, in New-York,^. 
 from 1754 ; Brown University, from 1764 ; 
 Rutgers and Dartmouth Colleges, from 
 1770. These were all that were founded 
 previously to the Revolution. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 UNION AND OTHER SUNDAY SCHOOL SOCI- 
 ETIES. 
 
 One of the most efficient, as well as the 
 simplest instruments of doing good, is the 
 Sunday-school ; an institution, the history 
 of which is too well known to require any 
 detail in this work. Mr. Robert Raikes, 
 of Gloucester, in England, towards the 
 close of the last century, established the 
 first that was ever conducted upon any- 
 thing like the plan now generally pursued,, 
 and the excellence of which has been pro- 
 ved by long experience. 
 
 The first attempt to introduce Sunday- 
 schools into the United States was made 
 by the Methodists in 1790, but from some 
 cause or other it failed. A society was 
 soon after formed at Philadelphia, with 
 the late Bishop White at its head, and a 
 few schools were established for the ben- 
 efit of the poor, taught by persons who re- 
 ceived a certain compensation for their 
 trouble. Early in the present century, 
 schools began to be established in vari- 
 ous places under voluntary and gratuitous 
 teachers, and gradually becoming better 
 known and appreciated, the number was 
 found very considerable in 1816. Associ- 
 ations for promoting them more extensive- 
 ly began then to be formed in Philadelphia, 
 New- York, and other cities, and the publi- 
 cation of spelling and hymn books, scrip- 
 tiu-al catechisms, &c., for the children was 
 commenced. Some persons also did much 
 to advance tliis good work by their indi- 
 vidual efforts.! 
 
 * A voluminous and interesting history of this 
 university, by its present president, Josiah Quincy, 
 LL.D., has lately been published. 
 
 t Among w horn may be mentioned the late Divic ■ 
 
Chap. XIV] 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 
 
 153 
 
 Measures were taken in 1823 for the 
 forming of a national society which should 
 extend the benefit of Sunday-schools to all 
 parts of the country ; and, accordingly, the 
 American Sunday-school Union was insti- 
 tuted ; an association composed of excel- 
 lent men of all evangelical denominations, 
 but in which no particular denomination is 
 represented as such. It has now been diffu- 
 sing its blessings for more than nineteen 
 years. The board of managers is com- 
 posed of intelligent and zealous laymen of 
 the various evangelical denominations, the 
 greater part residing in Philadelphia and its 
 vicinity, as that is the centre of the socie- 
 ty's operations. 
 
 Its grand object is twofold : to promote 
 the establishment of Sunday-schools where 
 required, and to prepare and publish suita- 
 ble books, some to be employed as manu- 
 als in the schools, and others for libraries, 
 intended to furnish the children with suit- 
 able reading at home. In both depart- 
 ments much good has been done. In the 
 former, Sunday-school missionaries, com- 
 monly ministers of the Gospel, and some- 
 times capable laymen, have been employed 
 in visiting almost all parts of the country. 
 They hold public meetings in every dis- 
 trict or neighbourhood where they have 
 any prospect of success, endeavour to in- 
 terest the people in the subject, and to es- 
 tablish a school. Time and care are re- 
 quired for such a work. The nature of a 
 Sunday-school must be well explained ; 
 fit persons must be engaged as teachers ; 
 these must have their duties pointed out 
 to them, and the motives that ought to 
 prompt them to undertake the office pre- 
 sented and enforced ; and money must be 
 collected for the purchase of books. 
 
 In 1830, the society resolved to estab- 
 lish a Sunday-school in every neighbour- 
 hood that was without one, throughout the 
 Western States or Valley of the Missis- 
 sippi, wherever practicable. Three years 
 thereafter it adopted a like resolution with 
 respect to the Southern States. Both, but 
 particularly the former of these resolu- 
 tions, called forth much effort. Large 
 sums were collected, and a great many 
 schools were established. Every year 
 since its commencement the society has 
 employed a number of agents and mission- 
 aries ; in some years as many as twenty, 
 thirty, forty, and even fifty such. These 
 traverse the country throughout its vast 
 extent, resuscitate decaying schools, es- 
 tablish new ones, and encourage all. 
 
 In its other department the society has 
 rendered great services to the cause of re- 
 ligion, and, I may add, to that of^literature 
 also. Exclusive of the Scriptures, spelling- 
 books, primers, catechisms, maps, cards for 
 
 Bethune, Esq., who published at his own expense a 
 number of little books for the instruction of youth in 
 Sunday-schools. 
 
 infant schools, &c., it has published about 
 450 volumes of books for libraries, a com- 
 plete set of which, well bound, costs sev- 
 enty-five dollars. It has published, like- 
 wise, a selection from these as a library 
 for common schools. Among its publica- 
 tions may be mentioned its admirable man- 
 uals or aids for studying the Bible ; name- 
 ly, a Geography of the Bible, Natural His- 
 tory of the Bible, Dictionary of the Bible, 
 Antiquities of the Bible, Scripthral Biog- 
 raphies, Maps of the Holy Land, and Books 
 of Questions, in several volumes, on al- 
 inost all parts of the Bible, for the use of 
 children and teachers. While all these 
 publications are thoroughly Protestant ia 
 their character, they contain nothing re- 
 pugnant to the doctrines of any of the 
 evangelical denominations, so that there 
 is nothing to forbid their being used in the 
 Sunday-schools of any of the Protestant 
 churches. This is a great advantage, and 
 enables the society to establish hundreds 
 of schools in places where various reli- 
 gious bodies intermingle, and where none 
 of them is strong enough to support a 
 school by itself. The society publishes 
 also a very valuable journal, which appears 
 once in a fortnight. It is replete with in- 
 teresting and instructive matter, and adapt- 
 ed alike to scholars, teachers, and parents. 
 It also publishes small monthly magazines 
 and gazettes for children. 
 
 But besides this great society, which 
 stands ready to promote the cause any- 
 where, and on the most catholic principles, 
 there are other Sunday-school societies, 
 not less efficient in their respective spheres. 
 The Episcopalians have theirs, the Bap- 
 tists theirs, the Episcopal Methodists theirs, 
 the Lutherans theirs, and so forth. The 
 Presbyterians, strictly speaking, have no 
 Sunday-school society of their own, but 
 by their Publication Board they publish 
 books for Sunday-school libraries. Indeed, 
 all the denominational Sunday-school so- 
 cieties publish books for their own schools, 
 and in these they set forth and defend the 
 peculiar views they hold respectivelj^ on 
 points of doctrine or discipline, to such an 
 extent as they deem proper. This is not 
 unnatural, for each scliool is mainly attend- 
 ed by the children of parents attached to 
 churches of the same denomination with 
 that of the society that supports the school. 
 Not that all the publications of a denomi- 
 national Sunday-school society are of wliat 
 may be termed a sectarian chax'acter. This 
 is by no means the case, and, besides, these 
 more limited societies buy from the Amer- 
 ican Sunday-school Union whatever books 
 upon its list they may think proper to add 
 to their own. 
 
 It is impossible to calculate the extent 
 to which the Sunday-school libraries, com- 
 posed as they are of most interesting books 
 on almost all subjects of a moral and reli^ 
 
154 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 gious character, are fostering a taste for 
 reading among the rising youth, and the 
 adult population, also, of the country. The 
 scholars receive from them one or two 
 volumes each, according to the size, ev- 
 ery Sabbath, to read in the course of the 
 week, and return on the Sabbath follow- 
 ing, and these volumes thus pass into the 
 hands of older brothers and sisters, parents, 
 and other members of the household. The 
 proceeds of the sales of books by the Amer- 
 ican Sunday-school Union amounted last 
 year (1843) to $55,895. If we add to this 
 the value of those sold by the denomina- 
 tional Sunday-school societies, we should 
 find it rise to at least $100,000. And if we 
 farther add the cost of Sunday-school books 
 purchased from the booksellers, we shall 
 have a total far exceeding the last amount 
 as the value of books bought in one year 
 for the use of Sunday-schools, and mainly 
 for the libraries attached to them. 
 
 Besides the series of 450 volumes pub- 
 lished by the American Sunday-school 
 Union, a far greater number have been 
 published by the denominational societies.* 
 Neither pains nor money have been spared 
 in the preparation, improvement, and pub- 
 lication of these volumes, and in this re- 
 spect, I am inclined to think that the Amer- 
 ican Sunday-school Union has outstripped 
 every similar institution in other countries. 
 Much, notwithstanding, remains to be done 
 in order to render tliese Sunday-school 
 books all that they ought to be. It is no 
 easy task to write books for children well. 
 Much talent has been bestowed upon it of 
 late years in the United States, and such 
 has been the demand for children's books, 
 created by the Sunday-schools, that the 
 booksellers have found it for their ad- 
 vantage to publish such books for those 
 schools. Many of these are good,, but 
 many, too, are worthless enough, as may 
 readily be supposed where there is no in- 
 telligent committee rigorously to examine 
 them previous to publication, and to de- 
 termine what should go forth to the public 
 and what should not. 
 
 Sunday-schools are held in various pla- 
 ces ; sometimes in churches, or in the lec- 
 ture-rooms attached to many of our large 
 churches, or in rooms fitted up expressly 
 for the purpose in the basement story of 
 many of our city churches ; sometimes in 
 the schoolhouses, which are very numer- 
 ous ; and, especially in the new settle- 
 ments, in private houses. In summer they 
 sometimes meet in barns ; and I once su- 
 perintended a Sunday-school myself which 
 met for many months in a large kitchen 
 
 * The series published by the Methodist " Book 
 <Joncern" exceeds 2.50; that of the American Bap- 
 tist Pubhcation and Sunday-school Society 170; 
 while those of the Protestant Episcopal, the Prot- 
 estant Methodist, the Lutheran, the Free-Will Bap- 
 tists, and several local societies, are considerable. 
 
 attached to a farmhouse in the State of 
 New-Jersey. 
 
 The hours of meeting are very various. 
 In the cities and large towns they com- 
 monly meet twice in the day ; at eight or 
 nine o'clock in the morning, according to 
 the season, and at two o'clock in the after- 
 noon, for about an hour and a half each 
 time. In the villages and country church- 
 es they usually meet for two hours, once 
 a day, immediately before, or immediately 
 after, the public services. In some cases 
 I have known a pastor, with a parish ex- 
 tending many miles in all directions from 
 the church, meet, during an hour before 
 his public service, with nearly all the adult 
 part of his flock in a Bible-class, and go 
 over with them the portion of Scripture 
 given out to his Sunday-schools for that 
 day ; and then, instead of having service 
 in the afternoon, he would in the latter 
 part of the day visit one or other, in their 
 order, of the ten or twelve schools held by 
 his people in as many different neighbour- 
 hoods. On these occasions he would ad- 
 dress, not only the children and teachers, 
 but also the parents and others who crowd- 
 ed to hear him. And how could a pastor 
 instruct his people more effectually 1* 
 
 A word or two may not be amiss on the 
 manner of conducting our Sunday-schools. 
 Each is under a superintendent — a gentle- 
 man where there are scholars of both sex- 
 es, but usually a lady where there are only 
 girls. The scholars are divided into class- 
 es, according to their age and capacity. 
 All the reading classes learn the same part 
 of Scripture, going through a certain book 
 in"- order. Suppose, for instance, the fif- 
 teenth chapter of Luke, from the eleventh 
 verse to the end. It is the parable of the 
 prodigal son. As soon as the school is 
 opened the scholars take their places. The 
 service begins with prayer by the superin- 
 tendent or some other person. Each class 
 — composed usually of six or eight per- 
 sons — has its teacher, to whom the schol- 
 ars repeat the lesson in the Scriptures for 
 the day. When that is done the teacher 
 takes the book of Bible Questions (a copy 
 of which each scholar should have), and 
 asks the questions in it relating to the pas- 
 sage which the class, in common with the 
 others, have learned. The answers to 
 these questions the pupils must find out 
 through their own efforts, or with help 
 from their parents, during the week. The 
 teacher asks, also, such other questions as 
 he may think useful, and calculated to lead 
 to a more perfect understanding of the sub- 
 ject. An hour, perhaps, is spent in this 
 exercise. After that th§ scholars return 
 the books which they had received from 
 the librarian on the preceding Sabbath, 
 
 * In some of the large cities Sunday-schools are 
 held at night, especially for the benefit of the colour- 
 ed people. 
 
Chap. XIV,] 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 
 
 155 
 
 and obtain others. Then the superintend- 
 ent, or pastor, if he be present, addresses 
 a few words to the whole school on the 
 passage which they have learned, and en- 
 deavours to impress upon their minds the 
 importance of the truths which it teaches. 
 A hymn is sung, and a prayer offered up, 
 .and the school closes. 
 
 If there be any children that cannot read, 
 they are arranged in classes by themselves, 
 and taught that important acquirement. 
 In many of the schools there is a consid- 
 able number of such, and persons beyond 
 the years of childhood, who have had no 
 opportunities of learning to read before, 
 sometimes make the attainment in the 
 course of a few months at a Sunday-school. 
 
 In all the free states, and in such of the 
 slaveholding ones as permit the slaves to 
 be taught, there are Sunday-schools for the 
 coloured people.* In these schools thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands of them have 
 learned to read the sacred Scriptures, and 
 have made much progress in divine knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 The superintendents of the Sunday- 
 schools are sometimes elders and deacons 
 of the churches; sometimes they are pi- 
 ous lawyers, and other intelligent gentle- 
 men ; and in the vicinity of our colleges and 
 theological seminaries they are often stu- 
 dents of religious character, who may be 
 prosecuting their studies with a view to 
 the ministry. The teachers are, for the 
 most part, young people of both sexes be- 
 longing to the churches and congregations. 
 Wherever truly pious persons can be found 
 willing to be thus employed, they are pre- 
 ferred ; but where this is not the case, se- 
 riously-disposed and moral persons, who 
 desire to be engaged in this benevolent 
 work, are taken, and almost invariably it 
 happens that, in teaching others, they them- 
 selves become instructed out of the " law 
 of God." It is to be regretted that most 
 of the ladies, after they become wives and 
 mothers, have too many domestic cares 
 and duties to allow them to continue as 
 teachers in the Sabbath-school. .Some, 
 however, there are who persevere in this 
 blessed employment, their zeal triumphing 
 over every obstacle. 
 
 As to gentlemen, many more of them 
 may continue in the work after they have 
 become heads of families. Hence we oft- 
 en find men of age and experience among 
 Sunday-school teachers, encouraging and 
 
 * There are Sunday-schools held by some pious 
 slaveholders in Georgia, South Carolina, and per- 
 haps some other states, in which portions of Scrip- 
 ture are often repeated to the assembled slaves, and 
 remarked upon until they have committed much of 
 them to memory. Prayer and singing are added to 
 these exercises. Such schools no laws can well 
 hinder, no more than they can the preaching of the 
 Gospel to the slaves. These schools have only been 
 commenced within a few years, and are spreading in 
 several places. 
 
 aiding them in their toils. And it is not 
 uncommon to find some of those who hold 
 the very highest offices in the State or 
 General Government, spending a portion 
 of their Sabbaths in giving instruction to 
 a class of young persons in a Sunday- 
 school. I have known several governors 
 and their ladies, members of Congress, and 
 of the Legislatures of the states, judges, 
 eminent lawyers, mayors of cities, «fec., 
 who were, and who are at the present time, 
 Sabbath-school teachers, and who have 
 felt it no degradation to be thus employed. 
 The present distinguished Chancellor of 
 the University of New-York was the su- 
 perintendent of a Sunday-school, even 
 when he held the office of attorney-gen- 
 eral of his native State, and afterward, 
 when he was a senator in the Congress of 
 the United States ; he is a Sabbath-school 
 teacher still, and delights to associate him- 
 self with the youngest teachers engaged 
 in that heavenly employment. 
 
 The Hon. Benjamin F. Butler was a 
 Sabbath-school teacher, even while hold- 
 ing the distinguished office of attorney- 
 general to ihe United States. The late 
 Chief-justice Marshall, and the late Judge 
 Washington, both of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, and the former of 
 whom, it is admitted, was the most distin- 
 guished jurist the country has ever pro- 
 duced, were warm friends and patrons of 
 Sunday-schools. Both were, in their day, 
 vice-presidents of the American Sabbath- 
 school Union. Within five years of his 
 death, I saw Chief-justice Marshall march 
 through the city of Richmond, in Virginia, 
 where he resided, at the head of the Sun- 
 day-schools on the occasion of a celebra- 
 tion. And, finally, the late President Har- 
 rison, who in his youth had been a rough 
 and far from religious soldier, but towards 
 the close of his life became interested in 
 the things that concerned his everlasting 
 peace, taught for several years a class of 
 young persons in an humble Sunday-school 
 on the banks of the Ohio ; and the Sab- 
 bath before he left his home for Washing- 
 ton, there to become his country's Chiei 
 Magistrate — and, alas! within a month 
 thereafter to die — he met, as usual, his 
 Bible-class. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer on this subject 
 because of its great importance. A Sab- 
 bath-school is so simple an affair that it 
 may be begun wherever two or three per- 
 sons are found disposed to undertake it. I 
 have known even a single individual keep 
 one himself, and spend several hours every 
 Sabbath in instructing some dozen or twen- 
 ty poor youth, who came around him to 
 learn to read and understand the Word of 
 God. I have known a lady, who, as her 
 health did not permit her to go to a Sun- 
 day-school, received a class of young ladies 
 in her parlour every Sabbath for years. 
 
156 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 "Why, then, should not Sabbath-schools be 
 established in every city, town, hamlet, and 
 neighbourhood, where there are only two 
 or three persons with hearts to love the 
 kingdom of God, and hands to promote it 1 
 Were such a spirit to prevail in all lands 
 professedly Christian, how soon would 
 they show a very different aspect from 
 what they do at present ? 
 
 It is impossible to state with accuracy 
 the present number of Sunday-schools in 
 the United States. They were reckoned 
 seven years ago at 16,000; the teachers at 
 130,000 or 140,000 ; and the scholars, com- 
 prising, it was supposed, 100,000 adults, at 
 1,000,000 ! These numbers must be much 
 greater now. Who can estimate the amount 
 of good resulting from 1,000,000 of minds 
 being brought into contact every Sabbath 
 with the word of Him who hath said that 
 His " word shall not return unto him void ?" 
 Thousands and tens of thousands, both 
 teachers and scholars, are known to have 
 become enlightened and saved, by means of 
 the lessons given and received at Sunday- 
 schools. But a whole volume would not 
 suffice to unfold all the benefits conferred 
 by this blessed institution, to which may 
 be emphatically applied the words of the 
 celebrated Adam Smith, in speaking of 
 popular education in general, that it is 
 " the cheap defence of nations." 
 
 HAPTER XV. 
 
 BIBLE-CLASSES. 
 
 Akin to Sunday-schools are Bible-class- 
 es. Indeed, the former, conducted as at 
 present in America, are little more than an 
 assemblage of the latter. 
 
 What are commonly called Bible-classes 
 are composed of a comparatively large 
 number of persons, all taught by the pastor 
 of the church, or some other individual 
 whom he engages to act for him. To pre- 
 side over a Bible-class of from twenty to 
 some hundreds of persons, the greater 
 number, if not all, of whom are adults, and 
 some of them, perhaps, remarkably intelli- 
 gent and well informed, requires far higher 
 qualifications than simply to teach a small 
 class in a Sunday-school. 
 
 These Bible-classes are generally con- 
 ducted by the pastors, and so highly are 
 they valued as a means and occasion of 
 good, that few settled ministers have not 
 one or more among their flocks. In some 
 cases, one for each sex is held once in the 
 week — that for gentlemen in the evening, 
 that for ladies during the day. They meet 
 according to circumstances, in the cinirch, 
 lecture-room, vestry-room, schoolroom, or 
 in some private house. The pastor some- 
 times devotes his Sabbath nights to a Bib- 
 lical service, for the benefit of all who can 
 
 attend ; a practice feasible only where the 
 population is compact, and the flock within 
 an easy distance of the place of meeting. 
 In country churches, these classes often 
 hold their meetings in church before the 
 regular service commences, or in the inter- 
 val between the morning and afternoon 
 services. This is convenient, but is apt to 
 produce fatigue. 
 
 I have known pastors in country church- 
 es who had no fewer than 500 persons ia 
 one Bible-class, if I can call it so, which 
 met in the afternoon instead of the regular 
 service ; and others, whose Bible-classes 
 included the whole adult part of their 
 flocks, and met previous to the forenoon 
 service, or in the interval between that and 
 the afternoon service. 
 
 In conducting these classes, the common 
 method is to go through some particular 
 book of the sacred volume in course, and 
 some system of Bible questions is general- 
 ly pursued. Upon this plan, all who have 
 time and inclination for the task, prepare 
 themselves, by reading and study, for an- 
 swering the questions to be found in the 
 book of questions that is used.* But it is 
 not the practice of any well-informed pas- 
 tor to confine himself to the questions con- 
 tained in the book. These he employs as 
 he sees fit ; by the questions he puts he 
 assists in sustaining the attention of the 
 people ; and he takes occasion to give a 
 great amount of scriptural instruction. 
 
 To conduct a Bible-class in a manner at 
 once interesting and profitable requires no 
 little preparation ; and, when well done, 
 few methods of instruction are more edify- 
 ing, either to the people or to the minister 
 himself. The divine blessing has rested 
 most remarkably upon it. Nor could we 
 expect that it should be otherwise. What 
 more likely to secure the divine benediction 
 than to bring the mind to the study of that 
 which God himself hath spoken 1 " The 
 entrance of thy words giveth light ; it giv- 
 eth understanding to the simple." " Sanc- 
 tify them by thy truth ; thy word is truth."' 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MATERNAL SOCIETIES. 
 
 I MUST not omit, among the means which 
 there is reason to believe that God has 
 greatly blessed to the advancing of his 
 kingdom in the United States, the Maternal 
 Societies — institutions that have not been 
 
 * Several excellent clergymen of the United States 
 have written systems of Bible Questions, among 
 whom may be mentioned the Rev. Drs. M'Dow- 
 <>!!, Tyng, Barnes, Professor Hokiich, and the Rev. 
 Messrs. Covel, J. Longking, and Newcomh. The Bi- 
 ble Questions published by i\\e American Sunday- 
 school Union are good, as are, also, several of those 
 printed by the denominational Sunday-school socie- 
 ties. 
 
Chap. XVII.] 
 
 EDUCATION SOCIETIES. 
 
 157 
 
 of many years' standing among us, but 
 ■which have existed long enough to produce 
 much good. 
 
 These societies are composed of pious 
 mothers, who meet in parties, not incon- 
 veniently numerous, once in the week, 
 fortnight, or month, for the purpose of 
 conversing on the subject of bringing up 
 their children for the Lord, listening to the 
 reading of valuable remarks and hints on 
 the best means of discliarging this great 
 duty, and mingling their prayers before the 
 throne of grace in behalf of themselves 
 and their beloved offspring. These little 
 meetings prove very precious seasons to 
 many an anxious, perplexed, and disheart- 
 ened mother, by communicating grace, and 
 strength, and support, and light, for ena- 
 bling her to fulfil her fearfully responsible 
 part. God has greatly blessed them. For 
 the benefit of mothers, some excellent 
 periodicals have been published in the 
 United States during several years past. 
 Among these let me mention " The Mother's 
 Magazine," issued in New- York, and re- 
 published in London. It appears once a 
 month, is neatly printed, and cests only a 
 dollar a year. It has a very extensive cir- 
 culation, and furnishes much admirable mat- 
 ter for reading at the Maternal Societies' 
 meetings, as well as in the family circle. 
 Another valuable periodical is published at 
 Utica, in the central part of the State of 
 New- York, and is read in several thousands 
 of families. It is conducted by a talented 
 lady of the Baptist Church. A similar 
 journal has been commenced at Boston ; 
 while all our religious newspapers contain 
 many articles on the same subject. 
 
 On the other hand, several publications 
 appear once a month, or once in two 
 months, for the benefit of fathers and of 
 entire families. One such is published in 
 the city of New- York, and is entitled "The 
 Christian Family Magazine, or Parents' 
 and Children's Journal." It is said to have 
 an extensive circulation. Other journals 
 of like character, and having the same ob- 
 ject, are published in other parts of the 
 country. Moreover, almost all the reli- 
 gious newspapers, now very numerous, 
 and some one or more of which are read 
 in almost every Christian family, contain 
 much that bears upon the religious educa- 
 tion of children, and the whole economy 
 of a Christian household. 
 
 The subject is one of vast moment. 
 The world has never yet seen the full re- 
 sults of the Christian education of children. 
 Parents have much to learn in this respect, 
 and need all the helps and appliances possi- 
 ble, to enable them rightly to discharge their 
 important duties. Were all fathers and 
 mothers in a nation such as they ought to 
 be, how mighty would be the infiuence of 
 the Gospel upon it ! Were the fathers and 
 mothers in the Church of Christ such as 
 
 they ought to be, how different would it 
 soon become from what we see it now ! A 
 praying, devoted, holy mother ! What an 
 interesting being ! Such was the mother 
 of Samuel, of Timothy, and of thousands 
 besides, who have been eminently useful 
 in the world. 
 
 I have known Christian fathers who 
 met once a week for years to pray togeth- 
 er for their children, and their meetings 
 have been eminently useful and happy. I 
 have seen another kind of meeting which 
 I wish were more common — a quarterly 
 prayer-meeting specially for parents and 
 children. It was affecting to see parents, 
 the unconverted as well as the converted, 
 bringing with them their children, dear to 
 them as life itself, into the sanctuary on 
 such occasions, that they might share in 
 the earnestly-sought blessing. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 EDUCATION SOCIETIES. 
 
 One of the most interesting develop- 
 ments of the voluntary principle in promo- 
 ting religion in the United States, is seen 
 in the Education Societies ; institutions of 
 comparatively recent date, and having for 
 their object the granting of assistance to 
 pious youths of promising talents but small 
 means, in preparing for the ministry. 
 
 One of the first of these was the Amer- 
 ican Education Society, formed at Boston 
 in 1816. Hence it has been in existence 
 for twenty-eight years, and rarely has any 
 society been the instrument of more good.* 
 
 In all denominations of evangelical Chris- 
 tians in the United States, there are to be 
 found among those classes of society whose 
 means are too limited to give their sons a 
 college education, young men of talent, to 
 whom God has been pleased to impart the 
 knowledge of his grace, and in whose 
 hearts he implants a strong desire to preach 
 the Gospel. Now, before the Education 
 Societies appeared upon the field, such 
 youths used to find it very difficult, and 
 sometimes even impossible, to obtain such 
 an education as was required by the rules 
 of the church in whose ministry they wish- 
 ed to place themselves. Some, indeed, 
 might succeed by their own exertions ; by 
 dint of industry and economy they might 
 lay up enough to enable them to com- 
 
 * Tliis society published from the year 1827 to 
 1843 a valuable periodical, entitled " The American 
 Quarterly Register." It was originated by the late 
 Rev. Dr. Cornelius and the Rev. B. B. Edwards, the 
 secretaries of the society at the first-named epoch, 
 and continued by the latter gentleman to 1813, aided 
 for several years by the Rev. Dr. Cogswell, succes- 
 sor of Dr. Cornelius ; and afterward by the Rev. Mr. 
 Ridilrl, who has taken the place of Dr. Cogswell. 
 Mr. Edwards is a professor in the theological semi- 
 nary at Andover. 
 
158 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV.. 
 
 mence a course of study at college. By 
 interrupting their college studies occasion- 
 ally, in order to recruit their finances by 
 teaching a school, they might, after long 
 delays, be able to complete the requisite 
 course at last ; and then, by similar efforts, 
 carry themselves through the required the- 
 ological course at a seminary. Others, 
 more fortunate, might be so far assisted 
 by a church or some wealthy and benev- 
 olent patron or friend.* But the greater 
 number, in despair of success, were likely 
 to renounce all expectation of being able 
 to preach the Gospel, and to resign them- 
 selves to the necessity of spending their 
 lives in the ordinary pursuits of business, 
 not in making known the "unsearchable 
 riches" of Christ to their fellow-men. 
 
 These remarks, it will be perceived, ap- 
 ply to such youths only as conscientious- 
 ly cleave to those churches which require 
 a college education, as preliminary to a 
 theological one, in all aspirants to the sa- 
 cred ministry. This is the rule, except 
 in very extraordinary cases, with the whole 
 of the Pre-sbyterian churches, excepting 
 the " Cumberland Presbyterians ;" with 
 the Episcopalians, and with the Congre- 
 gationalists. The Baptists and the Meth- 
 odists, as we have seen, are less strict, 
 and are satisfied with a common English 
 education, and a competent knowledge of 
 theology. But even among these, great 
 and laudable efforts are now put forth in or- 
 der to give a higher education to as many of 
 their candidates for the ministry as possi- 
 ble ; and it is on this account, as well as 
 for more general objects, that they have 
 established so many colleges within the 
 last few years. God is granting his rich 
 blessing to their efforts in this great cause ; 
 of this every year furnishes cheering evi- 
 dence. 
 
 To meet the demands of the churches for 
 a vastly-augmented number of ministers of 
 the Gospel, and to help those young men 
 who desire to respond to this demand, the 
 American Education Society was formed 
 on the broad basis of rcndcrijig its aid to all 
 pious young men, of suitable talents, who 
 appear to be called to preach Christ, and 
 who belong to any of the evangelical de- 
 nominations. The only conditions imposed 
 upon the recipients of its bounty are an en- 
 
 * Several of the colleges possess funds bequeathed 
 to them for the express purpose of educating poor 
 and pious young men for tlic inuiistry. The Rev. 
 Dr. Ureen, in his Instoncal notices of the College of 
 New-Jersey, relates that, more than half a century 
 since, a pious young man of the name of Leslie wa.s 
 educated at that institution for the ministry of the 
 Gospel ; but, fearing to assume the responsibility of 
 that office, he devoted himself to teaching a school 
 of a high order, in which einjiloyment he was emi- 
 nently successful. At his death he l)equealhed to 
 the college the sum of 15,000 dollars, the interest of 
 which was to be devoted to the education of poor 
 young men lor the ministry. This fund has already 
 educated a large number of excellent ministers. 
 
 gagement, 1. To go through a full course 
 of collegiate and theological education ia 
 some approved college and seminary; and, 
 2. To refund the sums advanced to aid 
 them, should the providence of God, in af- 
 ter life, give them the means of doing so. 
 Such are, in few words, its principles. 
 A rigid supervision is maintained over 
 those who accept its patronage. And set- 
 ting out in its admirable career with a few 
 young men, it has gone on, under the fa- 
 vour of God, diffusing its blessings far and 
 wide. It has rendered aid to young men 
 belonging to eight diffVirent Evangelical 
 Churches. At one period, some three or 
 four years ago, the number of persons 
 whom it was aiding exceeded 1100 ! Du- 
 ring the year ending May 1st, 1843, the- 
 number aided was 468. These were pur- 
 suing their education at institutions in dif- 
 ferent parts of the country ; some in acad- 
 emies and grammar-schools, some in col- 
 leges, and the rest in theological schools. 
 And the whole number of those who had 
 been aided, up to that time, was 3483. 
 The receipts for that year were 33,789 dol- 
 lars, and the expenditure 29,290. The 
 amount refunded that year by beneficiaries 
 who had completed their course of educa- 
 tion was 2157 dollars. The earnings of 
 the young men under the patronage of the 
 society, chiefly from teaching schools du- 
 ring their vacations, have some years 
 amounted to no less a sum than 20,000 
 dollars.* 
 
 The sums granted by this society to 
 those who are admitted to its benefits vary 
 from forty-eight to seventy-five dollars a 
 year, the latter sum being rarely exceed- 
 ed. Its funds have been liberally aug- 
 mented by bequests from devoted Chris- 
 tian friends who loved it during life, and 
 remembered it in death. Its first presi- 
 dent gave it 1000 dollars during his life- 
 time, and left it a legacy of 5000. Mr. 
 Burr, whom we have already had occasion 
 to speak of, also left it a handsome legacy. 
 The late Dr. Porter, for many years a dis- 
 tinguished professor in the Theological 
 Seminary at Andover, though far from be- 
 ing a man of mucli wealth, bequeathed to 
 it 15,000 dollars. Many of its friends have 
 given proof of large and enlightened views 
 by the patronage they have given it. It 
 has assisted a great number of most valu- 
 able ministers of the Gospel in the course 
 of their education, and to these we have 
 to add no fewer than sixty of the mission- 
 aries supported in foreign lands by the 
 American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions, one of the largest and 
 oldest foreign missionary societies in the 
 United States. 
 
 Of late years, however, the number of 
 young men assisted by this Society has 
 
 * This society has permanent funds to the amount 
 of 73,GOO dollars. 
 
Chap. XVIIL] 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 
 
 159' 
 
 greatly diminished ; partly owing to the 
 very difficult times through which the 
 country has passed ; partly because of 
 higher requirements in the department of 
 preliminary studies ; and partly from most 
 of the evangelical communions having now 
 education societies of their own. Thus 
 the " Old School" Presbyterians have a 
 Board of Education under the direction of 
 their General Assembly, which prosecutes 
 its work most wisely and efficiently. It 
 had 350 beneficiaries during the year end- 
 ing 1st May, 1843, and had assisted 1330 
 young men in all. Its receipts for that 
 year amounted to 30,000 doUars.* 
 
 A number of devoted clergymen and lay- 
 men of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 having met at Georgetown, in the District 
 of Columbia, for the purpose of laying the 
 foundation stone of an Episcopal church, 
 were providentially led to talk of the im- 
 portance of having a plan for aiding pious 
 but indigent youths, of suitable talents, in 
 preparing for the ministry. The result 
 was the formation, in 1818, of the Protest- 
 ant Episcopal Education Society. It has 
 proved a great blessing to the Church and 
 to the world. It may be said to have 
 originated the Episcopal theological school 
 near Alexandria, in the District of Colum- 
 bia ; a:nd nearly a tenth part of the clergy 
 of the church to which it belongs have been 
 more or less assisted by it. A sixth part 
 of the present clergy in Ohio, an eighth of 
 those in Pennsylvania, a fifth of those in 
 Maryland, and a large proportion of those 
 in Virginia, have been aided from its funds ; 
 and it is now assisting a seventh of all the 
 students in the several theological schools 
 of that church in the United States. f I do 
 not know the precise number of its pres- 
 ent beneficiaries, but believe it exceeds 
 eighty. 
 
 There are also several Education Soci- 
 eties among the Baptists, which have aid- 
 ed a large number of young men. J That 
 
 * The American churches have long been im- 
 pressed with the importance of having a competent 
 and sufficiently numerous ministry. The friends of 
 the American Education Society observe the last 
 Thursday of February yearly as a day of special 
 prayer for colleges, academies, and other institutions 
 of learning, that God maybe pleased to pour out his 
 Spirit upon them, bring many of the students to a 
 saving knowledge of his Gospel, and incline their 
 hearts to preach it. The General Assembly of the 
 "Old School" Presbyterian Church recommended 
 last year, to all the churches under their care, to ob- 
 serve the first Sabbath of November as a day of spe- 
 cial prayer to the Lord of the harvest, " that he 
 would send more labourers into his har^'est." They 
 recommended the subject also to the daily interces- 
 sions of Christians, in view of the vast demand for 
 mmisters of the Gospel. 
 
 + Dr. Hawks's " History of the Episcopal Church 
 m Virginia," p. 261. 
 
 J In particular, " The Northern Baptist Education 
 Society," and " The Baptist Education Society of 
 New-York." The former of these was instituted in 
 1814, and has the seat of its operations in Boston. Du- 
 
 of the Reformed Dutch Church supported 
 twenty-four last year. A Methodist Edu- 
 cation Society has also been formed at 
 Boston. 
 
 These statements will give the reader 
 some idea of our Education Societies. 
 Though of recent origin, they are exerci- 
 sing an immense influence in training up 
 a more thoroughly-educated ministry. In 
 the absence of precise information, the 
 young men now receiving assistance from 
 them may be moderately estimated at 
 1600 in all, and of these at least 250 annu- 
 ally finish their studies, and enter on the 
 work of preaching the Gospel. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 
 
 I HAVE spoken of the various literary 
 institutions, in their several gradations, 
 through which our youth may pass in pre- 
 paring for the professional course with 
 which they usually close their studies. I 
 have noticed also the education societies 
 for assisting poor but pious young men, of 
 suitable capacity, in their preparations for 
 the ministry. And I now come to speak 
 of the theological schools, in which a very 
 large number of our candidates for the 
 ministry complete their studies for the sa- 
 cred office. 
 
 Formerly the young men who sought to 
 enter the ministry among the denomina- 
 tions which require, in those who occupy 
 their pulpits, a college and theological ed- 
 ucation — I use the term in a technical 
 sense, and mean nothing invidious — were 
 compelled to study theology, more or less 
 immediately under some individual pas- 
 tor, and it was common for six or eight of 
 them to place themselves under this, and 
 a few under that other, distinguished divine. 
 They often resided in the house of their 
 spiritual teacher ; sometimes they boarded 
 in families near his house ; they availed 
 themselves of his library, and were direct- 
 ed by him in their studies. 
 
 But this was obviously a very imperfect 
 method. Few pastors could afford time to 
 do their pupils justice ; fewer still possess- 
 ed such a range of learning as to fit them 
 for conducting others to the acquisitions, 
 in various branches of knowledge, required 
 in order to a competent preparation for the 
 ministry. 
 
 To the late Rev. Dr. John M. Mason, of 
 New- York, one of the most eminent divines 
 
 ring the eight years from 1831 to 1839 it had aided 
 279 young men in preparing for the ministry, and 
 supported 134 in 1840. It was mamly owing to its 
 ctfoits that the Baptist Theological Seminary at 
 Newton was founded in 1827. The latter society 
 was founded in 1817, and has maintained many stu- 
 dents at the Hamilton Literary and Theological In- 
 stitution, founded in 1820. 
 
160 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 that America has ever produced, we owe 
 the first attempt to establish anything that 
 could be called a theological school. He 
 collected in Europe an extensive and valu- 
 able theological library, and commenced a 
 course of instruction in various branches 
 of theological study about the beginning of 
 the present century. For years he carried 
 it on almost single-handed, and many young 
 men heard at his feet the masterly instruc- 
 tions that he was so capable of giving them. 
 
 The theological seminary at Andover 
 was founded in 1808, and being the first, on 
 a complete plan, founded in the United 
 States, and the most celebrated, I shall no- 
 tice it more amply than the rest. 
 
 The college buildings are beautifully sit- 
 uated on elevated ground near the village 
 of Andover, about twenty miles to the north 
 of Boston. They consist of two large edi- 
 fices for the residence of the students, and 
 a central building, in which are the chapel, 
 the library, lecture-rooms, &c. At a due 
 distance behind these stand the refectory 
 and steward's house. The grounds in front 
 are tastefully laid out, and their walks and 
 avenues adorned with various sorts of for- 
 est trees. Facing the seminary buildings, 
 and forming one side of a street which bor- 
 ders the grounds in front, stands a row of 
 houses where most of the professors re- 
 side. The grounds are very ample, the 
 situation salubrious, and the buildings re- 
 markably convenient. 
 
 This seminary forms a branch, as we 
 have elsewhere stated, of Phillips' Acad- 
 emy, which stands in the immediate vicin- 
 ity, though the two institutions are no far- 
 ther connected than by being both under 
 the same board of trustees. 
 
 The history of tiie Andover Seminary 
 may be given in a few words. It origina- 
 ted in a growing conviction of the need 
 there was for a higher standard of qual- 
 ification in the clergy, and in the obvious 
 necessity of having something to take 
 the place of the University of Harvard on 
 its defection from the Failh. Farther, the 
 good providence of God was manifested in 
 the undertaking, by his giving both the 
 necessary means and the heart to four or 
 five enterprising merchants to lay the 
 foundation. 
 
 One of these was the aged Samuel Ab- 
 bot, of Andover, who had already executed 
 a will bequeathing funds to a large amount 
 for the support of professors and indigent 
 students of theology in Harvard Universi- 
 ty. But having lived to witness the new 
 movements there, and to be convinceil of 
 the danger of trusting a legacy to an insti- 
 tution which, in his view, hud perverted the 
 funds left by Mr. Hollis* for the support 
 
 » Thomas Hollis, Es<]., a hifrhly-esleemed Chris- 
 tian merchant, was bom m England in 1650, and died 
 in 1731. He founded the [)rofessorships of theology 
 and mathciaalics in Hanard University, and pre- 
 
 of an orthodox professorship of divinity, he 
 was led to unite with Mrs. Phillips, widow 
 of the late Hon. Samuel Phillips, one of the 
 founders of Phillips' Academy, and her 
 son, in a plan for connecting with that 
 academy the erection of buildings, and the 
 appropriation of certain funds for the sup- 
 port of a theological professor, and of indi- 
 gent students of theology. 
 
 Meanwhile, a similar plan for another 
 seminary was formed by the late Rev. Sam- 
 uel Spring, D.D., of Nevvburyport, and the 
 Rev. Leonard Woods, D.D., of West New- 
 bury, now a professor in the Seminary at 
 Andover, and funds were pledged for its 
 endowment by Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Brown, 
 two parishioners of Dr. Spring, and by Mr. 
 Norris, of Salem — all at the solicitation of 
 Dr. Spring, who was the author of this 
 scheme. Dr. Woods, in whose parish the 
 institution was to be placed, was to be pro- 
 fessor, and a colleague was to be appointed 
 to assist him ill his pastoral duties. 
 
 Thus far had the parties proceeded, not 
 only without concert, but although living 
 within the compass of twenty miles, and 
 several of them having friendly intercourse 
 with each other, without being cognizant 
 of one another's plans. This seems to 
 indicate the intervention of a kind omnis- 
 cient Providence, and may have been a link 
 in the chain of causes which cordially uni- 
 ted, in the end, the two parties into which 
 the orthodox Congregationalists of New- 
 FiUgland were then divided, and to the 
 adoption of a better creed for the seminary 
 than it might have had otherwise. 
 
 These parties were, on the one hand, the 
 so-called moderate Calvinists, moderate 
 both in action and speculation, and, on the 
 other hand, the Hopkinsians, the keen- 
 sighted, active, fervid, pungent, and per- 
 haps rather ultra men of their time. Now, 
 to have continued and widened the separa- 
 tion of these parties by their having con- 
 tiguous and rival seminaries, would have 
 been no less disastrous than their union 
 was desirable, both for the nearer approx- 
 imation of both to exact truth, and for its 
 common defence against the advance of 
 Unitarianism ; and nothing could well have 
 been imagined more likely to produce 
 prompt and effectual union, than their being 
 led to co-operate in establishing a common 
 seminary. But it seems very doubtful how 
 far they would ever have thus combined 
 their efforts, had not certain members of 
 each been led, in the providence of God, by 
 ways that they knew not, and for a high 
 end which they never contemplated, each 
 to advance thus far in their projects. Tiic 
 evil sure to result from there being two 
 such seminaries was obvious ; the benefits 
 to be derived from their being united in one 
 were appreciated, at least to a certain ex- 
 
 sented to it a philosophical apparatus and many 
 books. 
 
Chap. XVIII.] 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 
 
 161 
 
 tent ; yet this union of the two institutions, 
 and the adjustment of principles common to 
 both, cost nearly two years of anxious and 
 incessant labour, during which the negotia- 
 tions were more than once wellnigh bro- 
 ken off, and at one time quite abandoned. 
 *' No one," says the Rev. Dr. Woods, "who 
 did not himself act a leading part in these 
 interesting transactions, can ever have an 
 adequate conception of the unnumbered dif- 
 ficulties which the principal agents had to 
 encounter, or of the amount of solicitude, 
 and of effort, which fell to their lot, or of 
 the variety of dangers to which the great 
 object was from time to time exposed."* 
 
 The greatest difficulty in the way of the 
 union was the adjustment of a common 
 creed, to be subscribed by the professors of 
 the seminary. The founders of Phillips' 
 Academy had already adopted the West- 
 minster Assembly's Shorter Catechism. 
 To this Dr. Spring, with the advice and 
 support of his friend, the Rev. Dr. Emmons, 
 strenuously objected, because some parts 
 of it were widely understood to imply what 
 he did not believe, and, partly, because he 
 thought that more definite and extended 
 statements on several points of doctrine 
 •were desirable. He and his friends, also, 
 "wished for additional barriers against her- 
 esy, and particularly for a Board of Vis- 
 iters, professing the same creed, and with 
 ample powers for tne correction of errors. 
 These difficulties were adjusted at last by 
 the institution of such a board, and by the 
 adoption of a new creed, drawn up by a 
 committee from both parties, and couched 
 ■very much in the language of the cate- 
 chism, but with some omissions and some 
 additions. And this creed is to be solemn- 
 ly repeated and subscribed in the presence 
 of the trustees of the academy, by every 
 ■professor and every visiter, on his induc- 
 tion into office ; and the same is to be re- 
 peated, in like manner, by each of them, 
 once every five years, during his continu- 
 ance in office. 
 
 In this adjustment the Hopkinsians gain- 
 ed their main object, but, at the same time, 
 sacrificed some favourite points which they 
 would gladly have introduced into a semi- 
 nary of a more sectarian character. Some, 
 indeed, a few of whom are still to be found, 
 persisted in their objections to the semina- 
 ly on this account ; but nearly the whole 
 orthodox community of New-England have 
 cordially acquiesced in it, so that the ar- 
 rangement has most happily, though silent- 
 ly, become a virtual bond of union among 
 them. Foreign missions, and other great 
 benevolent enterprises to which the semi- 
 nary soon gave birth, hastened and con- 
 firmed this coalescence by bringing the 
 two parties more frequently to pray, sym- 
 
 * Manuscript History of the Theological Semina- 
 ry at Andover, from which much of the information 
 here given was derived. 
 
 pathize, and act together. These results 
 are matters of devout astonishment to many 
 a beholder of what God has wrought amid 
 the movements of our times. 
 
 The opposition, in various forms, to or- 
 thodoxy was considerable, but was of little 
 avail in retarding its progress. Fears were 
 at one lime entertained lest a majority of 
 the trustees of Phillips' Academy, under 
 whose guardianship the seminary is placed, 
 should ultimately be found men of lax opin- 
 ions ; but, as most of the suspected parties 
 died or resigned their seats within a few 
 years, those fears gradually subsided on 
 the vacancies being filled up by others who 
 were unquestionably sound in the faith.* 
 Anxiety on this head led to a greater so- 
 licitude about creating a Board of Visiters, 
 and the quinquennial renewal of subscrip- 
 tion by the professors and visiters, though 
 this could not be extended to the trustees, 
 no provision to that effect having been 
 made at the institution of that board. 
 
 With all these guards, and looking to 
 the present character of the boards, the 
 friends of the institution consider that 
 there is none in the country more com- 
 pletely guarded against perversion. At 
 the same time, the most perfect freedom 
 of inquiry is allowed, and even encouraged 
 among the students, in order that their 
 faith may rest on conviction, not on hu- 
 man authority or constraint. No subscrip- 
 tion to a creed is required of them, nor 
 can any one who gives to the professors 
 satisfactory evidence of Christian charac- 
 ter be debarred from entering the semina- 
 ry, or dismissed from it on the ground of 
 his belief. This condition was required 
 by the State Legislature on their enlarging 
 the powers of the trustees, so as to enable 
 them to hold the additional funds required 
 for the establishment of the seminary. 
 And although its expediency has by some 
 been doubted, it seems as yet to have had 
 no bad consequences. It has been thought 
 unreasonable to require a minute profes- 
 sion of faith from students who go to the 
 institution for the very purpose of learning 
 what is truth, as well as how to teach it. 
 
 The seminary was opened in the autumn 
 of 1808. For several years there were 
 only three professors, but now there are 
 five, one of whom acts as president of the 
 institution. Each member of the faculty 
 has a salary of 1500 dollars per annum, to- 
 gether Avith the use of a family dwelling- 
 house, and is debarred from receiving any 
 compensation for preaching abroad. 
 
 The departments of the professors are, 
 Sacred Literature, including the Greek and 
 
 * It must be kept in mmd that Phillips' Academy 
 was founded in 1778, when Unitarianism had not yet 
 developed itself in the United States, though the er- 
 rors which led to it were to be found in Boston and 
 its neighbourhood. When it did develop itself, it 
 was not strange that the Board of Phillips' Acade- 
 my should have been infected with it. 
 
162 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV: 
 
 Hebrew Scriptures, chiefly during the first 
 year ; Christian Theology, chiefly during 
 the second year ; and Sacred Rhetoric, Ec- 
 clesiastical History, and Pastoral Theolo- 
 gy during the third year. The instruction 
 is given partly by written lectures and 
 partly by the use of text-books, which are 
 recited in substance by the students, and 
 accompanied with remarks by the profes- 
 sors. 
 
 The students are not allowed to preach, 
 nor are they required to write sermons till 
 their senior or last year. Each may then 
 be called on to preach in the chapel, and is 
 also allowed to preach abroad for six Sab- 
 baths in his last term, within certain limits 
 as to distance, so as to avoid being absent 
 from any of the lectures. The remainder 
 of the preaching in the chapel is chiefly 
 performed by the professors in rotation. 
 
 Most of the students are graduates of 
 colleges, and all are admitted on examina- 
 tion in regard to their attainments, evi- 
 dence of piety, &c. During the first year 
 ihey attend two lectures a day ; afterward, 
 usually but one. 
 
 Great attention is required of the pro- 
 fessors in the cultivation of piety among 
 the students, which has ever been regard- 
 ed by them, as well as by the founders and 
 guardians, as a grand object of the institu- 
 tion. For this purpose, they meet the 
 students for a devotional exercise every 
 Wednesday evening. The students also 
 hold many conferences and prayer-meet- 
 ings by themselves. 
 
 Indigent students, of whom there are 
 many, receive half the price of their board 
 in commons gratuitously. No charge is 
 in any case made for tuition, and but a 
 small one for the use of the library, and 
 for rooms and furniture. 
 
 As the design of the seminary is to 
 furnish an able as well as a pious clergy, 
 and as its privileges are, to a great extent, 
 gratuitous, each student is required, at his 
 matriculation, to promise to complete a 
 regular three years' course of study, " un- 
 less prevented by some unforeseen and 
 iniavoidablc necessity," which is to be 
 judged of by the faculty. This is a much 
 longer course than had commonly been 
 pursued under tlic guidance of private pas- 
 tors, and it has been found very difllcult thus 
 far to elevate the views of the community, 
 and fully to reconcile the feelings of the 
 students to this requisition. Indeed, the 
 rule itself was not made for a considerable 
 number of the first years. 
 
 As this is the oldest theological semina- 
 ry in the country, it has had to make its 
 own way, unaided by previous experience ; 
 and very many are the changes, mostly 
 for the better, it is believed, which have 
 been made from time to time in its ar- 
 rangements. 
 
 There were not many students for some 
 
 years at first, but they have gradually in-^ 
 creased from about thirty to about 150, 
 which has been not far from the number 
 on the list for many years. Any farther 
 increase has been prevented by the mul- 
 tiplication of kindred seminaries since its 
 reaching that number. The whole that 
 have been admitted from the first amount 
 to about 1500, though, partly from deaths, 
 partly from many having failed to com- 
 plete their course, or gone to other institu- 
 tions, not more than 950 of these have 
 graduated. Nearly 100 have devoted them- 
 selves to foreign, and many more to do- 
 mestic missions. The American Board of 
 Commissioners for Foreign Missions were 
 indebted to this seminary for all their mis- 
 sionaries but one for the first ten years ; 
 and many of its students have lived to be- 
 come presidents and professors of colleges 
 and theological schools, and secretaries 
 and agents of benevolent societies. 
 
 It possesses peculiar advantages for the 
 training of missionaries. The " Society 
 of Inquiry on Missions," of which almost 
 all the students are members, is nearly 
 coeval with it. It has a valuable library 
 and museum, and exerts a very salutary 
 influence on the spirit and piety of the in- 
 stitution. The doctrine is taught at this, 
 as at most of the other theological semina- 
 ries in the United States, that every pastor 
 should be a missionary at heart, and that 
 every student should be willing to go 
 whithersoever God may call him. There 
 are great facilities at Andover for having 
 early intelligence from the American mis- 
 sionaries, by constant correspondence, by 
 visits of returned members, and by inter- 
 course with the secretaries and other offi- 
 cers of the American Board. 
 
 The " Porter Rhetorical Society," so 
 named from its founder, the late Rev. Dr. 
 Porter, the first president of the seminary, 
 has an excellent library, and exercises 
 much influence. 
 
 The library of the seminary itself is 
 thought to be one of the best in the coun- 
 try. It was selected for the purpose, 
 contains 14,000 volumes, and has a fund 
 to provide for its constant augmentation. 
 Some of the large number of German 
 books contained in it being of a neological 
 character, it was at one time feared by 
 many that these might do mischief; but 
 such apprehensions have now yielded, in 
 the minds of those who felt them, to the 
 consideration of the importance of having 
 such books in an institution where men 
 are to be trained to face an enemy, not to 
 flee from him. 
 
 The institution is under strict discipline. 
 Monitors' bills are kept ; all are required 
 to attend to their studies, and to be pres- 
 ent at the lectures of the professors, at 
 the morning and evening chapel prayers, 
 and at Divine service on the Sabbath. 
 
Chap. XVIII.] 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 
 
 163 
 
 There are instances of students being dis- 
 missed for irregularity of conduct. 
 
 The total sums that have been given for 
 the erection of the seminary buildings, the 
 endowing of professorships, the support of 
 indigent students, the library, &c., cannot 
 be precisely ascertained, but they proba- 
 bly exceed 400,000 dollars. Mr. Bartlett, 
 the most munificent of the donors, is sup- 
 posed to have given 100,000 dollars, be- 
 sides a legacy of 50,000 dollars. He is 
 said never to have told any one how much 
 some of the buildings that were erected at 
 his instance cost him. Mr. Abbot gave 
 about 120,000 dollars. Mr. Brown and Mr. 
 Norris also gave large sums. No general 
 solicitation has ever been made in behalf 
 of the institution, though it has received 
 from individuals many benefactions of from 
 500 to 5000 dollars. 
 
 Connected with the seminary is a print- 
 ing establishment, known as the Codman 
 press, from its having a fount of Oriental 
 types presented to it by the Rev. Dr. Cod- 
 man, of Dorchester. 
 
 Few institutions have ever been more 
 blessed than the AndoverTheological Sem- 
 inary. It has been intimately associated 
 with the origin and progress of foreign 
 missions, and had much influence in origi- 
 nating the Bible, Colonization, Tract, and 
 Temperance Societies, through the exer- 
 tions of the lamented Mills* and his coad- 
 jutors, who were students at it. I have 
 spoken of it more in detail, not only be- 
 cause of its being the oldest, the most 
 richly endowed, and the most frequented 
 of our theological schools, but also be- 
 cause it has been, in some sense, a model 
 for the rest.f 
 
 The General Assembly of the Presbyte- 
 rian Church established a theological sem- 
 inary at Princeton, in New- Jersey, in 1812, 
 being the second of the kind in the United 
 States. Although far from being richly 
 endowed like that of Andover, and has 
 often been greatly embarrassed for want 
 of adequate pecuniary support, it has at- 
 
 * The Rev. Samuel J. Mills, a very zealous and 
 able young man, who took a leading part in the form- 
 ation of several of the great benevolent societies of 
 America, and died on the coast of Africa when look- 
 ing for a place where a colony of negroes might be 
 founded. 
 
 + The Andover Faculty consists of the Rev. Drs. 
 Woods and Emerson, and the Rev. Messrs. Stuart, 
 B. B. Edwards, and Park, professors. 
 
 Professor Stuart is well known for his Commenta- 
 ries on the Epistles to the Romans and Hebrews, as 
 well as for his Hebrew grammar and other writings. 
 Dr. Woods has published some valuable small works 
 on baptism, inspiration of the Scriptures, &c. Dr. 
 Emerson has not yet published much. Mr. B. B. 
 Edwards has written much and ably for periodical 
 publications, and is the author, besides, of several 
 valuable works relating to missions : among these is 
 a missionary gazetteer. He published the life of Dr. 
 Cornehus ; and in 1839 took a joint part with Pro- 
 fessor Park in giving to the world an interesting vol- 
 ume of translated selections from German authors. 
 
 tained a great and well-merited celebrity 
 by the distinguished talents of its profes- 
 sors, as well as the excellent course of its 
 studies. It has for several years had an 
 annual attendance of from 125 to 140 stu- 
 dents, and has educated, in all, above 1200. 
 The missionary spirit has prevailed in it 
 to a gratifying degree, almost from its 
 first establishment, and a large number of 
 its alumni have gone to carry the Gospel to 
 heathen lands. There is a flourishing" Soci- 
 ety of Inquiry on Missions," with a valuable 
 collection of books relating to that subject. 
 
 The Princeton course comprises for the 
 first year, Hebrew, the Exegesis of the 
 Original Language of the New Testament, 
 Sacred Geography, Sacred Chronology, 
 Jewish Antiquities, and the Connexion of 
 Sacred and Profane History ; for the sec- 
 ond year. Biblical Criticism, Church His- 
 tory, and Didactic Theology; for the third 
 year, Polemic Theology, Church History, 
 Church Government, Pastoral Theology, 
 the Composition and Delivery of Sermons. 
 
 Instruction is given both by lectures and 
 text-books, and the entire course requires 
 the study of many authors. The students 
 must read essays of their own composition 
 at least once every four weeks, and are ex- 
 pected, also, to deliver short addresses be- 
 fore the professors and their fellow-stu- 
 dents at least once in the month. One 
 evening in the week is devoted to the 
 discussion of important theological ques- 
 tions. Every Sabbath forenoon a sermon 
 is delivered in the chapel by one of the 
 professors. In the afternoon, the students 
 assemble for a " conference" on some sub- 
 ject in casuistical divinity, their professors 
 presiding and closing the discussion with 
 their remarks, and the services commen- 
 cing and concluding with singing and pray- 
 er. Questions such as the following are 
 discussed : What constitutes a call to the 
 ministry and the evidences of it? What 
 is proper preparation for the Lord's Sup- 
 per 1 What is repentance % What is faith? 
 What is true preparation for death? 
 
 These, and a hundred such subjects, are 
 seriously and faithfully discussed, and none 
 of the other exercises, probably, is so in- 
 structive or so important to the students. 
 It is there that the deep knowledge in spir- 
 itual things of their venerated and excel- 
 lent professors most fully manifests itself. 
 God has greatly blessed these heart-search- 
 ing services to the students, and much is it 
 to be wished that such exercises, and such 
 fidelity on the part of the professors who 
 conduct them, were to be found in every 
 theological seminary and theological de- 
 partment of a university in the world. 
 
 It is matter for devout thanksgiving that 
 the venerable professors* appointed to the 
 Princeton Seminary in its earliest years, 
 
 * The Rev. Drs. Alexander and Miller, both of 
 whom have earned an extensive reputation by their 
 
164 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 are still spared to labour for its good. 
 Both they and their younger colleagues 
 rank high among the American divines, 
 and have great weight in the Church to 
 which they belong. 
 
 The General Convention of the Protest- 
 ant Episcopal Church opened a theological 
 institution at New- York in 1817, which, 
 though removed next year to New-Haven, 
 was soon after re-established at New- York. 
 It originated in the efforts of the late John 
 Henry Hobart, long bishop of the diocess 
 of New- York, and has five professors, who 
 are eminent and influential men, both in 
 their own church and in the community at 
 large. Its prosperity has been almost unin- 
 terrupted. The number of students is usu- 
 ally about seventy-five or eighty. In 1822, 
 the diocesses of Virginia and Maryland es- 
 tablished another Episcopal seminary in 
 Fairfax county, Virginia, a few miles from 
 the city of Alexandria, in the District of 
 Columbia. This seminary has four valuable 
 professors, and from forty to fifty students. 
 It has been a great blessing to the Episco- 
 pal Church and to the country. 
 
 A Baptist theological seminary, estab- 
 lished at Newton, a town about six miles 
 from Boston, in 1825, has been a source 
 of much good, and has sent forth a consid- 
 erable number of excellent preachers. It 
 has three able professors, and usually from 
 thirty to forty students. The Baptists 
 also established a Literary and Theologi- 
 cal Institute at Hamilton, in the State of 
 New- York, in 1820. It has above 150 stu- 
 dents in all, and in the theological depart- 
 
 ment upward of thirty, under four profes- 
 sors, who give instructions in the other de- 
 partment also. 
 
 A Lutheran theological seminary was 
 established in 1826 at Gettysburg, in Penn- 
 sylvania, very much through the exertions 
 of the Rev. S. S. Schmucker, D.D.,who is 
 its professor of theology. It has three 
 professors, with from thirty to forty stu- 
 dents in all, and has proved a rich blessing 
 to the Lutheran Church. Dr. Schmucker 
 is well known in the churches of the United 
 States by his tvarious writings, and his 
 praiseworthy endeavours to bring about a 
 union of feeling and action among the sev- 
 eral branches of the Protestant denomina- 
 tions. 
 
 The Reformed Dutch Church has an able 
 theological faculty in its seminary at New- 
 Brunswick, in the State of New-Jersey. 
 The foundation dates from 1784, but it was 
 for a long time unoccupied. It now has 
 three professors and about forty students. 
 
 Such are the utmost details that the lim- 
 its of this work will permit. Let me sim- 
 ply add, that, since the opening of the Rev. 
 Dr. Mason's theological school, about the 
 beginning of the century, these institutions 
 have amazingly increased. Most of them, 
 like those at Andover and Princeton, are 
 quite distinct from any college or univer- 
 sity ; some, under the title of Theological 
 Departments, are connected with literary 
 institutions, but have their own professors, 
 and, in reality, are very distinct. The fol- 
 lowing table, presenting a summary of the 
 whole, will probably be found interesting. 
 
 DeoomiiutioDs. 
 
 Congrega- 
 tionalists. 
 
 Old School 
 Presbyteri- 
 ans. 
 
 New School 2. 
 
 Presbyteri- < 3. 
 
 ans. 4. 
 
 U. 
 
 NiLine and locality of the iutitutioii. 
 
 Episcopal! 
 ans. 
 
 ■i: 
 
 Andover 
 
 Bangor 
 
 Gilmanton 
 
 Theological Department of Yale College 
 Theological Institute of Connecticut, at East Windsor 
 Theological Department of the Oberlin Institute . 
 
 Theological Seminaiy at Princeton 
 
 Western Theological Seminary at Alleghany town, ) 
 
 near Pittsburgh J 
 
 Union Theological Seminary 
 
 Southern Theological Seminary at Columbia 
 Indiana Theological Seminary at New-Albany 
 
 New-York Theological Seminary, in New-York city 
 Theological Seminary at Auburn .... 
 Theological Department of Western Reserve College 
 Lane Seminary at Cincinnati .... 
 
 Southwestern Theological Seminary at Maryville . 
 General Theological Seminary of the Protestant ) 
 Episcopal Church, New-York . . . . J 
 Theological Seminary, Fairfax county . 
 
 state in which it is 
 
 situated. 
 
 t-o a 
 
 II 
 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 1808 
 
 5 
 
 153 
 
 Maine. 
 
 1820 
 
 3 
 
 44 
 
 New-Hampshire 
 Connecticut. 
 
 1835 
 1822 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 26 
 
 72 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 1833 
 
 3 
 
 29 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 
 4 
 
 54 
 
 New-Jersey. 
 
 1812 
 
 4 
 
 110 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 1828 
 
 3 
 
 29 
 
 Virginia. 
 South Carolina. 
 
 1821 
 1832 
 
 3 
 3 
 
 20 
 18 
 
 Indiana. 
 
 1829 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 New-York. 
 
 1836 
 
 3 
 
 90 
 
 New-York. 
 
 1821 
 
 4 
 
 69 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 
 3 
 
 14 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 1832 
 
 3 
 
 31 
 
 Tennessee. 
 
 
 2 
 
 24 
 
 New-York. 
 
 1817 
 
 5 
 
 74 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 
 3 
 
 43 
 
 public lectures as well as by their writings. The 
 younger professors are the Rev. Dr. Hodge and the 
 Rev. J. A. Alexander, the former wpII known in Eu- 
 rope for his excellent work oil the PZjjistle to the Ro- 
 mans, and the .latter atithor of many articles in the 
 Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, an able 
 quarterly publicatioti which has been conducted for 
 twenty years by the professors of the seminary, and 
 of the College of New-Jersey, both situated in the 
 village of Princeton. 
 
 * I give the number of students for 1840, from the 
 American Quarterly Register for that year. The list 
 is understated, the number being that at a given 
 ei)Och in the year, not that of all wlio attended during 
 the course of it. For instance, were the mnnber of 
 students in the Princeton Seminary taken in the 
 winter of 1839-10, it might have been 120, yet by 
 adding the siudenls who joined in the summer ses- 
 sion, the number for the academic year might have 
 been 130. 
 
Chap. X7ni.] 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES. 
 
 169 
 
 SenomiDations. 
 
 Episcopali- 
 ans. 
 
 2. 
 3. 
 
 Baptists. < 4. 
 5. 
 6. 
 
 7. 
 .8. 
 
 Ref. Dutch. 
 
 Lutherans. < 
 
 German Ref. 
 Assoc. Chur. 
 Assoc. Ref. ^ 
 Church. I 
 
 Name and locality of the institution. 
 
 Theological Seminary of the Diocess of Ohio, 
 
 Gambia 
 
 Thomaston Theological Institute . 
 Theological Institution at Newton . 
 Hamilton Literary and Theological Institute, 
 
 Hamilton 
 
 Virginia Baptist Seminary at Richmond 
 Furman Theological Seminary at High Hills 
 Literary and Theological Seminary at Eaton 
 Theological Department in Granville College 
 Alton Theological Seminary .... 
 
 Theological Seminary, New-Brunswick 
 
 1. Hartwick Seminary 
 
 2. Theological Seminary at Gettysburg 
 
 3. Theological Seminary at Lexington 
 
 4. Theological Seminary at Columbus 
 Theological Seminary at Mercersberg 
 Theological Department in Jefferson College 
 
 1. Theological Seminary at Newburgh 
 
 2. Theological Seminary at Alleghany-town 
 
 at ) 
 at ) 
 
 State in which it is 
 situated. 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 Manie. 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 New-York. 
 
 Virginia, 
 South Carolina. 
 Georgia. 
 Ohio. 
 Illinois. 
 
 New-Jersey. 
 New-York. 
 Pennsylvania. 
 South Carolina. 
 Ohio. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 New-York. 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 fiS 
 
 •2 a ^,C c 'J s 
 ^ a o c— a-a i* 
 
 1828 3 10 
 
 1837 2 
 1825 3 
 
 23 
 33 
 
 1820 4 27 
 
 1832 
 1838 
 1834 
 1832 
 
 1826 
 1835 
 
 1825 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 3 
 2 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 67 
 30 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 36 
 
 15 
 26 
 10 
 10 
 20 
 
 2 22 
 1836 3 11 
 1828 1 19 
 
 The Reformed Presbyterians (Covenant- 
 ers) have a theological- school at Allegha- 
 ny-town, and the Moravians have one at 
 Nazareth, in Pennsylvania ; the former has 
 two professors and 14 or 15 students, the 
 latter one professor and 5 or 6 students. 
 
 The reader will remark that the number 
 of students in the theological seminaries 
 contained in the preceding table is that for 
 the year 1840, which is the latest complete 
 statement I have seen. It must not be 
 considered as a present census of these 
 institutions. With the exception of the 
 Seminary at Andover, and, perhaps, two or 
 three others, the number of students at 
 present (the commencement of 1844) is 
 much greater than it was in 1840. In some 
 seminaries it is almost twice as great as it 
 was then. The whole number of students 
 in these seminaries may fairly be put down 
 as greater by one fourth part at present 
 than it was M^hen the above-given list was 
 made. 
 
 The above enumeration comprises the 
 orthodox evangelical denominations of 
 Protestants only. The Unitarians have a 
 theological department at Harvard Univer- 
 sity, which had two professors and twen- 
 ty-seven students in 1840. 
 
 The Roman Catholic theological semi- 
 naries, according to the Catholic Almanac, 
 stood as follows in 1840 : 
 
 That at Philadelphia had 22 students. 
 
 Baltimore 16 
 
 Eminetsburg 20 
 
 Frederick 20 
 
 Charleston, South Carolina 6 
 
 Parish of Assumption in Louisiana. .. 9 
 
 Bardstown and St. Rose, in Kentucky 
 
 Cincinnati 
 
 Vincennes 9 
 
 Barrens 12 
 
 Missouri 
 
 St. Louis 
 
 In all, twelve institutions and 114 stu- 
 dents. But this list was probably incom- 
 plete, as we learn from the same authority 
 that in 1842 there were twenty-one eccle- 
 
 siastical institutions, and 180 clerical stu- 
 dents. At present there are 261. 
 
 I shall conclude by stating that the en- 
 tire number of theological schools and fac- 
 ulties belonging to the orthodox Protestant 
 Churches is thirty-eight,* with about 105 
 professors, and nearly, if not quite, 1800 
 students at the present time. The great- 
 er number of these institutions are in their 
 infancy. Where they are connected with 
 colleges, the theological professor gener- 
 ally gives lectures in the literary depart- 
 ment also, on moral philosophy, meta- 
 physics, logic, &c. Many of the profes- 
 sors in the new and smaller seminaries 
 are pastors of churches in the neighbour- 
 hood, and all that are not preach much in 
 vacant churches, or on extraordinary oc- 
 casions, such as before benevolent or lit- 
 erary societies and bodies, ecclesiastical 
 assemblies, &c. Many of them, too, are 
 expected to employ their leisure moments 
 in giving instruction through the press. 
 Though the number of professors seems 
 large when compared with that of the stu- 
 dents, I can assure the reader that few 
 men have more to do, or, in point of fact, 
 do more for the cause of Christ. There 
 are to be found among them many of the 
 first ministers of the churches to which 
 they respectively belong. If not quite 
 equal in point of science to some of the 
 great professors in the Old World, they 
 are all, God be praised, believed to be con- 
 verted, and are devoted, faithful men. 
 Their grand object is to train up a pious as 
 well as a learned ministry. I am not aware 
 that there is one of them that does not 
 open every meeting of his class with ear- 
 nest prayer, in which he is joined by his 
 pupils — a striking contrast to what one 
 
 * At the Wesleyan University at Middletown, 
 Connecticut, theological lectures are given to a class 
 m divinity, and possibly this is done also in some of 
 the other Methodist colleges. 
 
166 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 sees, alas! at too many of the theological 
 lectures in the universities of Europe. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EFFORTS TO DIFFUSE THE SACRED SCRIPTURES. 
 
 Much has been done in the United States 
 to place the Sacred Scriptures in the 
 hands of all who can read them, and in 
 this endeavour there is a delightful co-op- 
 eration of good men of every name. Even 
 statesmen, though they may not be deci- 
 dedly religious, or, by outward profession, 
 members of any church, lend their aid in 
 this endeavour ; and it is not uncommon 
 to hear men of the first rank in the political 
 circles, some occupying high places in the 
 council of the nation, advocate at Bible 
 Society anniversaries the claims of the 
 "Word of God. The impression prevails 
 among our statesmen that the Bible is em- 
 phatically the foundation of our hopes as 
 a people. Nothing but the Bible can make 
 men the willing subjects of law ; they must 
 first acquiesce with submission in the gov- 
 ernment of God, before they can yield a 
 willing obedience to the requirements of 
 human governments, however just these 
 may be. It is the religion of the Bible only 
 that can render the population of any coun- 
 try honest, industrious, peaceable, quiet, 
 contented, happy. 
 
 It is twenty-six years since the Ameri- 
 can Bible Society was instituted, and it 
 now has branches in all parts of the coun- 
 tiy. It has sent out. in all, 3,269,678 cop- 
 ies of the Bible, or of the New Testament, 
 from its depository.* Last year alone 
 216,605 copies went forth to bless the na- 
 tion. In the years 1829 and 1830, great 
 and systematic efforts were made to place 
 a Bible in every family that was without 
 one throughout the whole land. Much 
 was accomplished, yet so rapid is the in- 
 crease of the population, that these efforts 
 must be repeated from year to year ; and 
 the work can only be done by dividing the 
 country into small districts, and engaging 
 active and zealous persons to visit every 
 house from time to time, ascertain what 
 families are destitute of the Scriptures, 
 and supply them by selling or giving away 
 copies, according to circumstances. Great 
 efforts arc also made at New-York, and 
 
 * As some Bible societies are not auxiliary to the 
 American Bible Society — such was until lately the 
 Philadelphia Bible Society, and such is at present 
 the American and Foreign Bible Society — we must 
 not suppose that the number of copies of the Scrip- 
 lures mentioned as having left the depository of the 
 American Bible Society includes the whole which 
 have been circulated by societies in the United States. 
 Besides, the American Sunday-school Union, and 
 the Methodist Book Concern, for a tune published 
 the Bible. 
 
 Other seaports, to supply foreign emigrants 
 as they arrive on our shores. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that what has 
 been done by Bible societies seems not to 
 have interfered with the business of the 
 booksellers ; for these sell more copies of 
 the Holy Scriptures than they did before the 
 Bible societies existed. The more the Bi- 
 ble is known, the more it is appreciated ; in 
 many a family the entrance of a single copy 
 begets a desire to possess several ; besides 
 which, the Bible Society distributions great- 
 ly augment the demand for Biblical com- 
 mentaries and expositions, and thus aug- 
 ment the trade of the booksellers, who pub- 
 lish and put into circulation immense edi- 
 tions of such works. There is a great de- 
 mand for the Scriptures, also, both in week- 
 day and Sabbath- schools, and great num- 
 bers of these are furnished by the book-trade. 
 
 Nor does the American Bible Society 
 confine its efforts to the United States. It 
 has for many years associated itself with 
 those societies which, by prosecuting the 
 same work in foreign lands, are labouring 
 to hasten the coming of that day when 
 " the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the 
 earth. " The receipts of the society for 
 the last year amounted to 126,348 dollars, 
 of which 15,516 were appropriated to the 
 work abroad. 
 
 The society has published the New Tes- 
 tament and some parts of the Old in " raised 
 characters," for the use of the blind, and 
 is now engaged in printing the remainder 
 for that unfortunate class of the population. 
 
 In the year 1837, a Bible society was 
 formed among the members of the Bap- 
 tist churches, entitled the " American and 
 Foreign Bible Society." It was formed 
 with special reference to the circulation 
 of translations in the course of being made 
 by that body of Christians. Some, at least, 
 of these translations the American Bible 
 Society thought it could not, consistently 
 with its constitution, aid in publishing, be- 
 cause the original words baptize and bap- 
 tism have been translated into words 
 equivalent to immerse and immersion. How- 
 ever much it may be regretted that these 
 words, about the meaning of which there 
 has been so much philological disputation, 
 are not permitted to remain untranslated, 
 so that all denominations might be put 
 upon the same footing, and be enabled to 
 continue united in the work of Bible circu- 
 lation, the issue will, it is likely, prove that 
 in this, as in many similar cases, God is 
 about to make an apparent obstacle might- 
 ily subserve the advancement of his king- 
 dom. The new society has taken up the 
 work of foreign publication with great 
 zeal, and doubtless it will serve to devel- 
 op the energies of tlie large and powerful 
 body of Christians who sustain it, to an 
 extent to which they never would have 
 gone but for its formation. The receipts 
 
Chap. XX.] 
 
 RELIGIOUS TRACTS. AND BOOKS. 
 
 167 
 
 last year, being the sixth of its existence, 
 were 20,691 dollars ; the expenditure 21,068 
 dollars. Meanwhile, the resources of the 
 American Bible Society have increased in- 
 stead of having diminished. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE PUBLICATION AND CIR- 
 CULATION OF RELIGIOUS TRACTS AND BOOKS. 
 
 No branch of religious enterprise has 
 been more vigorously prosecuted in the 
 United States than that of preparing, pub- 
 lishing, and circulating moral and religious 
 writings in various forms. The wide dif- 
 fusion of education, at least among the 
 white part of the population, makes it ob- 
 vious that powerful advantage may be ta- 
 ken of the press in promoting the truth. 
 
 Associations of various kinds are enga- 
 ged in this good work. We have seen that 
 the Sunday-school societies are doing 
 much for supplying the youth of the coun- 
 try with moral and religious reading ; we 
 have now to speak of other societies which 
 aim at benefiting adults, not, however, to 
 the exclusion of the young. 
 
 First among these associations may be 
 ranked the American Tract Society, which, 
 like most others of a general and national 
 character, has its seat in the city of New- 
 York. It was instituted in 1825, and hence 
 has been eighteen yea.T in existence. It 
 is founded on the broad principle of uniting 
 in its support Christians of all evangelical 
 demjminations of Protestants, so far as 
 they may be disposed to co-operate in its 
 objects ; its Committee of Publication is 
 composed of ministers of the Gospel of the 
 different orthodox communions ; and its 
 publications themselves convey those great 
 truths and doctrines in which all of these 
 communions can agree. 
 
 The operations of no society in Ameri- 
 ca seem to have been prosecuted with 
 greater vigour or more wisdom. Its Re- 
 port for 1843 states that, since its com- 
 mencement, it has sent forth 1069 different 
 publications, of which 131 form volumes 
 of various sizes by themselves, and the 
 remainder are, with few exceptions, Avhat 
 are called tracts, each consisting of four 
 pages and upward, but requiring more 
 than one to make a volume. It has pub- 
 lished some broad-sheets and hand bills for 
 posting up in public places or otherwise. 
 And besides these 1069 publications issued 
 at home, it has aided in the publication of 
 1850 in foreign lands. The copies of its 
 publications printed last year amounted 
 to 4,156,500, of which 174,500 were vol- 
 umes. During the same period 4,155,806, 
 including 157,478 volumes, actually issued 
 from its depository. Among the volumes 
 were several thousand sets of the Evan- 
 
 gelical Family Library, of fifteen volumes 
 each, and of the Christian Library, of for- 
 ty-five volumes each. Many thousands of 
 separate volumes, also, of these sets were 
 sold, and 77,000 copies of the Christian Al- 
 manac for the United States. From 100,000 
 to 150,000 of some of the smaller tracts 
 were distributed ; and the total sent into 
 circulation during eighteen years has been 
 1,300,896,847 pages, or about 80,806,460 of 
 tracts and volumes. The receipts for the 
 year 1843 amounted to 42,433 dollars from 
 donations, and 49,904 from sales ; in all, 
 96,240 dollars. Fifteen thousand dollars 
 were sent to foreign countries in aid of the 
 tract cause abroad. 
 
 The Society is assisted by auxiliary as- 
 sociations in all parts of the United States, 
 both in the collection of funds, and in dis- 
 seminating its publications. Some of these 
 local societies, such as those at New- York, 
 Boston, and Philadelphia, are large and ef- 
 ficient. 
 
 The Society is zealously prosecuting 
 two grand measures, into which I shall 
 enter the more fully, inasmuch as they 
 are of the utmost importance to the reli- 
 gious well-being of the country, and also 
 more or less practicable in other lands. 
 The first of these is the publication of vol- 
 umes of approved excellence, such as Bun- 
 yan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Doddridge's 
 Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, 
 and their distribution throughout the coun- 
 try. It proposes to place not only one 
 volume at least, as was resolved some 
 years ago, but even a whole copy of its 
 Evangelical Family Library, of fifteen vol- 
 umes, or its Christian Library, of forty- 
 five volumes, in as many households as 
 are willing to buy them ; and in seeking 
 to accomplish this end, it employs able 
 men, ministers of the Gospel and laymen, 
 as agents. These visit towns and cities, 
 preach in the churches, raise funds to sup- 
 ply the poor with books, organize commit- 
 tees who are to visit all the families in 
 their respective districts, and engage all 
 who are able to buy one book or more, 
 and to supply such as are too poor to pur- 
 chase. Another set of agents consists of 
 plain, but sensible, pious, and zealous col- 
 porteurs, or hawkers, generally laymen, 
 who are sent into the " Far West" to car- 
 ry books and tracts to the frontier people, 
 engaged in felling the forests on their ever- 
 onward course towards the setting sun, as 
 well as into the mountainous districts, and 
 the thinly-settled belt of sandy country 
 which stretches along the ocean in the 
 Middle and Southern States. The num- 
 ber of these colporteurs is at present sixty. 
 
 Though in operation but a few years, 
 this enterprise had in 1842 placed 1,800,000 
 volumes in the hands of families, compri- 
 sing at least 4,000,000 of souls. Who can 
 calculate the amount of good which such 
 
163 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 a work must, with God's blessing, accom- 
 plish ? 
 
 I ought to add, that not only is care taken 
 that both books and tracts shall be printed 
 with good type, and on excellent paper, 
 but that the books are substantially bound, 
 and the tracts covered, for the most part, 
 with handsome paper coverings. In these 
 respects they form a marked contrast with 
 the publications of some societies of the 
 same kind on the Continent of Europe. It 
 is rightly thought to be a false economy 
 which, for the sake of saving a few hun- 
 dred dollars, would fail to render attractive 
 in appearance, as well as readable and du- 
 rable, publications which are intended to 
 interest, instruct, and save men, many of 
 whom are wholly indifferent to religion, 
 and might be repelled from reading them 
 were they to appear in a mean and shabby 
 dress. 
 
 Besides its publications in English, the 
 Society has sent out a considerable num- 
 ber of tracts in French, German, Spanish, 
 and other languages, for the various emi- 
 grants that arrive in the United States. 
 
 The other measure referred to is the 
 systematic periodical distribution of tracts 
 in cities, towns, villages, and even rural 
 districts, though this cannot be done di- 
 rectly by the Society, so much as by the 
 numerous auxiliaries which it endeavours 
 heartily to engage in carrying it through. 
 The object is to place a tract, at least once 
 in the month, in every family willing to 
 receive one, and, where practicable, to ac- 
 company it with religious conversation, 
 especially where ignorance of the Gospel 
 or family affliction renders it peculiarly 
 called for. In pursuing this design, the 
 city, town, or viihige is divided into small 
 geographical districts, each containing a 
 certain number of families, and assigning 
 to each a sufficiency of zealous, intelligent, 
 and prudent Christians to make monthly 
 visits to every family, and leave the tract 
 selected for the month. Some will require 
 more than one visit, particularly the sick 
 and the destitute ; but houses where the 
 inmates persist in refusing tracts, in spite 
 of every effort to overcome their reluc- 
 tance, are passed by. 
 
 This plan, wherever justice has been done 
 to it in practice, has been found eminently 
 beneficial. Cases of poverty and disease 
 are discovered and made known to associ- 
 ations and individuals likely to attend to 
 them. Many persons, living in the con- 
 stant neglect of pubHc worship, are in- 
 duced to attend the preaching of the Gos- 
 pel. The churches in the neighbourhood 
 are pointed out to them, and they are ex- 
 horted to go to such as they may prefer. 
 
 Such is th(! procedure in many places 
 throughout the United Slates, liitliecity 
 of New- York it has been in operation for 
 five or six years, and with abundance of 
 
 blessed results. According to municipaF 
 regulations, the city, which now has above 
 320,000 inhabitants, is divided into wards, 
 and to each of these, when practicable, 
 there is appointed what is called a super- 
 intendent, generally a minister of the Gos- 
 pel, a young man who devotes himself 
 wholly to the work. The superintendents 
 divide their wards into districts, find a dis- 
 tributer of either ^ex for each, hold fre- 
 quent meetings with their distributers, pro- 
 vide them with tracts for distribution, re- 
 ceive their reports, draw up a general one 
 for the monthly meeting of the City Tract 
 Society, under whose auspices the work 
 proceeds, and read their reports at those 
 meetings. Withal, they hold prayer meet- 
 ings in their respective wards almost every 
 night in the week, and engage competent- 
 persons to hold others which they cannot 
 themselves attend. The distributers la- 
 bour gratuitously. The superintendents 
 receive usually 600 dollars each as his sal- 
 ary. A few years ago these sixteen su- 
 perintendents were supported by the same 
 number of liberal Christian merchants and 
 mechanics in that city, who rejoiced to he 
 instrumental in maintaining this good work. 
 I shall conclude by giving the summary 
 of what was accomplished in New-York 
 during the year ending on the 1st of De- 
 cember 1843, as presented at the regular 
 annual public meeting, held in one of the 
 churches of that city. 
 
 1,050 average number of visiters (or distributers). 
 732,155 tracts distributed, containing 3,425,781 pages. 
 936 Bibles and 558 Testaments received from the New- 
 York Bible Society, and supplied to the destitute. 
 4,496 volumes lent from the ward libraries. 
 2,200 children gathered into Sabbath-schools. 
 315 children gathered into public schools. 
 131 persons gathered into Bible-classes. 
 904 persons induced to attend church. 
 705 temperance pledges obtained. 
 1,433 district prayer- meetings held. 
 
 43 backsliders reclaimed. i 
 
 396 persons hopefully converted. 
 342 converts united with evangelical churches. 
 
 Such is the tabular view presented by 
 one year's labour in the field of Tract dis- 
 tribution in one city. 
 
 Besides the American Tract Society, 
 which may be regarded as a vast reservoir 
 of common truth — of doctrines about which 
 all evangelical Protestants are agreed — ■ 
 there are other societies that publish reli- 
 gious tracts and books ; and among these I 
 may mention, as distinguished for the ener- 
 gy of its management and the extent of its 
 operations, the " Book Concern" of the 
 Methodist Episcopal CJiurch. This institu- 
 tion is situated in New-York, under the con- 
 trol of the General Conference, which, every 
 four years, appoints a committee to direct 
 its operations. Two able agents are intrust- 
 ed with the management, and are required 
 to make full returns to the Bishops and to 
 tlie (Jencral ("onference. It must not be 
 thought tliat all its numerous publications 
 are stamped with the peculiarities of the 
 
Chap. XXI.] 
 
 RELIGIOUS LITERATURE. 
 
 169 
 
 Methodist doctrines ; not a few of them 
 are the same in character with those pub- 
 lished by the American Tract Society — 
 such, for instance, as the " Saints' Rest." 
 The sales are not confined to the main de- 
 pository at New- York, and the branches 
 established at some other great centres of 
 trade ; its publications are retailed by all 
 the travelling ministers of that extensive 
 body, and thus find their way into the 
 most remote log-cabins of the West. And 
 wl)o can calculate the good that may re- 
 sult from reading the biographical and di- 
 dactic volumes thus put into circulation 1 
 Who can tell what triumphs over sin, what 
 penitential tears, what hopes made to spring 
 up in despairing hearts, what holy resolu- 
 tions, owe their existence, under God, to 
 these books 1 The amount of the sales of 
 this institution and its branches was, last 
 year, fully 125,000 dollars. 
 
 The Old School Presbyterians have also 
 a Board of Publication, which has put forth 
 not only a considerable number of doctri- 
 nal tracts in which the distinctive views of 
 that body are ably maintained, but many 
 books also of solid worth, which are gain- 
 ing an extensive circulation among its own 
 members, and the professors of the Calvin- 
 istic system generally. The receipts of 
 this Board were, last year, 18,160 dollars, 
 and its expenditures 18,409 dollars. 
 
 The regular Baptists, too, have their 
 Tract and Book Society earnestly engaged 
 in the good work of supplying their people 
 with publications addressed both to the con- 
 verted and the unconverted. The receipts of 
 that Board were last year 9906 dollars, and 
 its expenditures 9869. The Episcopalians, 
 Free-Will Baptists, the Quakers or Friends, 
 the Lutherans, and the Protestant Metho- 
 dists, have all their own Tract Societies ; 
 the last two have their " Publication Com- 
 mittees" and their Book Establishments. 
 Other denominations, also, may possibly 
 have theirs. The amount of evangelical 
 tracts and books put into circulation by all 
 these " societies," " boards," and " com- 
 mittees," put together, cannot be exactly 
 ascertained. Their value in money, I mean 
 for what they are sold, can hardly be less 
 than 300,000 dollars. They all help to 
 swell the great stream of Truth, as it rolls 
 its health-giving waters through the land. 
 May God grant that these efforts may go 
 on continually increasing from year to 
 year, until every family shall be blessed 
 with a well-stored library of sound reli- 
 gious books. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE UNITED 
 STATES. 
 
 While it would be very foreign to the 
 object of this work to enter upon any dis- 
 
 cussion as to the value and extent of the 
 general literature of the United States, it is 
 not out of place to say something respect- 
 ing that part of it which falls under the 
 head of Religion. 
 
 And first, let me advert to that which, 
 without reference to its origin, includes all 
 the literature of a religious kind now cir- 
 culating through the country. In this sense, 
 our religious literature is by far the most 
 extensive in the world, with the single ex- 
 ception of that of Great Britain. We have 
 a population of 18,500,000; and, even inclu- 
 ding the African race among us, and regard- 
 ing the country as a whole, we have a lar- 
 ger proportion of readers than can be found 
 in most other nations. Indeed, I am not 
 aware of any whole kingdom or nation that 
 has more. Deducting the coloured popu- 
 lation, we have 15,500,000 of people who, 
 whatever may have been their origin, are 
 Anglo-American in character, and to a 
 great extent speak and read the English 
 language. Not only so, but of these a very 
 large proportion are religious in their char- 
 acters and habits, as we shall show in an- 
 other place ; and, among the rest, there 
 is a widely prevalent respect for Christi- 
 anity, and a disposition to make themselves 
 acquainted with it. 
 
 To meet the demand created by so large 
 a body of religious and serious readers, we 
 have a vast number of publications in 
 every department of Christian theology, 
 and these are derived from various sources. 
 Some have been translated from German 
 and French ; some from the Latin of more 
 or less ancient times ; some from the 
 Greek ; while many of our learned men, 
 and particularly of our divines, read some 
 or all these languages, and would think 
 their libraries very deficient in the litera- 
 ture with which they ought to be familiar, 
 did they not contain a good stock of such 
 books imported from distant Europe. 
 
 Again, we have either republished or im- 
 ported a great many of the best English 
 religious works, both of the present times 
 and of two or three centuries back. Such 
 as seem adapted for popular use, and as 
 many of a more learned cast as seem likely 
 to justify their republication, are reprinted ; 
 while not a few copies of many more are 
 ordered from Europe through the book- 
 sellers. 
 
 Some American reprints of English reli- 
 gious books, particularly of works of a 
 practical character, have had an immense 
 circulation. The commentaries of Scott, 
 Henry, Doddridge, Adam Clarke, and Gill, 
 have been extensively sold, and some 
 booksellers owe a large part of their for- 
 tunes to the success of the American edi- 
 tions. All the sterling English writers on 
 religious subjects, of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, as well as of later times, are familiar 
 to our Christian readers ; and the smaller 
 
170 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 practical treatises of Flavel, Baxter, Bos- 
 ton, Doddridge, and others, have been very 
 widely disseminated. Bates, Charnock, 
 Flavel, Howe, the Henrys, &c., are well 
 known among us, as are also Jeremy Tay- 
 lor, Barrow, Bishops Hall and Wilson (of 
 Sodor and Man), and many more whom I 
 need not name. As for more modern 
 limes, the names of Thomas Scott and 
 Adam Clarke are household words, and 
 Chalmers is known to hundreds of thou- 
 sands who will never see his face in this 
 world. There are many others in Eng- 
 land and Scotland with whose names we 
 have been famihar from our youth. In 
 English systematic theology no names are 
 more known or esteemed than the late An- 
 drew Fuller and Thomas Watson. And 
 although it cannot be said that every good 
 religious work that appears in Great Brit- 
 ain is republished in the United States, a 
 large proportion of the best certainly are, 
 especially such as are of a catholic nature, 
 and many of them, I am assured, have a 
 wider circulation in the United States than 
 in England itself. 
 
 The United States have sometimes been 
 reproached by foreigners as a country 
 without any literature of native growth. 
 M. de Tocqueville, arguing from general 
 principles, and, as he supposes, philosophi- 
 cally, seems to think that, from the nature 
 of things, the country, because a republic, 
 never can have much literature of its own. 
 He forgets that even the purest democrat- 
 ical government that the world has ever 
 seen, that of Athens, produced in its day 
 more distinguished poets, orators, histori- 
 ans, philosophers, as well as painters and 
 sculptors, than any other city or country 
 of the same population in the world. He 
 full well knows, however, that the govern- 
 ment of the United States is not an unmixed 
 democracy, and that in everything that 
 bears upon the higher branches of learning, 
 our institutions are as much above the con- 
 trol of a democracy as those of any other 
 country. The grand disadvantage, accord- 
 ing to M. de Tocqueville, under which our 
 literature labours is, that authors are not 
 encouraged by pensions from the govern- 
 ment. But are these so absolutely indis- 
 pensable ■? Have such encouragements 
 accomplished all that has been expected 
 from themi Are they not often shame- 
 fully abused, and merely made to gratify 
 the personal predilections of ministers of 
 state ] Besides, it is notorious that in 
 England at least, where the government 
 professes, I understand, to patronise liter- 
 ature, the most distinguished authors, in all 
 its various departments, owe nothing to 
 that source. As for the patronage of asso- 
 ciations and wealthy individuals, it may 
 exist just as well in the United States as 
 anywhere else, and, in fact, is not unknown 
 •Ihere. 
 
 But our literature, it is said, is not known 
 beyond the country itself; and this is to 
 some extent true. But that few, compara- 
 tively, even of the distinguished authors of 
 any country, are known beyond its limits, 
 might easily be shown in the case of 
 France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and 
 Italy. With the exception of the corps of 
 literary men, even the well informed among 
 the English are little acquainted with the 
 literature of those countries, and but for 
 what they learn through the medium of the 
 Reviews, would hardly know so much as 
 the names of some of their most distin- 
 guished authors. No doubt the literature 
 of every civilized nation greatly influences 
 that of all others ; not, however, by its 
 having a general circulation in those coun- 
 tries, but because of the master minds who 
 first familiarize themselves with it, and 
 then transfer all of it that is most valuable 
 into their own, just as Milton appropriated 
 the beauties of Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. 
 
 The United States have unquestionably 
 produced a considerable number of authors 
 in every branch of literature, who, to say 
 the least, are respectable in point of emi- 
 nence.* Their being unknown to those 
 who make use of the fact as a reproach to 
 the country, may possibly be owing to 
 something else than the want of real merit 
 on their part ; and if, upon the whole, they 
 present only what appears to foreigners 
 nothing beyond a respectable mediocrity, 
 
 * It would not be difficult to make out a tolerably 
 long list of authors who must be pronounced, by 
 those who know anything of them, to be such as 
 would be a disgrace to no country ; and many of 
 them are not unknown in Europe. Among living 
 writers on law in its various branches, we have Kent, 
 Story, Webster, Wheaton ; in medicine, Mott, War- 
 ren, Beck, Ray, Jackson, and many others ; in theol- 
 ogy and Biblical science, Stuart, Miller, Woods, the 
 Alexanders, Hodge, Wayland, Robinson, Conant, 
 Barnes, Stowe, Beecher, Schmucker, Hawks, the Ab- 
 bots, &c.; in belles-lettres and history, Irving, Pres- 
 cott, Anthon, Bancroft, Walsh, Cooper, Pauldmg ; ia 
 science, Silliman, Hitchcock, Henrv, Davies ; and po- 
 litical economy, Carey, Vethake, Biddle, Raymond. 
 These are but a few, selected chiefly with reference 
 to their being known to some extent, at any rate, in 
 Europe. Among the distinguished dead, we have 
 Marshall, Livingston, Madison, Jefferson, Jay; Rush, 
 Dorsey, Wistar, Dewees, Godman ; the Edwardses, 
 Davies, Dwight, Smith, Mason, Emmons, Channing, 
 Griffin, Rice; Wirt, Noah Webster, Ramsay; Frank- 
 lin, Ewing, and Hamilton. In the fine arts, we have 
 had a West, an Alston, and have now a Greenough, a 
 Powers, a Crawford ; while in the useful arts, as they 
 are called, we have not been without men of some 
 renown, as the names of Fulton, Whitney, and oth- 
 ers attest. 
 
 Nor are American books unknown in Great Brit- 
 ain, the only country in Europe in which they could 
 be extensively read. In " Bent's London Catalogue" 
 we find the names of G8 American works on theolo- 
 gy, GO in fiction, 5G of juvenile literature, 52 of trav- 
 els, 41 on education, 2G on biography, 22 on history, 
 12 on poetry, 11 on metaphysics, 10 on philosophy, 9 
 on science, ;md 9 on law — in all, 382, which have 
 been republished in England within the last ten 
 years. Besides these, a good many books published 
 in America are imported every year into Great 
 Britain. 
 
Chap. XXI.] 
 
 RELIGIOUS LITERATURE. 
 
 171 
 
 this may readily be accounted for by other 
 causes besides any hopeless peculiarity al- 
 leged to exist in the people or their govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The country is still comparatively new. 
 Much has yet' to be done in felling the for- 
 est and clearing it for the habitations of 
 civilized man. But a small part of our 
 territory bears evidence of having been 
 long settled. Our people have passed 
 through exciting scenes that left but little 
 leisure for writing. Few families possess 
 much wealth. The greater number of our 
 institutions of learning are of recent origin. 
 None of them have such ancient founda- 
 tions as are to be found in many European 
 universities ; our colleges have no fellow- 
 ships ; our professors have their time much 
 occupied in giving instruction ; our pastors, 
 lawyers, and physicians find but little lei- 
 sure, amid their professional labours, for 
 the cultivation of hterature. We have no 
 sinecures — no pensions — for learned men. 
 There is too much public life and excite- 
 ment to allow the rich to find pleasure in 
 Sybaritic enjoyments ; and they have other 
 sources of happiness than the extensive 
 possession of paintings and statues, though 
 even for these the taste is gaining ground. 
 
 But to return to our proper subject, the 
 religious literature of the United States : 
 the number of our authors in this depart- 
 ment is by no means small. Many valua- 
 ble works, the productions of native minds, 
 issue year after year from the press, a very 
 large proportion of which are of a practical 
 kind, and unquestionably exert a most salu- 
 tary influence. They meet with an exten- 
 sive sale, for the taste for such reading is 
 widely diff'used, fostered as it is by the es- 
 tablishment of Sunday-schools and the li- 
 braries attached to them.* 
 
 To the religious literature of books must 
 be added that of periodical works — news- 
 papers, magazines, reviews — and nowhere 
 else, perhaps, is this literature so extensive 
 or so efficient. More than sixty evangeli- 
 cal religious newspapers are published once 
 a week. The Methodists publish eight, in- 
 cluding one in the German tongue, and all 
 under the direction of their Conferences. 
 The Episcopalians have twelve ; the Bap- 
 tists twenty ; the Presbyterians of all 
 classes, including the Congregationalists, 
 Dutch and German Reformed, Lutherans, 
 &c., about twenty more. This estimate in- 
 cludes evangelical Protestant papers only. 
 In all, they cannot have fewer than 250,000 
 subscribers. The Christian Advocate (Meth- 
 cdist), published at New-York, has about 
 26,000 ; a few years ago it had 30,000, but 
 the number diminished in consequence of 
 the establishment of other Methodist pa- 
 
 * I need not repeat here what has been said of the 
 immense circulation of books by the Sunday-school 
 and the Tract and Book societies, including the 
 -"Book Concern" of the Methodists. 
 
 pers. The New-York Observer has 16,000 
 subscribers, and several of the rest have a 
 circulation of from 5000 to 10,000 each. 
 They comprise a vast amount of religious 
 intelligence, as well as valuable selections 
 from pamphlets and books ; and though it 
 may be the case that religious newspapers 
 sometimes prevent more substantial read- 
 ing, yet it must be confessed, I think, that 
 they are doing great good, and are perused 
 by many who would otherwise read little 
 or nothing at all of a religious character. 
 Besides these newspapers, there is a large 
 number of religious monthly and semi- 
 monthly magazines, and several quarterly 
 reviews, in which valuable essays on sub- 
 jects of importance may be found from 
 time to time.* 
 
 The political papersf in the United 
 States, though often extremely violent in 
 party politics, are in many instances aux- 
 iliary to the cause of religion. While the 
 editors of some, happily not many, are op- 
 posed to everything that savours of reli- 
 gion, and even allow it to be outraged in 
 their columns, an overwhelming majority 
 often give excellent articles, and publish a 
 large amount of religious intelligence. In 
 this respect there has evidently been a 
 remarkable improvement within the last 
 twenty years. Many of the political jour- 
 nals have rendered immense service in 
 
 * Two of these quarterlies are published under 
 the auspices of the Presbyterians of the Old and New 
 Schools ; the " Biblical Repertory and Princeton 
 Review," at Princeton, New-Jersey, which is the 
 organ of the former, and the " American Biblical 
 Repository," at New- York. The " Methodist Maga- 
 zine and Quarterly Review," and the " Christian Re- 
 view," conducted by the Baptists, are both valuable 
 periodicals ; and all four contain able reviews and 
 essays. The " Christian Register" is published 
 monthly ; it is the organ of the Unitarians, and is 
 conducted with much ability. 
 
 t In the year 1839, according to the statistics fur- 
 nished by the Postmaster-general, the number of 
 " newspapers and other periodical journals in the 
 United States" was 1555, of which 116 were pub- 
 lished daily (the Sabbath excepted), fourteen three 
 times a week, thirty-nine twice a week, and 991 once 
 a week. The remainder, which were issued twice 
 a month, monthly, or quarterly, were principally 
 magazines and reviews. Of the newspapers, thirty- 
 eight were in the German language, four in French, 
 one in Spanish, and the rest in English. Several of 
 the New-Orleans papers are published both in French 
 and English. The circulation of these newspapers 
 and other periodicals is immense. Of the newspa- 
 pers alone the subscriptions are at least 1,000,000. 
 And though the number is too great by one half or 
 three fourths, and though many are conducted by 
 men who are but poorly qualified for the responsible 
 and difficult task of an editor, yet there is no deny- 
 ing that even the poorest of them carry a vast amount 
 of information to readers in the most secluded and 
 distant settlements, as well as to the inhabitants of 
 the most populous districts. And if we take the 
 editors in the mass, it must be acknowledged that 
 they are very ready to lend their columns to the pub- 
 lication of religious articles, of a suitable character 
 and length, when requested by good men. And 
 did Christians feel as they ought on this subject, 
 and do what they might, the " press" would be far 
 more useful to the cause of religion that it is. 
 
172 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 the Temperance cause, as well as in every 
 other involving the alleviation of human 
 suffering. 
 
 Some of the literary and political Re- 
 views of native origin are very respectable 
 works of the kind ; the North American 
 Review, in particular, which has now ex- 
 isted more than a quarter of a century. 
 There are also several valuable monthly 
 Reviews. Besides these, the leading Re- 
 views published in Britain, such as the 
 Edinburgh, the London Quarterly, West- 
 minster, Foreign Quarterly, Dublin, &c., 
 are all republished among us. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 EFFORTS TO PROMOTE THE RELIGIOUS AND 
 TEMPORAL INTERESTS OF SEAMEN. 
 
 We have spoken of the endeavours made 
 to send the Gospel to the destitute settle- 
 ments of the United States, both in the West 
 and in the East, but we must not forget 
 that the population of that country includes 
 100,000 men whose home is on the deep, 
 and " who do business in the great wa- 
 ters," a number which must be almost 
 doubled if we include those who navigate 
 the rivers and lakes in steamboats, sailing 
 vessels, and other craft. 
 
 The first systematic efforts made on a 
 large scale, in the United States, for the 
 salvation of seamen, commenced in 1812, 
 at Boston. Since then much interest in 
 the subject has been awakened at almost 
 every port along the seaboard ; and within 
 the last few years a great deal has been 
 done for boatmen and sailors on the rivers 
 and lakes. 
 
 The American Seaman's Friend Society 
 was instituted at New- York in 1827, and 
 is now the chief association engaged in 
 this benevolent enterprise. It serves, in 
 some sense, as a central point to local so- 
 cieties formed in the other leading sea- 
 ports, as well as those on the Western riv- 
 ers, though they are not, in general, con- 
 nected with it nominally.* By a monthly 
 publication, called the Sailor's Magazine, 
 it communicates to pious seamen much 
 interesting information regarding the prog- 
 ress of truth among that class of men, with 
 details of its own proceedings, and those 
 of other associations of the same kind. 
 
 Chapels have now been opened for sea- 
 men, and public worship maintained on 
 their account in almost all the principal 
 seaports from the northeast to the south- 
 west, chaplains being engaged for the pur- 
 pose, and supported chielly by local socie- 
 ties. Those in the service of the central 
 
 * There are no fewer than fifty of these local as- 
 sociations for the proinotion of the spiritual and tem- 
 poral welfare of seamen and rivermen in the United 
 States. 
 
 society are, with few exceptions, stationed 
 at foreign ports, such as Havre, in France, 
 Canton, in China, Sydney, in New South 
 Wales, Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands, 
 and Cronstadt, in Russia. It had chaplains 
 at one time, also, at Rio Janeiro, Marseilles, 
 and some other places. 
 
 Besides promoting the establishment of 
 public worship under chaplains at sear- 
 ports, the society has strongly and suc- 
 cessfully recommended the opening of 
 good boarding-houses and reading-rooms 
 for seamen when on shore, and the promo- 
 tion of their temporal comfort in every 
 way possible. 
 
 The efforts of the different associations 
 for seamen have been greatly blessed. 
 Last year, in particular, was marked by 
 special mercies. In no fewer than ten or 
 twelve ports there were manifest outpour- 
 ings of the Holy Spirit on the meetings 
 for religious instruction. A hundred and 
 fifty sailors were reported by one of the 
 chaplains at Philadelphia as having been 
 converted under his ministry, and among 
 these was an old man, ninety-nine years 
 of age, who had been, from time to time,^ 
 a drunkard for more than seventy years. 
 
 There are supposed to be 600 pious cap- 
 tains in the United States' mercantile navy. 
 There are also several decidedly religious 
 oflUcers in the national marine, who exer- 
 cise a happy influence on the service. The 
 pious seamen belonging to the United 
 States are now reckoned at about 6000 ; a 
 most gratifying contrast to the state of 
 things twenty-five years ago, when a pious 
 seaman, of any class, was rarely to be met 
 with. 
 
 The income of the society for the last 
 year was $12,992, without including the 
 receipts of the local associations, which 
 must have been considerable. Its expen- 
 ditures were $13,785. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRIN- 
 CIPLE IN REFORMING EXISTING EVILS. TEM- 
 PERANCE SOCIETIES. 
 
 We have contemplated the Voluntary 
 Principle as the main support of religion 
 and its institutions in the United States. 
 We have now to consider its powers of 
 correcting, or rather overcoming, some of 
 the evils that prevail in society. And first, 
 let us see how it has contended with In- 
 temperance, one of the greatest evils that 
 have ever afflicted the human race. 
 
 It is not easy to depict in a few words 
 the ravages of drunkenness in the United 
 States. The early wars of the Colonial 
 age, the long war of the Revolution, and, 
 finally, that of 1812-15 with Kngland, all 
 contributed to promote this tremendous. 
 
Chap. XXIII.] 
 
 TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES. 
 
 173 
 
 evil. The very abundance of God's gifts 
 became, by their perversion, a means of 
 augmenting it. The country being fertile, 
 nearly through its whole extent, and pro- 
 ducing immense quantities of wheat, rye, 
 and corn,* the last two of which were de- 
 •voted to the manufacture of whiskey, there 
 seemed no feasible check, or conceivable 
 limit to the ever-growing evil, especially 
 as the government had no such pressure 
 on its finances as might justify the laying 
 on of a tax that would prevent or diminish 
 the manufacture of ardent spirits. More- 
 over, the idea had become almost univer- 
 sally prevalent that the use of such stimu- 
 lants, at least in moderate quantities, was 
 not only beneficial, but almost indispensa- 
 ble for health, as well as for enabling men 
 to bear up under toil and fatigue. 
 
 The mischief spread from year to year. 
 It pervaded all classes of society. The 
 courts of justice, the administration of gov- 
 ernment, the very pulpit itself, felt its dire- 
 ful influence. The intellect of the physi- 
 cian, and the hand of the surgeon, were 
 too often paralyzed by it ; and it might be 
 said, that what some thought to be ordain- 
 ed unto life, was found to produce death. 
 Poverty, disease, crime, punishment, mis- 
 ery, were the natural fruits which it brought 
 forth abundantly. Society was aflSicted in 
 almost all its ranks ; nearly every family 
 throughout the land beheld the plague in 
 one or more of its members. Yet for a 
 long time, while all saw and lamented the 
 evil, none stood up against it. But there 
 were those that mourned, and wept, and 
 prayed over the subject, and the God of 
 our fathers, who had been with them on 
 the ocean and amid the dreary wilderness, 
 to watch over them and to protect them, 
 heard those prayers. 
 
 In the year 1812, a considerable effort 
 was made to arouse the attention of Chris- 
 tians to the growing evils of intemperance, 
 and a day of fasting and of prayer was ob- 
 served by some religious bodies. In the 
 following year, the Massachusetts Soci- 
 ety for the Suppression of Intemperance 
 was formed, and its labours were mani- 
 festly useful. Still, " the plague was not 
 stayed." The subject, however, was not 
 allowed to drop. It was seen that the So- 
 ciety had not gone far enough, and that it 
 would not do to admit of ardent spirits be- 
 ing taken, even in moderation. The evil 
 of wide-spread drunkenness never could be 
 exterminated by such half-way measures. 
 
 It was proposed, accordingly, in 1826, to 
 proceed upon the principle of entire absti- 
 nence from the use of ardent or distilled 
 spirits as a beverage, and that same year 
 saw the formation at Boston of the Ameri- 
 can Temperance Society. The press was 
 
 * The word com is almost invariably employed in 
 America to designate the grain commonly called 
 tnaize in England, and BU de Turquie in France. 
 
 soon set in motion to make its objects 
 known, and able agents were employed in 
 advocating its principles. Great was the 
 success that followed. In the course of a 
 few years societies were to be found in all 
 parts of the country, and were joined, not 
 by thousands only, but by hundreds of 
 thousands. People of all classes and ages 
 entered zealously into so noble an under- 
 taking. Ministers of the Gospel, lawyers, 
 and judges, legislators, physicians, took a 
 prominent part in urging it on. 
 
 What need is there of words 1 The cause 
 continues advancing to this day. To reach 
 the poor, as well as to remove temptation 
 from the rich, the rules of the Temperance 
 societies within the last six or seven years 
 have included " all intoxicating drinks." 
 Upon this principle, wines of all descrip- 
 tions have generally been abandoned, both 
 on account of their being mostly impure 
 with us — being imported, and all more or 
 less intoxicating — and because they are 
 not found necessary to persons in health, 
 but, on the contrary, injurious ; besides 
 which, it was of consequence that an ex- 
 ample of self-denial should be given by 
 those who could afford to buy wine, for the 
 sake of the poor, who could not. 
 
 But, in the progress of the Temperance 
 reformation, little was done to reclaim men 
 who had already become drunkards. And 
 yet, at the lowest estimate, there were 
 300,000 such in the United States ; many 
 even reckoned them at 500,000 at the com- 
 mencement of the Temperance movement. 
 No hope seemed to be entertained with re- 
 spect to these. To prevent such as had 
 not yet become confirmed drunkards from 
 acquiring that fatal habit, was the utmost 
 that any one dared to expect. A few drunk- 
 ards, indeed, were here and there re- 
 claimed ; but the mass remained unaffected 
 by all the cogent arguments and affecting 
 appeals that were resounding through the 
 country. 
 
 At length God, in his wonderful provi- 
 dence, revealed the way by which these 
 miserable persons might be reached. And 
 how simple ! A few hard drinkers in the 
 city of Baltimore, who were in the habit 
 of meeting in a low tavern for the purpose 
 of revelry, and had been drunkards for 
 years, met one night as usual. All hap- 
 pened to be sober. Apparently by acci- 
 dent, the conversation fell upon the mis- 
 eries of their life. One after another re- 
 counted his wretched history. All were 
 deeply affected with the pictures of their 
 own degradation thus held up to their 
 minds. Some one proposed that they 
 should stop in their career of folly and 
 wickedness, and form themselves into a 
 Temperance association. They did so. 
 Rules were written and signed on the spot. 
 They met again the next night, related 
 their histories, wept together over their 
 
174 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IT. 
 
 past delusions, and strengthened each oth- 
 er's resolutions. They continued to meet 
 almost every night— not, however, at a 
 tavern. They invited their companions 
 in sin to join them. These were affected 
 and won. The fire was kindled, and soon 
 it spread. In a few weeks four hundred 
 such persons joined the society. In a few 
 months no fewer than 2000 drunkards in 
 the city of Baltimore were reclaimed. 
 Then the movement came to light. The 
 newspapers spread the wonderful news. 
 The whole country was astonished. Chris- 
 tians lifted up their hearts in thankfulness 
 to God, and took courage. Benevolent 
 men rallied around these reformed persons, 
 and encouraged them to perseverance. 
 
 The society of reclaimed drunkards in 
 Baltimore was invited to send delegates to 
 other cities; and soon the "apostles of Tem- 
 perance," as these men were called, went 
 forth to every city in the land. Great was 
 their success. Hundreds and thousands 
 were reclaimed in New- York, Philadelphia, 
 Boston, Albany, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and 
 from these cities, as from great centres, 
 other delegations of reformed drunkards 
 went forth into almost every village and 
 district in the land. 
 
 This movement commenced on the 6th 
 of April, 1840 ; and it is now estimated that 
 100,000 drunkards have already been re- 
 claimed. But it may be said that they will 
 relapse. No doubt some will. Hitherto, 
 however, but few comparatively have done 
 so. And the secret of this is to be found 
 in the immense support which the esprit du 
 corps gives them. There is everywhere a 
 considerable band of such. They meet often 
 to encourage each other. Good men are .ev- 
 erywhere ready to encourage and befriend 
 them. Never has the world seen anything 
 like it. What an encouragement to every 
 good effort ! What confidence does it not 
 inspire in the influence of well-concert- 
 ed action in behalf of virtue and religion! 
 God has smiled wonderfully on this move- 
 ment. Already many who have been thus 
 reclaimed from intemperance, and led to 
 frequent the House of God, have been con- 
 verted by the Spirit of the Lord, and are 
 now " sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, 
 and in their right mind." 
 
 To go farther into detail would not con- 
 sist with the nature of this work. A large 
 proportion of the population of the Uni- 
 ted States are now under the happy influ- 
 ence of total abstinence from all intoxi- 
 cating drinks. In 1826, when the temper- 
 ance reform commenced, it was estimated 
 that at least 60,000,000 gallons of whiskey 
 were manufactured and consumed annual- 
 ly in the United States, without including 
 the imported brandies, rum. &c. This es- 
 timate was unquestionably a very low 
 one. In 1840, that is, fourteen years after- 
 ward, the census stated that the number 
 
 of gallons distilled during that year was 
 36,343,336, showing a falling off of more 
 than 23,000,000 gallons ; and yet, within the 
 same period, the population had augmented 
 by more than 5,000,000 souls ! And all this 
 reformation has been brought about solely 
 through the operation of voluntary associa- 
 tions, without the slightest direct aid from 
 the government, with the exception of its 
 having abolished the daily ration of whis- 
 key formerly given to the officers and men 
 in the army. Could anything in the world 
 show more conclusively the resources 
 which right principles possess in them- 
 selves for overcoming, under God's bless- 
 ing, the evils which are in the world, and 
 even those which derive most power from 
 the depraved appetites of man ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE AMERICAN PRISON DISCIPLINE SOCIETY. 
 
 The Prison Discipline Society was insti- 
 tuted in 1824. It had for its object an in- 
 vestigation into the best methods of treat- 
 ment for convicts and other prisoners, with 
 a view to their health, proper degree of 
 comfort, and, above all, their moral and re- 
 ligious reformation. 
 
 Previous to the establishment of this So- 
 ciety, the prisons in the United States were- 
 all conducted according to the old practice 
 of herding the prisoners together in large 
 numbers, without any due regard to their 
 health, and with the inevitable certainty 
 of their corrupting one another. In most 
 cases, there was little regular religious in- 
 struction ; in some, none at all. The pris- 
 oners were generally left idle, so that their 
 maintenance, instead of being so far de- 
 frayed by the proceeds of their work, fell 
 entirely on the public, and involved a heavy 
 expense. 
 
 But a great reformation has now been 
 effected. The Society's able, enlightened, 
 and zealous secretary, the only agent, I 
 believe, in its service, has devoted nearly 
 his whole time and energies to the subject 
 for nearly twenty years. During that pe- 
 riod he has examined the prisons in all 
 parts of the country, has studied whatever 
 was defective or wrong in each, has de- 
 vised improvements in the construction of 
 prison buildings, has visited the Legisla- 
 tures of the several states, and delivered 
 lectures to them on the subject, besides 
 giving to the world, in the eighteen Re- 
 ports that have come from his pen, such 
 a mass of well-digested information as is 
 probably nowhere else to be found in any 
 language. The results have been wonder- 
 ful. Now penitentiaries, upon the most 
 improved plans, have been erected in al- 
 most all states by their respective govern- 
 ments, and in many cases at a great ex- 
 pense. These institutions are very geu- 
 
Chap. XXIV.] 
 
 PRISON DISCIPLINE SOCIETY. 
 
 175 
 
 erally under the direction of decidedly re- 
 ligious men. Judicious and faithful preach- 
 ers have been appointed as chaplains in 
 many of them ; and in the others, neigh- 
 bouring pastors have been invited to 
 preach the Gospel, and visit the inmates 
 as often as they can. Bible-classes and 
 Sunday-schools have been established in 
 several instances ; and in all, pains are ta- 
 ken to teach prisoners to read where they 
 have yet to learn, so that they may be 
 able to peruse the Word of God. 
 
 A great blessing has rested upon these 
 efforts. In many prisons very hopeful 
 reformations have taken place ; and in 
 many cases, it is believed, after long and 
 careful examination and trial, that con- 
 victs, who were hardened in their sins, 
 have submitted their hearts to that adora- 
 ble Saviour who died to save the very 
 chief of sinners. Taken as a whole, in 
 no other country in the world, probably, 
 are the penitentiaries and prisons brought 
 under a better moral and religious disci- 
 pline. This great result has been brought 
 about, first, by the erection of new and more 
 convenient buildings, and, secondly, by 
 committing their direction so generally to 
 decided and zealous Christians. This has 
 brought pure Christianity into contact with 
 the minds of convicts to an extent un- 
 known in former times in America, and 
 still too little known in many other lands.* 
 
 * It may not be generally known that two difter- 
 ent systems of disciplme are to be found in the pris- 
 ons of the I'nited States, each having its ardent ad- 
 mirers. There is, first, the Philadelphia system, ac- 
 cording to which the prisoners are entirely separated 
 day and night, so that they are unknown to each 
 other, and live in separate chambers or cells. And 
 next there is the Auburn system, so called because 
 adopted in the prison for the State of New-York, 
 at Auburn, a town m the central part of that state. 
 According to it, the prisoners are separated from 
 each other at night, but work together in companies 
 during the day, under the eye of overseers and guards, 
 but are not allowed to speak to each other. They 
 are assembled, also, morning and evening, for prayers ; 
 and on the Sabbath they meet in the chapel for pub- 
 lic worship, conducted by a chaplain or some other 
 minister of the Gospel. Each system has its advan- 
 tages and disadvantages. For health, facility in 
 communicating religious instruction, and the saving 
 of expense through the avails of the labour of the 
 prisoners, the latter, in my opinion, has evidently the 
 advantage. The former furnishes greater security, 
 enables the prisoners to remain unknown to their fel- 
 lows on leaving the prison, and more effectually breaks 
 down the spirit of the most hardened criminals. But 
 the ditierence in point of expense is immense : nor 
 are the moral results of the more e.xpensive plan so 
 decidedly superior as to compensate for this disad- 
 vantage. It is a singular fact, that the Auburn sys- 
 tem has been decidedly preferred by the Prison Disci- 
 pline Society, and by our citizens generally, for it 
 has been adopted by all but four of the penitentiaries'^ 
 in the country ; whereas the Philadelphia plan has 
 been preferred by ihe commissioners sent from France, 
 England, and Prussia, to examine our prisons. For 
 myselt, I apprehend that sufficient time has not been 
 allowed lor a due estimate of their comparative ' 
 merits. After payin g considerable attention to the 
 
 * And even one of these has abandoned it for the Auburn 
 system. 
 
 Besides effecting this great reformation 
 in the State penitentiaries and prisons, the 
 Society has directed much of its attention 
 to the Asylums for the Insane, and to 
 county or district prisons for persons com- 
 mitted for trial, for convicts sentenced to 
 short terms of imprisonment, and for debt- 
 ors, in states where the law still allows 
 imprisonment for debt. In all these various 
 establishments the American Prison Disci- 
 pline Society is exerting much influence, 
 and gradually effecting the most important 
 ameliorations. It has also discussed in a 
 very able manner many questions in crim- 
 inal legislation ; such as those of impris- 
 onment for debt, capital punishments, &c., 
 and its labours in this department have 
 not been in vain. Yet the Society has but 
 one agent — its excellent secretary, who 
 devotes, as I have said, all his time and 
 energies to the cause — and its whole re- 
 ceipts scarcely exceed 3000 dollars. With 
 these limited means, it has accomplished 
 an immense amount of good. 
 
 I know nothing that more fully demon- 
 strates how favourably disposed our Gov- 
 ernment is to Religion, and to all good ob- 
 jects, than the fact that the Legislatures 
 of so many of our states, as well as Con- 
 gress itself, have been so ready to second 
 every feasible plan for ameliorating the 
 condition of mankind by moral and reli- 
 gious means, as far as they can do so con- 
 sistently with their constitutional powers. 
 Indeed, they are ever ready to adopt meas- 
 ures suggested by good and judicious men, 
 as likely to benefit the public interests and 
 to promote Religion, provided they fall 
 within their sphere of action. 
 
 I may conclude this chapter by refer- 
 ring to the encouraging fact, stated by the 
 secretary in his yearly Report, presented 
 at the public meetmg in May, 1842 : That 
 crime has been for some years decreasing 
 in the country, at the rate of from two to 
 three per cent, per annum. This statement, 
 from one whose position and means of in- 
 formation constitute him the highest possi- 
 ble authority on the subject, is the more 
 encouraging, when we consider how many 
 difficulties have to be encountered in anev/ 
 country, and what a mighty stream of em- 
 igration from foreign lands is continually 
 
 subject, as far as I am able to judge, I should say 
 that, with the right sort of men to manage a prison — 
 religious men of great judgment and self-control — 
 the Auburn plan is the better. But if such mea 
 cannot be had, the Philadelphia system is safer. Tha 
 former demands extraordinary qualities in the keep- 
 ers, and especially in the superintendent, whose, 
 powers, as they must be great, are capable, also, of 
 being sadly abused. Much, indeed, depends on the 
 keepers under either system. 1 may add, that for the 
 ignorant, the rude, the sensual, the Auburn system 
 is far more salutary than that of Philadelphia; for to 
 such, entire solitary confinement is sadly destructive 
 to health and happiness. On the other hand, the 
 Philadelphia system is more tolerable and useful to 
 the better educated and the more mtellectual classes. 
 
176 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 bringing over new settlers who have had 
 little proper moral culture, and not a few 
 of whom are almost desperately depraved. 
 Nor is it less gratifying to think that this 
 occurs by a process in which brute force 
 is superseded to such an extent in the re- 
 pression of vice and crime by means essen- 
 tially moral. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 SUNDRY OTHER ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 I SHALL now include in one chapter a 
 notice of two or three other instances, in 
 which the variety and energy of action 
 possessed by the Voluntary Principle are 
 remarkably illustrated. 
 
 Societies for the Promotion of a better Ob- 
 servance of the Sabbath. Although the Sab- 
 bath is recognised, and its observance en- 
 joined by the laws of every state in the 
 Union, and although that sacred day is 
 observed in the United States in a manner 
 that strikingly contrasts with its neglect 
 in Europe, and particularly on the Conti- 
 nent, yet in certain quarters, and especial- 
 ly in places that are in some sense thor- 
 oughfares, the violation of it is distressing, 
 nay, alarming to a Christian mind. Hence 
 the formation of societies for the better 
 observance of that day. 
 
 These are sometimes of a local and lim- 
 ited nature ; sometimes they embrace a 
 wider sphere of operation. I3y publishing 
 and circulating well-written addresses and 
 tracts — still more by the powerful appeals 
 of the pulpit, they succeed in greatly di- 
 minishing the evil, if not in removing it al- 
 together. By such measures they strength- 
 en the hands of the officers of justice, and 
 give a sounder tone and better direction 
 to public opinion, greatly to the diminu- 
 tion, if not to the entire remedy, of the evil 
 sought to be cured. What is best of all, 
 this result is obtained most commonly by 
 the moral influence of Truth — by kindly 
 remonstrance, and argimients drawn from 
 the Word of God and right reason. I may 
 state that I liave myself seen the happiest 
 influence exerted by these associations. 
 
 Anti-slavery Societies. And so with re- 
 spect to slavery, an evil which afflicted all 
 the thirteen original colonies at the epoch 
 of their declaration of independence, and 
 •which still exists in half of the twenty-six 
 states, as well as in the District of Colum- 
 bia and the Territory of Florida, though no 
 longer to be found in the six New-Eng- 
 land States, or in New- York, New-.Ierscy, 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 
 gan, and the Territories of Wisconsin and 
 Iowa. With a view to its extirpation in 
 the states to which it still adheres, many 
 of the inhabitants of the Northern, or non- 
 -slaveholding states, have associated them- 
 
 selves in what are called anti-slavery so- 
 cieties, and have been endeavouring, for 
 several years past, to awaken the public 
 to a sense of the enormity and danger 
 of slavery, and to the disgrace which it 
 entails on the whole country. By means 
 of the press, by tracts and books, and by 
 the voice of living agents, they aim at the 
 destruction of this — the greatest of all the 
 evils that lie heavy on our institutions. I 
 say nothing at present of the wisdom of 
 their plans, or of the spirit in which these 
 plans have been prosecuted. I only men- 
 tion these societies as a farther proof of 
 the wide application of the Voluntary Prin- 
 ciple, and of the manner in which it leads 
 to associated efforts for the correction of 
 existing evils.* 
 
 Peace Societies. And so in relation to the 
 evils of war, and for the purpose of pre- 
 serving good men especially, and all men, 
 if possible, from thinking lightly of them, 
 Peace Societies began to be formed as 
 early as the year 1816, and a national so- 
 ciety was organized in 1827. The object 
 must be admitted to be humane and Chris- 
 tian. By the diff'usion of well-written 
 tracts, by off'ering handsome premiums for 
 essays on the subject, and their subsequent 
 publication, and, above all, by sliort and 
 pointed articles in the newspapers, a great 
 deal has been done to cause the prayer to 
 ascend with more fervency from the heart 
 of many a Christian, " Give peace in our 
 time, O Lord," and to inspire a just dread 
 of the awful curse of war. To many, such 
 eff"orts may appear ridiculous, but not so 
 to the man who can estimate the value of 
 even one just principle, when once, estab- 
 lished in the heart of any individual, how- 
 ever humble. Who can tell how much 
 such efforts in the United States, and other 
 countries, may have contributed, in God's 
 holy providence, which often avails itself 
 of the humblest means for the accomplish- 
 ment of the greatest purposes, to prolong 
 that happy general peace which has held 
 Europe, and all the civilized world, in its 
 embrace during more than a quarter of a 
 century"? 
 
 The American Peace Society employed 
 four agents last year, and issued 5000 cop- 
 ies of its periodical. Its receipts were 
 3000 dollars.! 
 
 * The receipts of the American Anti-slavery So- 
 ciety for last year were about 10,000 dollars ; those 
 of the American and Foreign Anti-slavery Society 
 were probably greater, but I have not seen the 
 amount stated. A few years ago, before the division 
 took place in the American Anti-slavery Society 
 which led to the formation of the American and For- 
 eign Anti-slavery Society, its income was 40,000 dol- 
 lars, and the number of its agents was forlv or fifty. 
 
 t The late William Ladd, Esq., of the' State of 
 Maine, was the founder of the American Peace So- 
 ciety, and for many years its worthy president. He 
 was an excellent Christian. His heart was absorbed 
 in the objects of the society over which he presided. 
 Through his exertions a prize of 1000 dollars was 
 
chap.xxvi.] beneficent institutions. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 177 
 
 MNFLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE ON 
 THE BENEFICENT INSTITUTIONS OF THE 
 COUNTRY. 
 
 Nor is the voluntary principle less op- 
 erative in the formation and support of 
 beneficent institutions than of associations 
 for attacking and vanquishing existing 
 evils. But tliese present too wide a field 
 to be fully gone over in this work ; besides, 
 they do not come properly within its scope. 
 I shall therefore glance only at a few points, 
 showing how the voluntary principle op- 
 erates in this direction for the furtherance 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 In efforts to relieve the temporal wants 
 and sufferings of mankind, as well as in 
 all other good undertakings, Christians, 
 and those, too, with few exceptions, evan- 
 gelical in their faith, almost invariably 
 take the lead. Whenever there is a call 
 for the vigorous exercise of benevolence, 
 proceeding from whatever cause. Chris- 
 tians immediately go to work, and endeav- 
 our to meet the exigency by their own ex- 
 ertions, if possible ; but should the nature 
 and extent of the relief required properly 
 demand co-operation on the part of muni- 
 cipal and stale authorities, they bring the 
 -case before these authorities, and invoke 
 their aid. It naturally follows that, when 
 this is given, it should be appUed through 
 the hands of those who were the first to 
 stir in the matter ; and this wisely, too, 
 since who can be supposed so fit to ad- 
 minister the charities of the civil govern- 
 ment as those who have first had the heart 
 to make sacrifices for the same object 
 themselves ? Such alone are likely to 
 have the experience that in such affairs is 
 necessary. 
 
 All this I might illustrate by adducing 
 many instances, were it necessary. In 
 this chapter, however, I shall notice a few, 
 and take these collectively. 
 
 There is not a city or large town, I may 
 say, hardly a village, in all the country, 
 which has not its voluntary associations 
 of good men and women for the relief of 
 poverty, especially where its sufferings 
 are aggravated by disease. These efforts, 
 in countless instances, may not be exten- 
 
 offered for the best essay on the subject of A Con- 
 gress of Nations, for the termination of national dis- 
 putes. Four or five excellent dissertations were 
 presented, and the premium was divided among the 
 authors by the judges appointed to make the award ; 
 one of whom was the Hon. John Quincy Adams, 
 formerly President of the United States. The evils 
 of war can hardly be exaggerated. " In peace," said 
 Croesus to Cyrus, " children bury their fathers ; but 
 in war, fathers bury their children." "War makes 
 thieves," says Machiavelli, " and peace brings them 
 to the gallows." " May we never see another war," 
 said Franklin, in a letter which he addressed to a 
 friend, just after signing the treaty of peace at the 
 close of the American Revolution, " for in my opin- 
 ion there never was a good ivar or a bad peace." 
 
 M 
 
 sive, only because there is no extensive 
 call for their being made. Created by cir- 
 cumstances, when these disappear, the as- 
 sociations also cease to exist. But where 
 the sufferings to be relieved are perpetu- 
 ally recurring, as well as too extensive to 
 be alleviated by individual effort, these 
 benevolent associations become perma- 
 nent. Their objects are accomplished, in 
 most instances, by the unaided exertions 
 of the benevolent, who voluntarily associ- 
 ate for the purpose ; but if these prove in- 
 sufficient, municipal or state assistance is 
 sought, and never sought in vain. Ac- 
 cordingly, the stranger who visits the Uni- 
 ted States will find hospitals for the sick, 
 almshouses for the poor, and dispensaries 
 for furnishing the indigent with medicines 
 gratuitously, in all the large cities where 
 they are required.* There is a legal pro- 
 vision in all the states for the poor, not 
 such, however, as to do away with the ne- 
 cessity of individual or associated effort 
 to meet extraordinary cases of want, es- 
 pecially when it comes on suddenly, and 
 in the train of disease. The rapid and 
 wide-spreading attacks of epidemics may 
 demand, and will assuredly find benevo- 
 lent individuals ready to associate them- 
 selves for meeting such exigencies, before 
 the measures provided by law can be 
 brought to bear upon them.f 
 
 It is with great pleasure that I have to 
 state that the Gospel finds admittance into 
 the establishments for the relief of pover- 
 
 * The manner of providing for the poor differs 
 greatly in different states, in the West, where there 
 is but little extreme poverty, the inhabitants of each 
 township generally look after their poor in such a 
 way as best suits them. Money is raised, and by a 
 " commissioner of the poor," appropriated to the 
 support of such as need it. Thuse who liave fami- 
 lies live in houses hired for them; single persons 
 board with others who are willing to take them for 
 the stipulated sum. Jn the Atlantic States, where 
 there are more poor who need assistance, the same 
 course is pursued in many cases. In others, " poor- 
 houses" are erected in such counties as choose to 
 have suchestablishments, and to these the townships 
 send their quota of paupers, and pay for their board, 
 clothing, &.C. In the cities on the seaboard, the 
 municipal authorities make abundant provision for 
 the poor who need aid, a great proportion of whom 
 are foreigners. 
 
 t There were many illustrations of the expansive 
 nature of individual and associated charity during 
 the prevalence of the cholera. In all our large cit- 
 ies, associations, comprising the very best Christians 
 in them, were formed with the utmost promptitude, 
 and zealously sustained as long as needed I saw 
 myself, and often attended their meetings, an asso- 
 ciation of Christian ladies formed in Philadelphia, 
 as soon as the pestilence commenced its ravages in 
 that city. They hired a house, converted it into a 
 hospital, gathered into it all the children whom the 
 plague had orphanized, both white and black, whom 
 they could find, and day after day, and week after 
 week, washed, dressed, and took care of those chil- 
 dren with their own hands, and defrayed all the ex- 
 penses of the establishment. Two of the children 
 died of the cholera in their arms ! These ladies be- 
 longed, many of them, to some of the first families in 
 that city in point of respectability. 
 
178 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA, 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 ty and disease, which have been created 
 and maintained by the municipal and state 
 authorities ; and that i have never heard 
 of any case in which the directors have 
 opposed the endeavours of judicious Chris- 
 tians to maive known to the inmates the 
 blessings of religion. Prudent and zeal- 
 ous Christians, both ministers and laymen, 
 are allowed to visit, and ministers to preach 
 to the occupants of such establishments ; 
 and in several of our cities, one or more 
 excellent ministers of the Gospel are em- 
 ployed to preach regularly in them as well 
 as in the prisons. With rare exceptions, 
 they are in the hands of Protestants, though 
 Roman Catholic priests are nowhere for- 
 bidden to enter and teach all who desire 
 their ministrations. 
 
 Of all the beneficent institutions of our 
 large cities, there are none more interesting 
 than those intended for the benefit of chil- 
 dren. Orphan asylums, well established 
 and properly conducted, are to be found 
 in every city of any consideration through- 
 out the Union. Nor are these asylums 
 for white children only ; they are also for 
 the coloured. Indeed, it cannot be said 
 with truth that the poor and the sick of 
 the African race, in our cities and large 
 towns, are less cared for than those of the 
 white race. Nor are those children only 
 who have lost both parents thus provided 
 for. In some of our cities, asylums are 
 in the course of being provided for what 
 are called half-orphans — that is, who have 
 still one parent or both, but are not sup- 
 ported by them. I may state it, however, 
 as a fact of which I am perfectly certain, 
 that there is not a single Foundling Hos- 
 pital in the United States. 
 
 In some of our citii-s we have admirable 
 institutions, called Houses of Refuge, for 
 neglected children, and such as are en- 
 couraged by their parents to live a vaga- 
 bond life, or are disposed of themselves 
 to lead such a life. In these establish- 
 ments they not only receive the elements 
 of a good English education, but are in- 
 structed also in the mechanical arts ; and 
 with these religious instruction is faith- 
 fully and successfully combined. All of 
 these institutions were commenced, and 
 are carried on by the voluntary efl'orts of 
 Christians, though they have been greatly 
 assisted by appropriations in their favour, 
 in the shape of endowments or annuities 
 from some of the state governments.* 
 
 * One of the best conducted of these establish- 
 ments is at Philadelphia. It stands at the distance 
 of one mile from the; city, occupies a beautiful site, 
 and has a numl)er of acres of groiuid attached to it. 
 There are here usually between 100 and 200 youth 
 of both sexes, who occupy different apartments, and 
 are under the care of excellent teachers. The ma- 
 pistrates of the city have the power to send vagrant, 
 idle, and neglected children to it. Very many youths 
 have left this institution creatly benclited by their 
 residence in it. It has fallen to the lot of the writer 
 
 Nor are the aged poor neglected. Asy- 
 lums for widows are to be met with in all 
 our large towns, where they are, in fact, 
 most needed ; and old and infirm men are 
 also provided for. 
 
 At the same time, that " charity which 
 seeketh not her own," but the good of all 
 others, no matter what inay have been 
 their character or what their crimes, has 
 not forgotten those unfortunate females 
 who have been the victims of the faith- 
 lessness of men. Magdalen asylums have 
 been founded in all our chief cities, espe- 
 cially on the seaboard, where they aro 
 most needed, and have been the means of 
 doing much good. It is only to be regret- 
 ted that this branch of Christian kindness 
 and eflTort has not been far more extensive- 
 ly prosecuted. Nevertheless, there are 
 many hearts that are interested in it, and 
 in the institutions which they have erected 
 the glorious Gospel of him who said to the 
 penitent woman in Simon's house, " Thy 
 faith hath saved thee ; go in peace," is not 
 only preached, but also received into hearts 
 which the Spirit of God has touched and 
 broken. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE OIT 
 THE BENEFICENT INSTITUTIONS OF THE 
 COUNTRY. ASYLUJIS FOR THE INSANE. 
 
 The utmost attention is now paid in 
 the United States to a class of the unfor- 
 tunate which, of all others, presents the 
 strongest claims on our sympathy— I al- 
 lude to the insane. For these very much 
 has been done in the course of the last 
 twenty years, by the establishment of suit- 
 able places for their reception, instead of 
 confining them, as formerly, in the com- 
 mon prisons of the country. In this the 
 Prison Discipline Society has exerted a 
 most extensive and happy influence, never 
 having ceased, in its Annual Reports, to 
 urge upon the governments of the states 
 the duty of providing proper receptacles, 
 to which persons discovered to be insane 
 rnight be conveyed as promptly as possi- 
 ble, with a view to tlieir proper treatment. 
 The Society showed this to be an impera- 
 tive duty on the part of the states, and its 
 voice has not been heard in vain. 
 
 There are now twelve asylums support- 
 ed by the states, and some of these are on 
 a large scale. That near Utica will con- 
 to preach often to its inmates, and never has he se?n 
 a more affecting sight. If a man wishes to learn the 
 importance of the parental relation, and the bless- 
 ings which flow from a faithful tultilment of its du- 
 ties, let him visit such an institution, and inquire into 
 the history of each youth whom it contains. The 
 " Farm Schools" for orphans and for neglected chil- 
 dren, in the neighbourhoods of Boston and New- 
 \'ork, are cxc-cllent, and have been the means of do- 
 ing much good. 
 
Chap. XXVIII.] ASYLUMS FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
 
 179 
 
 sist, when completed, of four buildings, 
 each 446 feet long by 48 wide, and placed 
 one on each side of a beautiful quadrilat- 
 eral area, which assumes an octagonal 
 form by the intersection of its corners, 
 with verandahs of open lattice-work. It 
 is intended for the insane poor of the State 
 of New-York, which state is at the sole 
 expense of its erection, and the cost upon 
 the completion of the whole will amount, 
 it is supposed, to about $1,000,000. It is 
 calculated to receive 1000 patients. 
 
 Besides the twelve State Asylums, there 
 are two belonging to cities, namely, those 
 at Boston and New-York ; six to incorpo- 
 rated bodies, and one is the property of an 
 individual,* making in all twenty-one. One 
 or more state asylums may possibly have 
 been opened since the publication of the 
 interesting work to which I am indebted 
 for my information on the subject. f 
 
 Nearly all of these asylums are con- 
 structed on the most approved plans. Al- 
 most all are beautifully situated, have a 
 light and cheerful aspect, and are surround- 
 ed with ample grounds, tastefully laid out 
 in fields and meadows, pleasant gardens, 
 and delightful walks. After visiting many 
 such institutions in Europe, I can truly 
 say that I have seen none more pleasant- 
 ly situated, or better kept, than the Massa- 
 chusetts State Asylum, at Worcester, the 
 Retreat at Hartford, in Connecticut, and 
 the Asylum on Blackwell's Island, near 
 New-York. 
 
 I would particularly call attention to the 
 fact that religious worship is kept up in 
 all of these twenty-one institutions but 
 four. Some have regular chaplains attach- 
 ed to them ; in others, Divine worship is 
 conducted for the inmates by clergymen 
 or laymen in the neighbourhood, who vol- 
 unteer their services ni performing this im- 
 portant and interesting duty. In almost 
 every case it is done by men of evangel- 
 ical sentiments. Nor is their labour in 
 vain, ample experience having demonstra- 
 ted that such services, when performed by 
 judicious, calm, and truly spiritual men, 
 e.vert a highly beneficial influence on the 
 insane. The Gospel, when presented in 
 the spirit of its blessed Author, is admira- 
 bly fitted to soothe the mental excitement 
 of the poor deranged lunatic. 
 
 " Regular religious teaching," says Dr. 
 Woodward, the superintendent of the asy- 
 lum for the insane at Worcester, Massa- 
 chusetts, " is as necessary and beneficial 
 to the insane as to the rational mind; in 
 a large proportion of the cases it will have 
 equal influence. They as well know their 
 
 *■ Dr. White's, at Hudson, in the State of New- 
 York. 
 
 t " A Visit to thirteen Asylums for the Insane in 
 Europe, &c., to which is subjoined a brief Notice of 
 similar Institutions in the United States," by Pliny 
 Earie, M.D. Published at Philadelphia in 1841. 
 
 imperfections, if they will not admit their 
 delusions ; and they feel the importance 
 of good conduct to secure the confidence 
 and esteem of those whose good opinion 
 tiiey value." 
 
 According to Dr. Earle's statements, the 
 deaths in the European institutions for the 
 insane vary from thirteen io forty per cent. ; 
 while in the American asylums none ex- 
 ceed ten per cent.* 
 
 While the State governments have been 
 doing so much for the establishment of 
 hospitals and asylums for the insane, much 
 has also been done by individual munifi- 
 cence. Even some of the State institutions 
 have been assisted by donations from pri- 
 vate citizens. Thus two benevolent gen- 
 tlemen in the State of Maine have givea 
 $10,000 each towards founding the asylum, 
 for that state. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. . 
 
 INFLUENCE OF, THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE ON 
 THE BENEFICENT INSTITUTIONS OF THE 
 
 COUNTRY. ASYLUMS FOR THE DEAF AND 
 
 DUMB. 
 
 Our asylums for the deaf and dumb owe 
 their existence to a series of eflforts on the 
 part of a few Christian friends. 
 
 The late Dr. Cogswell, a pious and ex- 
 cellent physician in the city of Hartford,. 
 Connecticut, had a beloved daughter who 
 was deaf and dumb. For her sake he pro- 
 posed to a devoted young minister of the 
 Gospel, the Rev. Mr. Gallaudet, to go to 
 Europe, and there to learn, at the best in- 
 stitutions, the most approved methods of 
 teaching this unfortunate class of people. 
 The mission was cheerfully undertaken. 
 Mr. Gallaudet returned in 1816, after hav- 
 ing spent above a year in Paris, where he 
 studied the methods of instruction pursued 
 at the Royal Institution for the Educatioa 
 of the Deaf and Dumb, under the Abbe- 
 Sicard, the pupil and friend of the Abbe 
 I'Epee. Thereupon an effort was imme- 
 diately made to found an institution at 
 Hartford. An act of incorporation was 
 obtained in 1816, a large sum was contrib- 
 uted by the people of Hartford for the erec- 
 tion of the requisite buildings, and Con- 
 gress granted a township from the national 
 lands, consisting of 23,040 acres, towards 
 the endowment of the institution. It was 
 opened, ere long, for the reception of pu- 
 pils, and from that time to this has been 
 going on most prosperously. It is the 
 oldest establishment for the purpose in the 
 
 * The number of the insane in the asylums in the 
 United States is about 2500 ; in 1840, the whole 
 number of the insane in the country, of all ages and 
 conditions, was, according to the census, 17,434, 
 being about one to every 979 inhabitants. Of these 
 17,434 insane persons, 5162 were maintained at the 
 public expense, and 12,272 at that of their friends. 
 
180 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 United States, and is called " The Ameri- 
 can i^sylum for the Education and Instruc- 
 tion of the Deaf and Dumb." So far, in- 
 deed, it is a national institution. It was 
 endowed to a considerable amount by Con- 
 gress ; it is open to pupils from all the 
 states, and it does, in fact, receive them 
 from the South as well as from the North. 
 It is peculiarly, however, the deaf and 
 dumb institution of New-England, five of 
 the states of which support within its walls, 
 at the expense of their treasuries, a cer- 
 tain number of pupils every year. The 
 number at the asylum is usually between 
 140 and 150. The course of study lasts 
 four years. Mechanical arts are taught 
 to the young men at certain hours daily, 
 while the young women learn such things 
 as become their sex and situation in life. 
 
 Since 1816 five other institutions for the 
 deaf and dumb have been established in 
 the United States, all on the model of that 
 at Hartford. They are as follows : 
 
 1. That at New- York. It has about 
 150 pupils, and is mainly supported by the 
 State Legislature. 
 
 2. The Pennsylvania Institution, at Phil- 
 adelphia. It has from 100 to 120 pupils, 
 most of whom are maintained there at 
 the expense of that and the neighbouring 
 states. 
 
 3. The Ohio Asylum at Columbus, a 
 prosperous institution, with about seventy 
 pupils, and mainly supported by the Legis- 
 lature of Ohio. 
 
 4. The Asylum for Kentucky, at Dan- 
 ville, whicli is chiefly, if not entirely, sup- 
 ported by funds arising from the sale of 
 lands granted to it by the Congress of the 
 United States. It has, perhaps, twenty- 
 five or thirty pupils, but has not been very 
 prosperous. 
 
 5. The Virginia Asylum, at Staunton, an 
 institution of very recent date. It has 
 about twenty-five pupils, and is mainly de- 
 pendant upon that state for its support. 
 
 These five, as well as that at Hartford, 
 receive paying pupils from families which 
 have the means of defraying the expense 
 of educating their own children. But the 
 number of such pupils prol)ably does not 
 exceed one sixth of the whole. 
 
 The number of pupils in these six asy- 
 lums ranges from 510 to 545, and as the 
 fifteen or sixteen states by wliich tjiey are 
 supported have both the means and the 
 disposition to do so, tlioy will doubtless 
 furnish instruction to the deaf and dumb 
 of the other states, which have resolved 
 to send tlicm thither until they can have 
 asylums of tlieir own. There will, indeed, 
 be but a partial provision for some time 
 for the indigent deaf and dumb of the new 
 states ; yet the known enterprise and be- 
 nevolence of their inhabitants warrant us 
 to believe that as soon as their population 
 shall have become sufficiently numerous, 
 
 and they shall have established those more 
 general and important institutions that lie 
 at the basis of an enlightened society, the 
 whole of the confederated states will be 
 found ready to make provision for con- 
 ducting their deaf and dumb, by means of 
 a suitable education, to usefulness and 
 happiness. For this it is not requisite 
 that each state should have an asylum for 
 itself; it would be found enough that two 
 or more should unite, as at present, in 
 having one in common. 
 
 The number of deaf and dumb persons 
 throughout the United States in 1840 was 
 7659, or about one to every 2227 of the 
 entire population ; but the proportion of 
 proper age for being placed in an asylum, 
 to receive the usual instruction there, is 
 hardly above a fourth of the entire number. 
 
 It is delightful to contemplate how much 
 has been done for this interesting part of 
 the community within the last few years, 
 and especially delightful to the Christian, 
 to know that all the six asylums above 
 mentioned are under the direction of deci- 
 dedly religious men, and that the 90urse 
 of instruction pursued in them is entirely 
 evangelical. The Bible is made the text- 
 book of their religious studies. Every 
 morning and evenmg they are assem- 
 bled for prayers, and then a portion of 
 Scripture is written on a large slate, about 
 ten feet by four. Some pertinent remarks 
 are addressed to them, followed by prayer, 
 both the remarks and the prayer being 
 performed, by the principal or one of the 
 professors of the institution, by signs. In 
 the same way, upon the Sabbath, a ser- 
 mon is preached and other religious ser- 
 vices held. God has greatly blessed these 
 instructions. Many of the pupils in these 
 several asylums have become, from time 
 to time, as their lives attest, truly pious 
 persons ; and in some instances these in- 
 stitutions have richly shared in the revi- 
 vals that have occurred in the places where 
 they are established. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE ON 
 THE BENEFICENT INSTITUTIONS OF THE 
 COUNTRY. ASYLUMS FOR THE BLIND. 
 
 In the year 1832 the Perkins Institution 
 and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind 
 was foimded, as follows : 
 
 Thomas H. Perkins, Esq., of the city 
 of Boston, gave his valuable house and 
 firounds, with out-buildings thereon, esti- 
 mated to be worth 50,000 dollars, for an 
 asylum for the blind, provided the sum re- 
 quired for founding one should be raised 
 in New-England. Fifty thousand dollars 
 liaviug been speedily collected, and the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts having voted 
 
chap.xxx] remarks on the voluntary system. 
 
 181 
 
 a large annual grant to give permanency 
 to the projected institution, the corpora- 
 tion entered vigorously upon the vi^ork, 
 and opened a school for the blind, which 
 has now been for ten years in successful 
 operation. As the property, so munificent- 
 ly given by Mr. Perkins, was found not in 
 all respects suitable, it was exchanged in 
 1839 for Mount Washington House and 
 grounds, in South Boston, beautifully situ- 
 ated near the bay which spreads out to the 
 east of the city, and in every way adapted 
 for the purpose. The institution is imder 
 the direction of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, a 
 man of remarkable qualifications for the 
 post. The number of pupils is about sev- 
 enty, and they are reported to be making 
 excellent progress, and remarkably happy. 
 
 There are four other institutions for the 
 blind in the United States. New- York has 
 one, which had last year about sixty-five 
 pupils ; Philadelphia one, which had sixty- 
 two pupils ; Columbus, in Ohio, one, which 
 had fifty-eight pupils ; and in the same es- 
 tablishment with the asylum for the deaf 
 and dumb at Staunton, in Virginia, there is 
 a department for the blind, with about five- 
 and-twenty pupils. All these four have 
 sprung up since the establishment of that 
 at Boston in 1832, and they are all flourish- 
 ing. The number of pupils in the whole 
 five was, last year, about 270. The whole 
 number of the blind in the United States 
 in 1840 was 6916. 
 
 A few years ago, a Mr. Will, of Philadel- 
 phia, bequeathed a sum to be laid out in 
 establishing a hospital for the Wind, but the 
 institution that has arisen out of this be- 
 quest is not a school, but a retreat, where 
 the aged and infirm blind may pass their 
 remaining days in comfort. 
 
 Although these institutions are aided by 
 the Legislatures of the states within which 
 they are established, most of them, never- 
 theless, may be traced to the benevolence 
 of Christian citizens, acting individually or 
 together. Few establishments can be con- 
 templated by the eye of Christian sympa- 
 thy with greater interest than these quiet 
 retreats. There the blind not only learn 
 the elements of a common education,* and 
 such an expertness in some of the mechan- 
 ical arts as enables them, even while un- 
 der tuition, to contribute towards their own 
 support, but cultivate music also, by which 
 many an hour sweetly passes away, and 
 
 * Joseph B. Smith, a pupil of the Perkins Insti- 
 tution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, pur- 
 sued the study of Latin, Greek, and the other branch- 
 es of a preparatory course with success, and entered 
 Harvard University in the autumn of 1839, where 
 he has made respectable progress. He gets his les- 
 sons with the help of his companion, who carefully 
 reads them over to him, and seeks out in the lexicon 
 the meaning of words he does not understand. In 
 geometry, when the diagram is too complicated for 
 him to retain a clear conception of it, he causes it 
 to be " embossed" upon thick paper, that he may ex- 
 amine it with his fingers. 
 
 for which many of them show remarkable 
 aptitude. 
 
 Nor is our literature for the blind incon- 
 siderable, when it is borne in mind that it 
 is not ten years since printing in '' raised" 
 characters for their use was first intro- 
 duced among us. Above thirty volumes 
 have been published at Boston, and about 
 half that number at Philadelphia, compri- 
 sing several of the most interesting reli- 
 gious works in the English language, and 
 the perusal of which has already proved a 
 blessing to many of the blind.* It is grat- 
 ifying to think that these institutions have 
 all along been, to a great extent, in the 
 hands of good men, so that this benevolent 
 enterprise has taken a happy direction 
 from the first. 
 
 The Report of the Boston institution for 
 1841 gives us the history of a child who 
 had been four years a pupil there, and 
 whose case is more interesting, probably, 
 than any other that has ever been known. 
 Laura Bridgman, born in 1829, had lost, 
 when twenty months old, the faculties of 
 sight, hearing, and speech, and partially that 
 of smell. At the age of nine she was placed 
 at the institution. There she learned to 
 read and write, and has made very consid- 
 erable progress in knowledge. The details 
 of the manner in which she acquired these 
 arts are exceedingly curious, but to give 
 them does not fall within the scope of this 
 work. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE DEVELOPMENT 
 OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 
 
 We here close our notice of the devel- 
 opment of the voluntary principle in the 
 United States ; the results will appear more 
 appropriately in another part of this work. 
 If it is thought that I have dealt too much 
 in details, I can only say that these seemed 
 necessary for obvious reasons. There be- 
 ing no longer a union of Church and State 
 in any part of the country, so that religion 
 
 * The books published by the institution at Bos- 
 ton are, the New Testament; Farts of the Old 
 Testament ; Lardner's Universal History ; Selec- 
 tions from Old English Authors ; Selections from 
 Modern English Authors ; Howe's Geography for 
 the Blind; Howe's General Atlas; Howe's Atlas of 
 the United Slates ; Blind Child's First Book ; Blind 
 Child's Second Book; the Dairyman's Daughter; 
 the Harvey Boys ; Blind Child's Spelling Book ; 
 Blind Child's English Grammar; the Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress ; Baxter's Call ; Sixpenny Glass of Wine ; Life 
 of Melancthon ; Book of Sacred Hymns ; Viri Romas ; 
 Pierce's Geometry, with Diagrams, illustrative of 
 Natural Philosophy ; Political Class Book ; Blind 
 Child's Manual. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Institute, besides printing por- 
 tions of the Old Testament, has published a Guide 
 to Spelling; Select Library; Student's Magazine; 
 French Verbs ; a Grammar ; and two or three books 
 in the German language. 
 
182 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 must depend, under God, for its temporal 
 support wholly upon the voluntary princi- 
 ple, it seemed of much consequence to 
 show how vigorously, and how extensive- 
 ly, that principle has brought the influence 
 of the Gospel to bear in every direction 
 upon the objects within its legitimate 
 sphere. In doing this, I have aimed at 
 answering a multitude of questions pro- 
 posed to me during my residence in Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 Thus I have shown how, and by what 
 means, funds are raised for the erection of 
 .<5hurch edifices, for the support of pastors, 
 and for providing destitute places with the 
 preaching of the Gospel — this last involv- 
 ing the whole subject of our home mission- 
 ary efforts. And as ministers must be pro- 
 vided for the settlements forming apace 
 in the West, as well as for the constantly 
 increasing population to be found in the 
 villages, towns, and cities of the East, I 
 entered somewhat at length into the sub- 
 ject of education, from the primary schools 
 up to the theological seminaries and facul- 
 ties. 
 
 It was next of importance to show how 
 the press is made subservient to the cause 
 of the Gospel and the extension of the 
 kingdom of God ; then, how the voluntary 
 principle can grapple with existing evils in 
 society, such as intemperance, Sabbath 
 breaking, slavery, and war, by means of 
 diverse associations formed for their re- 
 pression or removal ; and, finally, I have re- 
 viewed the beneficent and humane institu- 
 tions of the country, and shown how much 
 the voluntary principle has had to do with 
 their origin and progress. 
 
 The reader who has had the patience to 
 follow me thus far, must have been struck 
 with the vast versatility, if I may so speak, 
 of this great principle. Not an exigency 
 occurs in which its application is called 
 for, but forthwith those who have the 
 heart, the hand, and the purse to meet the 
 case, combine their eflbrts. Thus the prin- 
 ciple seems to extend itself in every direc- 
 tion witli an all-powerful influence. Adapt- 
 ing itself to every variety of circumstan- 
 ces, it acts w^herever the Gospel is to be 
 preached, wherever vice is to be attacked, 
 and wherever suff'ering humanity is to be 
 relieved.* 
 
 * There is one field on which the voluntary prin- 
 ciple is accomplishing perhaps as great triumphs, 
 and diffusing as happy an influence as on any other, 
 but which 1 have not yet noticed. I refer to that 
 presented by the numerous manufacturing establish- 
 ments which have been springing up during the last 
 five-and-twenty years in the Middle and Northern 
 States. Large factories in the Old World are prover- 
 bial for ignorance and vice. But if a man would like 
 to see religion flourishing in manufacturing towns 
 and among " operatives," let him visit some of those 
 towns in New-England in which cotton, woollen, or 
 other factories have grown up, and where hundreds, 
 in some instances thousands, of men and women are 
 collected together under circumstances in which 
 
 Nor is this principle less beneficial to 
 those whom it enlists in the various enter- 
 prises of Christian philanthropy than to 
 those who are its express objects. The 
 very activity, energy, and self-reliance 
 which it calls forth, are great blessings to 
 the individual who exercises these quali- 
 ties, as well as to those for whose sake they 
 are put forth, and to the community at 
 large. Men are so constituted as to derive 
 happiness from the cultivation of an inde- 
 pendent, energetic, and benevolent spirit, 
 in being co-workers with God in promo- 
 ting his glory, and the true welfare of their 
 fellow-men. 
 
 they are apt to exercise a most corrupting influence 
 on one another. Let him there observe the pains ta- 
 ken by bands of devoted Christians, pastors, and 
 members of their flocks, to gather these into Bible- 
 classes and Sunday-schools, to induce them to at- 
 tend church, to provide libraries of good books for 
 them, to open public lectures on scientific and gen- 
 eral as well as religious subjects : above all, let him 
 mark the earnestness with which faithful ministers 
 preach the Gospel to them, and the assiduity with 
 which they watch for their souls ; and he will per- 
 ceive how much may be done, even under very un- 
 favourable circumstances, for saving men's souls 
 from ruin. 1 have never visited more virtuous com- 
 munities than I have seen in some of those villages, 
 or any in which the Gospel has triumphed more sig- 
 nally over all obstacles. 
 
 No manufacturing town in the United States has 
 grown up more rapidly than Lowell, near the Merri- 
 mac River, about thirty miles northwest of Boston. 
 It was but a small village not many years ago, and 
 in 1827 had only 3500 inhabitants. But in 1840 
 these had increased to 20.000. As it derives great 
 advantages for cotton, woollen, and other factories, 
 from the vast water-power it possesses, several com- 
 panies have built large mills, and employ a great 
 number of people, mostly young women above fifteen 
 years of age, who have been led to leave other parts 
 of New-England by the inducement of higher wages 
 than they could command at home. This is an ob- 
 ject with some, in order that they may help their 
 poor parents ; with others, that they may find means 
 to prosecute their education ; and with a third and 
 numerous class, who, being betrothed to young men 
 in their native districts, come to earn for themselves 
 a little " outfit" for the married life. Let us see 
 what opportunities for religious instruction are pre- 
 sented to these young persons. 
 
 In 1840 there were fifteen or sixteen churches in 
 Lowell, in the Sunday-schools attached to ten of 
 which there were 4936 scholars and 433 teachers ; in 
 all, 5369. About three fourths of the scholars are 
 girls, a large proportion of whom are above fifteen 
 years of age. More than 500 became hopefully pious 
 in 1839, yet that year was not more remarkable than 
 others in regard to religion. Including the Sunday- 
 schools attached to the other five or six churches, 
 the whole number of scholars and teachers for 1840 
 considerably exceeded 6000, and nearly equalled a 
 third of the population. Nearly 1000 of the factory 
 girls had funds in the savings banks, amounting, in 
 all, to 100,000 dollars. A decided taste for reading 
 prevails among them. When in Lowell in the sum- 
 mer of 1841, 1 found that two monthly magazines of 
 handsome appearance were jiublishing there. One 
 of these was the "Operatives' Magazine," and the 
 other the " Lowell Offering." Both were of 8vo 
 form, the one containing sixteen pages, the other 
 thirty-two. Both displayed very considerable talent, 
 and the Offering was tilled with original articles, 
 written solely by the female operatives. A third pe- 
 riodical has since been established, conducted by the 
 same class of people. 
 
Chap. II.] 
 
 MAINTENANCE OF ©ISCIPLINE. 
 
 183 
 
 We now take leave of this part of our 
 work, to enter on that for which all that 
 has hitherto been said must be considered 
 
 as preparatory — I mean the direct work of 
 bringing men to the knowledge and pos- 
 session of SALVATION. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE PULPIT IN AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THIS PART OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 We now come to that part of our sub- 
 ject which more immediately bears upon 
 the salvation of men's souls, and the im- 
 portance of which will be readily owned, 
 therefore, by all who rightly appreciate 
 the nature and value of that salvation. 
 
 It is interesting to mark the influence of 
 Christian institutions on society — the re- 
 pose of the Sabbath — the civilizing effect 
 of the people assembling in their churches 
 — and the great amount of knowledge 
 communicated in the numerous discourses 
 of a well-instructed ministry. Apart from 
 Jaigher considerations, the benefits indi- 
 rectly conferred upon a community by an 
 evangelical ministry are well worth all 
 that it costs. It softens and refines man- 
 ners, promotes health, by promoting atten- 
 tion to cleanliness and the frequent change 
 of apparel ; it diffuses information, and 
 rouses minds that might otherwise remain 
 ignorant, inert, and stupid. But what is 
 this compared with the preparation of the 
 immortal spirit for its everlasting destiny ■? 
 This world, after all, is but the place of 
 our education for a better ; of how much 
 moment, then, that the period of our pupil- 
 age should be rightly spent! 
 
 The Church, with its institutions, is of 
 Divine ordination. It was appointed by 
 its great Author to be the depositary of the 
 economy of salvation as far as human co- 
 operation is concerned, and is designed 
 to combine all the human agencies which 
 God, in infinite wisdom, has resolved to 
 employ in the accomplishment of that sal- 
 vation. How important, then, that the 
 Church should meet the design of its Di- 
 vine Founder, not only as regards its prop- 
 er character, but also in the development 
 and right employment of the influences 
 ■which it was constituted to put forth for 
 the salvation of the world ! 
 
 As the Church on earth is but preparatory 
 to the Church in heaven, it was obviously 
 intended to bear some resemblance to the 
 celestial state. As the depositary to which 
 God has committed the custody of his re- 
 vealed truth, and as his chosen instrument 
 for its diffusion among mankind, it ought 
 obviously to be kept as pure as is possible 
 for an institution placed in the hands of 
 imperfect creatures at the best, from every- 
 
 thing which would impede the discharge of 
 its high functions. 
 
 But we must not misapprehend the 
 Church's ofliice. She has received no power 
 of original legislation. She is nothing but 
 an agent. Christ is the Lawgiver and the 
 Head of the Church. He has given her the 
 revelation of his will, and clearly defined 
 her sphere of action. Nor can she justly 
 expect his blessing if she goes beyond the 
 boundaries of her duty. 
 
 By a holy life on the part of her mem- 
 bers ; by a conversation such as becometh 
 saints ; by well-directed efforts to make 
 known the Gospel to dying men every- 
 where, whether by the faithful proclama- 
 tion of it on the part of the ministry whom 
 God hath appointed, or by more famiUar 
 instruction in the Sunday-school and the 
 Bible- class, or around the family altar, or 
 by the distribution of the Scriptures and 
 other religious books, united with constant, 
 fervent, and believing prayer, that the Holy 
 Spirit may render all these means success- 
 ful, the Church is required to exert her in- 
 fluence in saving the world. It is thus that 
 she becomes " the light of the world ;" it is 
 thus that she proves herself to be " the salt 
 of the earth." But, in order to fulfil this 
 high mission, she ought to be as nearly as 
 possible what the Saviour of men intended 
 her to be — a company of saints redeemed 
 by his blood, renewed by his Spirit, and 
 devoted to his service — ever bearing the 
 cross, that she may wear the crown, and 
 preparing for that day when she shall be 
 presented to her Lord, " not having spot or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing," but " holy and 
 without blemish," for she is " his body." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN THE UNITED 
 STATER MAINTAIN DISCIPLINE. 
 
 This is a point of inexpressible impor- 
 tance to the prosperity of a church ; and I 
 rejoice to say that such is the light in which 
 it is viewed by Christians of all the evan- 
 gehcal denominations in the United States, 
 almost without exception. 
 
 I do not suppose that there is a single 
 evangelical church in the country that does 
 not keep a record of its members ; I mean 
 of those whom it has received according to 
 
184 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 some regular form or other as memhers, 
 and who, as such, are entitled to come to 
 the Lord's Supper. As this whole subject 
 is not only important, but by some readers 
 may not be easily comprehended, I may 
 venture upon some detail. 
 
 1. There is no evangelical church in the 
 United States, that is, no organized body 
 of believers worshipping in one place, that 
 does not hold a creed comprehending the 
 following points, at least ; the existence 
 of one God, in three persons. Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost, of the same substance, 
 and equal in all the attributes of their na- 
 ture ; the depravity, guilt, condemnation, 
 and misery of all mankind ; an all-sufficient 
 and only atonement by the Son of God, 
 who assumed human nature, and thus be- 
 came both God and man in one person, and 
 by his obedience, suffering, death, and in- 
 tercession, has procured salvation for men ; 
 regeneration by the Holy Ghost, by which 
 repentance and faith are made to spring up 
 in the soul ; the final judgment of all men ; 
 and a state of everlasting misery for the 
 wicked, and of blessedness for the righte- 
 ous. On these doctrines, in their substan- 
 tial and real meaning, there is no difference 
 among the evangelical churches in the 
 United States. 
 
 2. Neither is there any evangelical 
 church in America that does not hold the 
 necessity of a moral life — of a life against 
 which no charge inconsistent with a Chris- 
 tian profession can be brought — in order 
 to a man's being a proper member of a 
 church of Jesus Christ ; or which would 
 not promptly exclude an immoral person, 
 on being sufficiently proved to be such, from 
 its membership. No doubt there are im- 
 moral persons among the members of the 
 churches. They are persons whose guilt 
 cannot always be established by such 
 proof as the laws of Christ's house require, 
 but their number, it is believed, is com- 
 paratively small. 
 
 3. There are few, if any, evangelical 
 churches in which the profession of a mere 
 general or " historical belief," as it is called, 
 in the great doctrines above stated, accom- 
 panied even by an outwardly moral life, 
 would be considered sufficient to render a 
 man fit to be admitted to the Lord's Sup- 
 per. Nineteen twentieths of all the evan- 
 gelical churches in this country believe 
 that there is such a thing as being " born 
 again," " born of the Spirit." And very 
 few, indeed, admit the doctrine that a man 
 who is not " converted," that is, "renewed 
 by the Spirit," may come without sin to 
 that holy ordinance. 
 
 There may be difference of opinion 
 among truly evangelical Christians re- 
 specting the amount of evidence of conver- 
 sion necessary in the case. But I may 
 unhesitatingly affirm that, with few excep- 
 tions, all expect some evidence in every 
 
 candidate for admission to the Church and 
 participation in its most precious privileges ; 
 and such evidence, too, as induces the be- 
 lief that, as the Scriptures express it, he 
 has " passed from death unto life." The 
 belief is almost universal that the sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper was appointed 
 for the converted or regenerated, and 
 should, as far as possible, be administered 
 only to such. The number of those who 
 hold a different opinion is small. Accord- 
 ingly, it would be found, upon inquiry, that 
 all the pastors of our evangelical churches- 
 are very careful to explain with what dis- 
 positions of the heart and will, as well as 
 with what views of the understanding, one 
 should come to the Lord's Supper, and that 
 these are truly such as no unregenerate 
 person can possess. This holy sacrament 
 is rarely dispensed in our churches without 
 being preceded by a discourse on the na- 
 ture of the preparation required in order to 
 a right "communicating," or receiving of 
 this ordinance ; and all irreligious persons 
 — in fact, all persons, be their lives out- 
 wardly what they may — who have not the 
 testimony of their consciences that they 
 possess, so far as they honestly perceive 
 the state of their hearts, the qualifications 
 described, are solemnly warned of the sin,, 
 and consequent danger to their souls, in- 
 curred by unworthily partaking of that holy 
 supper. 
 
 It is, indeed, too true that, with all this 
 care, unworthy persons do come to the 
 Lord's table. Many, no doubt, gain admis- 
 sion to the churches who are, after all, not 
 converted. To say that many do so from 
 base, hypocritical motives, would imply a 
 very mistaken view of the case, for withi 
 us there is no visible inducement to such a 
 course. No civil privilege hangs on a 
 man's being a member of the Church and: 
 receiving the sacrament, as is the case in 
 some countries in Europe,* nor is it reck- 
 oned dishonourable for a man not to belong 
 to some church. None among us presumes 
 for a moment that a man must have com- 
 mitted a crime, and on that account been, 
 excluded, if he be not seen going twice of 
 thrice a year, at least — on the great festi- 
 vals, for instance — to the sacrament of the- 
 Lord's Supper. No such idea is known 
 in the United States. Our pastors and 
 other church officers, whose duty it is tO' 
 govern the churches, do not profess to be 
 infallible. They cannot know the heart. 
 They can only judge according to the evi- 
 dence presented to them. They very nat- 
 urally lean to the side of charity ; and with 
 every desire on their part to do their duty, 
 there are many, doubtless, admitted in 
 every church without being truly convert- 
 
 ♦ In Sweden, for instance, a man cannot give his 
 tcstinnony in a court of justice who has not talien the- 
 sacrament of the Lord^a-Supper within the year im,- 
 tnediately preceding ! 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 MEMBERSHIP IN CHURCHES. 
 
 185 
 
 ed, and when once admitted remain mem- 
 bers, unless they withdraw of their own 
 choice, or go to some other part of the 
 country, or are excluded on account of 
 some open immorality. 
 
 But while we cannot hope that even in 
 the evangelical churches which are most 
 rigorously strict in their admission to mem- 
 bership, and to the communion of the 
 Lord's Supper, all the members are con- 
 verted persons, yet the number of such as 
 are of scandalous lives is small. Nor are 
 such persons suffered long to continue 
 when their characters become known. On 
 this subject our churches form a very 
 striking contrast with some which I have 
 seen in other parts of the world. Nor have 
 we many persons who come in crowds to 
 the Lord's Supper on some great festival, 
 such as Easter or Christmas, and stay 
 away from it during the rest of the year. 
 Still less will there be seen, what I have 
 been told sometimes occurs in Protestant 
 churches which I have visited in other 
 lands, not a few persons waiting outside 
 the church, on such occasions, until the 
 communion service commences, who then 
 make their way in, approach the commu- 
 nion-table or altar, receive the emblems of 
 the Saviour's body and blood, and as soon 
 as possible hasten out and depart ! As if 
 there were any virtue in such horrible 
 mockery and profaneness ! I bless God 
 that we have nothing that even approaches 
 to this in point of impiety ; and yet we 
 have to mourn over the fact that many of 
 the members of our churches do not mani- 
 fest that spirituality, devotion, and zeal 
 which they ought to possess. But were 
 there no discipline in our churches, and 
 were all the world, whatever might be 
 their character, permitted to come to the 
 Lord's Supper, the state of things would 
 be in every respect infinitely worse. We 
 do make an effort to separate the Church 
 from the world, and to make it manifest 
 that there is a difference, and that not a 
 small one, between those who belong to 
 the former, and those who seek their hap- 
 piness in the latter, and have their desires 
 bounded by it. 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE WAY IN WHICH MEMBERSHIP IN OUR 
 CHURCHES IS OBTAINED. 
 
 Often has the question been addressed 
 to me, " How do people become members 
 of your churches in America?" This has 
 been said to me particularly on the Conti- 
 nent, where, in too many countries, disci- 
 pline seems to be almost unknown, and 
 where, I have been assured, there are many 
 churches in which all who choose may 
 come to the Lord's Supper, and that this 
 
 alone is requisite in order to a man's mem- 
 bership in a church. This, too, it is said, 
 often takes place without saying a word 
 to the pastor, or any other officer of the 
 church. Widely different is the practice 
 which obtains in the evangelical churches 
 of the United States. I will describe it in 
 few words. 
 
 Every faithful pastor, who preaches reg- 
 ularly in any particular place for a year or 
 two, is supposed to become pretty well ac- 
 quainted with the people of his charge. In 
 most cases, he not only comes to know the 
 families that compose his flock, but also, 
 more or less, nearly every individual, es- 
 pecially of the adult population. This is 
 almost certain to be the case where the 
 flock is not very numerous. This general 
 acquaintance gives him some knowledge 
 of the character of almost every individual. 
 With most, if not all, he endeavours to have 
 some conversation, more or less directly, 
 on the subject of salvation, and the hopes 
 of eternal life which they may be enter- 
 taining. 
 
 In addition to this, his Bible-classes and 
 Sunday-schools bring him into frequent 
 contact with the more juvenile part of the 
 people over whom the Holy Ghost has 
 made him overseer. He finds frequent 
 opportunities of speaking with them about 
 their souls. Besides, he is not alone. The 
 elders, deacons, or other officers of his 
 church, assist him much with their co-op- 
 eration. Through these, as well as through 
 zealous, judicious, and faithful private mem- 
 bers of his church, he learns continually 
 the state of mind of most, if not of all the 
 people in his congregation. This knowl- 
 edge is of the greatest consequence when 
 persons come to converse with him re- 
 specting their salvation. In our revivals, 
 as will appear presently, it is common for 
 the pastor to appoint a time for meeting at 
 his house, or at some other convenient 
 place, those who are awakened to a sense 
 of the importance of religion. On these 
 occasions he converses with each individ- 
 ual if it be possible, gives such directions 
 as they may need, and prays with the 
 whole. When they are too many for him 
 to speak to all of them, he makes use of 
 the assistance of some of the most experi- 
 enced of the officers of his church. Some- 
 times a neighbouring minister will come 
 and help him. I have seen twenty, fifty, 
 a hundred, and even as many as three 
 hundred persons, all, with few exceptions, 
 adults, come together in deep distress of 
 soul, on such occasions. 
 
 In such little meetings the pastor learns 
 the progress of religion in the souls of his 
 people. But when there is no special " se- 
 riousness," as we say, or uncommon atten- 
 tion to religion among his people, then it 
 may be that the number of those who come 
 from time to time to speak to him respect- 
 
186 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 jng their salvation will be small. And if 
 he ceases to be faithful in preaching the 
 Gospel, and his church becomes cold in its 
 zeal, in its faith, and in its prayers, then 
 it may happen that for a while he may not 
 have any. 
 
 In many of our churches the sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper is administered once 
 in three months, in many once in two, and 
 in others once a month. Some time be- 
 fore, the pastor gives notice that he will 
 Eieet at a certain time and place all such 
 as wish to join the church on that occasion, 
 and receive the communion for the first 
 time. He meets with them, converses with 
 them, and learns the state of their minds, 
 as far as it is possible for man to judge. 
 In many cases the persons come to him re- 
 peatedly to lay open their hearts, and re- 
 ceive his counsels. If he believes that 
 they have met with the change of heart of 
 which the Saviour speaks in his interview 
 with Nicodemus, he encourages them in 
 the resolution to join the church. If he 
 thinks that they are not prepared for this 
 important step, he advises them to defer it 
 for a season, that they may become so. In 
 some cases, as in that of the Presbyterians 
 universally, the pastor reports the matter 
 to the session of the church, and the can- 
 didates have generally to appear before 
 that body, which consists of the pastor and 
 the elders, who may be from two to twelve 
 in number. In the Congregational and Bap- 
 list churches, it is the " church," that is, 
 the body of the members of the church, 
 who hear the candidates relate the history 
 of the work of grace in their hearts, and 
 give their reasons for believing that they 
 have become " new creatures in Christ 
 Jesus." If the person who applies to be 
 received as a member of the church is a 
 stranger, or one of whose deep serious- 
 ness the pastor and the brethren of the 
 church had been ignorant, then he is ex- 
 amined more fully upon his " experience," 
 or the work of God in his soul. He is 
 asked to tell when and how he became 
 concerned for his salvation, the nature and 
 depth of his repentance, his views of sin, 
 his faith in Christ, his hopes of eternal life, 
 &c., &c. These examinations are some- 
 times long, and in the highest degree in- 
 teresting. Solemn, and yet, to the faithful 
 pastor, joyful work, to deal with souls in 
 these important seasons ! But the faithful 
 pastor is always engaged in guiding the 
 scjuls of his people in the way that leads 
 to life. 
 
 The day arrives for administering the 
 Iiord's Supper ; the preparatory services, 
 including a sermon, are gone through ; 
 the moment comes for commencing those 
 which relate to this sacred ordinance. Be- 
 fore he commences them, the pastor, in 
 many churches, calls upon all those who 
 are now about to join the church to come 
 
 forward and take their places before the 
 pulpit. He reads their names aloud, and 
 baptizes those of them who have not been 
 baptized before. He then puts certain 
 questions to the adults, imbodying the 
 chief articles of the church's creed, and to 
 these they answer in the affirmative. This 
 is sometimes followed by his reading out 
 the form of a covenant, which they must 
 give their assent to and engage to keep.* 
 
 *■ As the reader may be desirous of seeing one of 
 these summaries of faith and covenant, I here give the 
 following one, selected from among the many which I 
 have seen. The pastor addresses the candidates 
 standing in the midst of the church in the following 
 language : 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 " In the presence of God and this assembly you do 
 now appear, desiring publicly and solemnly to enter 
 into covenant willi Him and his Church according to 
 the Gospel, professing your full assent to the follow- 
 ing summary of faith. 
 
 "Art. I. You solemnly and publicly profess your 
 belief in one God, the Almighty Maker of heaven and 
 e:irth, who upholds all things, and orders all events 
 according to his own pleasure, and for his own glory. 
 
 " Art. 2. You believe that this glorious Being ex- 
 ists in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, 
 and God the Holy Ghost; and that these three are 
 one, being the same in substance, equal in power and 
 glory. 
 
 " Art. 3. You believe that the Scriptures of the Old 
 and New Testaments were given by inspiration of 
 God, and are our only rule of faith and practice. 
 
 " Art. 4. You believe that God at first created man 
 upright, and in his own image ; that our first pa- 
 rents fell from their original uprightness, and involved 
 themselves and their posterity in a state of sin and 
 misery. 
 
 " Art. 5. You believe that all men since the fall 
 are by nature depraved, having no conformity of i 
 heart to God, and being destitute of all moral excel- 
 lence. 
 
 " Art. 6. You believe that Jesus Christ is the Sav- 
 iour of sinners, and the only Mediator between God 
 and man. 
 
 " Art. 7. You believe in the necessity of the renew- 
 ing and sanctifying operations of the Holy Spirit, 
 and that to be happy you must be holy. 
 
 "Art. 8. You believe that sinners are justified by 
 faith alone, through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 " Art. 9. You believe that the saints will be kept 
 by the almighty power of God from the dominion of 
 sin, and from final condemnation, and that at the last 
 day they will be raised incorruptible, and be forever 
 happy. 
 
 " Art. 10. You believe that the finally impenitent 
 will be punished ' with everlasting destruction from 
 the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his 
 power.' 
 
 "Thus you believe in your hearts, and thus you 
 confess before men." 
 
 COVENANT. 
 
 " You do now, under this belief of the Christian 
 religion as held in this church, publicly and solemn- 
 ly avouch the eternal Jehovah, Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost, to be your God and the God of yours, 
 engaging to devote yourselves to his fear and service, 
 to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments. 
 With an humble reliance on his Spirit, you engage 
 to live aiiswerably to the profession you now make, 
 submitting yourselves to the laws of Christ's king- 
 dom, and to that discipline which he has appointed 
 to be administered in his Church. That you may ob- 
 tain the assistance you need, you engage diligently 
 to attend, and carefully to improve all the ordinances 
 he has instituted. 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 UNCONVERTED MEN. 
 
 187 
 
 The forms in which all this is done vary 
 in different churches and denominations, 
 but the substance is the same. It also 
 takes place sometimes at the public servi- 
 ces on Saturday, preparatory to the cele- 
 bration of the communion on the Sabbath 
 following. 
 
 I may add that many, particularly of the 
 Presbyterian churches in the interior, still 
 retain the old practice of the communi- 
 cants taking their seats at a long table in 
 the principal aisle of the church, the bread 
 and wine being handed round, accompa- 
 nied with prayer and a brief exhortation. 
 In the cities and large towns the commu- 
 nicants occupy certain pews assigned to 
 them, either in the middle of the church, 
 or in the end next to the pulpit. In the 
 Episcopal Church, the communicants re- 
 ceive the sacrament kneeling round the 
 altar. Though the administration of this 
 sacrament most commonly takes place im- 
 mediately after the forenoon sermon, it is 
 now celebrated in many churches in the 
 afternoon, preceded by a short sermon or 
 address. In a Presbyterian church in 
 Washington City, it used, a few years ago, 
 to be celebrated at night, and may be so 
 still. The effect was solemn, and not un- 
 pleasant, and it had the advantage, in the 
 «yes of those who attach importance to 
 such matters, of coinciding with the hour 
 of its first institution. But a more impor- 
 tant advantage, in my opinion, lay in its ad- 
 mitting of the communicants being joined 
 by many from other churches, on an oc- 
 casion so well calculated to unite the hearts 
 of all in Christian sympathy and love. 
 
 Let me farther add, that in almost all 
 our churches those who are not members 
 usually remain and witness the solemn 
 ceremony : a most proper and profitable 
 custom, for the very occasion speaks in 
 most aff"ecting language to the unconverted 
 heart, and aff'ords an admirable opportunity 
 for the faithful and skilful messenger of 
 
 "Thus you covenant, promise, and engage, in the 
 fear of God, and by the help of his Spirit. 
 
 " In consequence of these professions and promises, 
 we affectionately recognise you as members of this 
 church, and in the name of Christ declare you enti- 
 tled to all its visible privileges. We welcome you to 
 this fellowship with us m the blessings of the Gos- 
 pel, and on our part engage to watch over you, and 
 to seek your edification as long as you shall continue 
 among us. 
 
 " May the Lord support and guide you through a 
 transitory life, and after this warfare is accomplished, 
 receive you to His blessed Church above, where our 
 love shall be forever perfect, and our joy forever full. 
 Amen." 
 
 In some churches the summary of faith used on 
 these occasions, and the covenant, accompanied by a 
 short and pertinent address to the members of the 
 church, is printed in a little book, which also con- 
 tains a list of all their names, and their residences if 
 in a city, a copy of which is possessed by each mem- 
 ber. It is a convenient manual, as well as a solemn 
 remembrancer, which it is profitable to consult fre- 
 quently. 
 
 God to appeal to such on behalf of Him 
 whose sorrows are so touchingly set forth 
 in an ordinance which may truly be called 
 an epitome of the Gospel. 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 THE RELATIONS WHICH UNCO.NVEKTED MEN HOLD 
 TO THE CHURCH. 
 
 I HAVE known many persons in different 
 parts of Europe who, after listening to 
 statements such as the above, seemed at 
 a loss to comprehend the position held, 
 with respect to the Church, by those who 
 are not its members, and they have asked 
 again and again for explanations on the 
 subject. I have told them, in reply, that 
 such of those persons as are the children 
 of pious parents, hold towards the Church 
 a very interesting relation, which, though 
 invisible, if I may so speak, is real ; and 
 that such of them as have been baptized 
 in infancy, in my opinion, maintain an im- 
 portant relation to it, which ought to be 
 made much more of than is usual among 
 the Paidobaptist branches of the Protestant 
 Church, We are very faulty on this point 
 in the United States, but not more so, I 
 apprehend, than are our Protestant breth- 
 ren in other lands. Very affecting appeals, 
 nevertheless, are often made by our faith- 
 ful ministjsrs to such of their hearers as 
 are not converted, yet who have knelt by 
 the side of a devout mother, have felt her 
 hand resting on their youthful heads, and 
 who, when in the arms of a pious parent, 
 received the symbol of that " washing of 
 regeneration," without which none can 
 serve God acceptably, either on earth or 
 in heaven. Nor are such appeals in vain.* 
 
 But the question has often been propo- 
 sed to me, " Are men who are not allow- 
 ed to come to the Lord's Supper willing 
 to attend your churches V Most certainly 
 they are. They are too well instructed in 
 religion not to be aware that admission to 
 that ordinance would do them anything 
 but good as long as they remain unrecon- 
 ciled to God through Jesus Christ.f Many 
 
 * Some very interesting investigations have been 
 made in the churches in New-England, the portion 
 of the United States where the Gospel has been 
 longest, most extensively, and most faithfully preach- 
 ed, taken as a whole, which have shown in the most 
 decisive manner that the "children of the Church," 
 that is, the children of believers, who have been ded- 
 icated to God, many of them in baptism, have shared 
 most largely in the blessing of God's grace ; and that 
 nothing can be more completely unfounded than the 
 reproach that "the children of Christians, and es- 
 pecially those of ministers and deacons, do worse 
 than those of other people." The very reverse has 
 been demonstrated by a widely-extended and care- 
 fully-prosecuted inquiry. Indeed, what other result 
 could a man who believes God have expected ? 
 
 t Foreigners sometimes commit great mistakes 
 from not being aware of our customs in this respect. 
 A Spanish gentleman once called on the late Rev. 
 
188 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 of them, indeed, would recoil with horror 
 were a minister to propose such a thing. 
 Yet they value the privilege of going to 
 the sanctuary. They have been taught 
 from their childhood that the preaching of 
 the Gospel is the great instrumentality ap- 
 pointed by God for the salvation of men. 
 They go in the hope of one day finding 
 that which they know to be essential to 
 their happiness even in this life. Others 
 may be influenced by the force of educa- 
 tion, or by that of habit, by fashion, by the 
 desire of seeing others and being seen, by 
 the charms of the preacher's eloquence, 
 and so forth. In no other part of the 
 world, perhaps, do the inhabitants attend 
 church in a larger proportion than in the 
 United States ; certainly no part of the 
 Continent of Europe can compare with 
 them in that respect. The contrast be- 
 tween the two must strike any one who, 
 after having travelled much in the one, 
 comes to see any of the cities of the other, 
 with the single exception of New-Orleans, 
 which is hardly, as yet, an American city, 
 and even it, in point of church attendance, 
 is far better than Paris, Rome, Vienna, 
 Hamburg, or Copenhagen. 
 
 Not only do persons who have not yet 
 become members, by formal admission as 
 such, attend our churches ; they form a 
 very large part of our congregations. In 
 many cases they constitute two thirds, 
 three fourths, or even more ; this depend- 
 ing much on the length of the period du- 
 ring which the congregation has been or- 
 ganized, and hardly ever less than a half, 
 even in the most highly-favoured church- 
 es. Nor do they attend only; they are 
 cheerful supporters of the public worship, 
 and are often found as liberal in contribu- 
 ting of their substance for the promotion 
 of good objects, as the members of the 
 church themselves, with whom they are 
 intimately connected by the ordinary busi- 
 ness of life, and by family ties. Multitudes 
 of them are like the young man whom 
 Jesus loved, but who still " lacked one 
 thing." They attend from year to year, 
 as did the impotent man at the Pool of 
 Bethesda, nor do they attend in vain.* It 
 
 Sylvester Lamed, of New-Orleans, one of the most 
 eloquent pulpit orators of his day, to say that he 
 wished to join his church, and to receive the sacra- 
 ment of the Supper, " for," said he, with an oath, 
 "you are the most eloquent man I have ever heard !" 
 Mr. Lamed spent an hour with him in explaming 
 what was required in order to his becoming a mem- 
 ber of his church ; in other words, what it is to be a 
 true Christian, and the Spaniard went away with a 
 heavy heart, to reflect on a subject which iiad never 
 been presented to his mind in the same light before. 
 * In the State of Connecticut a series of most in- 
 teresting inquiries have been prosecuted, dunng the 
 last few years, under the a\ispices, I believe, of the 
 General Association of the Conjjiregational Church- 
 es ; one of which relates to the inlluence which the 
 faithful preaching of the Gospel in a community — a 
 parish, for instance — exerts upon the mass who hear 
 
 pleases God to make the faithful preaching- 
 of his Word instrumental to the salvation 
 now of one, now of another ; and some- 
 times, by a special outpouring of his Spirit, 
 He brings many at the same time into his 
 kingdom. 
 
 The non-professing hearers of the Word, 
 then, are to be considered as simply what 
 we call them, members of the congrega- 
 tion, not of the church. We can look, as 
 I have said, for their assistance in many,, 
 if not all good undertakings, as well as in 
 the ordinary support of the Gospel. Man)', 
 in the character of trustees, are faithful 
 guardians of the property of the church and 
 congregation. Many teach in oiu- Sunday- 
 schools, and find instruction themselves in 
 their endeavours to instruct others. 
 
 One great advantage in this is, that un- 
 converted men, who know themselves to 
 be such, occupy their proper place. No 
 law, no false custom, compels them to be 
 members of the church. Hence their po- 
 sition is less dangerous in several respects^ 
 They are less tempted to indulge self-de- 
 lusion, and are more open to the direct, 
 unimpeded shafts of the truth. Their po- 
 sition, too, tends to give them a remark- 
 able simplicity and frankness of character. 
 The term " Christian" generally signify- 
 ing with us, not a mere believer in Chris- 
 tianity, but one who professes to be a dis- 
 ciple of Christ, and is known as such, nine 
 persons out of ten of those who make no 
 profession of religion would, on being ask- 
 ed, " Are you a Christian ]" promptly re- 
 ply, " No, I am sorry to say I am not ;" 
 meaning thereby that he was sorry to say- 
 that he is not a truly religious man, or 
 what the word Christian ought to signify, 
 and is with us so often employed to ex- 
 press. This is obviously better for uncon- 
 verted persons — better for their own con- 
 sciences — than to be involved in a church 
 relation, and yet be without religion. It is 
 every way better, also, for the pastor and 
 the church ; and the prospect of the Word 
 of God gaining an entrance into the heart 
 of the unrenewed is many times more en- 
 couraging than if they were members of 
 the church, and had " a name to live" while 
 in reality "dead in trespasses and sins." 
 
 it for a long period of time. The results are most 
 striking, and clearly demonstrate the blessing of 
 having the staled and regular use of the means of 
 grace. It has been found that, of those who habitu- 
 ally attend churches where the Gospel is faithfully 
 preached, the number who. sooner or later, are made 
 to experience its saving power is surprisingly great ; 
 and, on the contrary, the number of those who die 
 without giving any evidence of possessing true jiiety 
 IS small. The investigation has been made in all 
 parts of the State, and has everywhere conducted to 
 the same important and delightful conclusion. I 
 know not whether this inquiry has ever been pros- 
 ecuted so thoroughly and extensively in any other 
 part of the world. 
 
Chap. VI.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF AMERICAN PREACHING. 
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF DISCIPLINE. 
 
 I HAVE been often asked in Europe, What 
 measures are adopted by our churches in 
 enforcing discipline — how unworthy per- 
 sons, for instance, are prevented from com- 
 ing to the Lord's Table ? The very ques- 
 tion indicates familiarity with a state of 
 things very different from what prevails in 
 the United States — with a state of things 
 in which the decisions of the ecclesiastical 
 authority are enforced by the civil. 
 
 Church discipline with us, though whol- 
 ly moral, is thought quite sufficient. The 
 case must be rare, indeed, of any one, not 
 a member of some recognised church, com- 
 ing forward to receive the sacrament in 
 an evangelical church. He hears the qual- 
 ifications necessary to a worthy participa- 
 tion in the ordinance ; he knows that none 
 but Christians of good repute in other evan- 
 gelical churches are invited to join the 
 members of that particular church on the 
 solemn occasion ; and if he belongs to nei- 
 ther of these categories, he is not likely to 
 unite himself to the Lord's people. But if 
 he should, he does so on his own respon- 
 sibility before God ; the Church is not to be 
 blamed for his conduct. Even were a per- 
 son who had been excommunicated for 
 open immorality, and universally known 
 to be so, to take his seat among the mem- 
 bers of the church, its office-bearers, in 
 carrying round the symbols of the Sav- 
 iour's body and blood, would probably pass 
 him by ; or, if that could not be done, they 
 would rather allow the matter to take its 
 course than risk confusion at so solemn a 
 moment, in the conviction that the Church, 
 having done her previous duty to the un- 
 happy man, she is not to blame for his un- 
 authorized intrusion. I know of one soli- 
 tary occasion in which one of the office- 
 bearers whispered in the ear of a person 
 who ought not to have been among the 
 communicants, that it would be better for 
 his own soul, as well as due to the church, 
 that he should retire, and he did so. But 
 this was unobserved by most of those im- 
 mediately around, or, if observed, they did 
 not know the cause of his retiring. 1 nev- 
 er knew or heard of another case in which 
 such a step was necessary. 
 
 No difficulty whatever, I repeat, can 
 arise on this subject. Our discipline is 
 moral, and the people are too well in- 
 structed on the subject of their duties not 
 to know what they should do, and what to 
 abstain from doing. We have no gens 
 (Varmes, or other police agents, to enforce 
 our discipline, and if such functionaries are 
 ever seen about our churches in any char- 
 acter but that of worshippers, it is on ex- 
 traordinary occasions, to keep order at the 
 door ; and their services are not often 
 needed even for that purpose. 
 
 In regard to church members who sub- 
 ject themselves to censure for open sin, or 
 gross neglect of duty, they are dealt with 
 according to the established discipline of 
 the body to which they belong ; and that, 
 in all our evangelical churches, is founded 
 upon the simple and clear directions given 
 by our Lord and his Apostles. Unworthy 
 members, after having been dealt with ac- 
 cording to Scriptural rule, are excluded 
 until they give evidence of sincere contri- 
 tion for their sin. Where the case is fla- 
 grant, and the sin persisted in, after all at- 
 tempts to reclaim the offender have failed, 
 he is openly excommunicated before the 
 church and congregation. A less open 
 declaration of the offence and punishment 
 takes place in other cases. But whatever 
 be the course pursued, unworthy men are 
 excluded in all our evangelical churches as 
 soon as their offence can be properly taken 
 up by the church. I state this as a general 
 fact. Once excluded, the world does not 
 long remain ignorant of what has taken 
 place, and the church thus avoids the 
 charge of retaining persons of scandalous 
 lives in her communion.* Any defect in 
 our administration of church discipline does 
 not lie, I conceive, generally speaking, in 
 its being harsh and impatient ; while, on the 
 other hand, there is nothing in the institu- 
 tions of the country, or in the opinions and 
 habits of the people, to prevent its being as 
 rigid as the legislation of the great Head 
 of the Church demands. If there be failure 
 anywhere, it is chargeable to want of fidel- 
 ity on the part of those who are intrusted 
 with the exercise of it. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CHARACTER OF AMERICAN PREACHING. 
 
 In order adequately to describe American 
 preaching, one should be intimately ac- 
 quainted with the churches of the country 
 throughout its vast extent ; but this knowl- 
 edge it falls to the lot of few to possess. 
 Foreign writers on the subject have been 
 either travellers, whose books betray a 
 very limited acquaintance with the church- 
 es and their ministers, or untravelled au- 
 thors, whose judgment has been formed 
 upon such specimens as they could find in 
 printed discourses, or hear from the lips of 
 preachers from the United States during 
 visits to Europe. In either case, whatever 
 may have been the impartiality of the 
 judges, the data for forming a sound opin- 
 
 * The deposition of a minister of the Gospel, when 
 it occurs, which, when we consider how numerous 
 the ministry is, cannot be thought frequent, is com- 
 monly announced in the rehgious and other journals, 
 in order that the churches may be duly guarded 
 against the admission of the deposed person into 
 their pulpits, through ignorance of his character and 
 present position. 
 
190 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 ion upon the subject have been manifestly 
 insufficient. Few persons in Europe have 
 read enough of American sermons to form 
 an accurate judgment respecting the vari- 
 ous qualities of American preaching, for 
 few preachers, comparatively, in America 
 have published volumes of sermons, or 
 even isolated and occasional discourses. 
 Some of the most effective preachers have 
 published very little, and many nothing at 
 all. And as for those preachers from the 
 United States who have visited Europe, 
 not a dozen have been able to preach in 
 any language but the English ; and any 
 other language, with all but one or two of 
 these, has been German. Except in Great 
 Britain and Ireland, then, and to a very 
 limited extent in Germany, American 
 preaching is unknown, except from books 
 and the reports of persons who have visited 
 the country. As for the American preach- 
 ers who have visited Europe, they have 
 been few in comparison with the whole 
 body, and have been confined for the most 
 parf to those of three or four denomina- 
 tions. Many of them have crossed the 
 Atlantic as invalids for the recovery of 
 their health ; others have come with some 
 object to accomplish, which left little time 
 for preaching. Under such circumstances 
 they could hardly be expected to preach as 
 well as at home ; and yet there have been 
 some who, while in Europe, reflected no 
 discredit on themselves or their country as 
 pulpit orators.* 
 
 Preaching in the United States varies 
 exceedingly both in maimer and in substance, 
 but most in manner. The clergy in the 
 Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopal, 
 Reformed Dutch, Lutheran, German Re- 
 formed, Moravian, Reformed Presbyteri- 
 an, Associate, and As.sociate Reformed 
 churches, have, with few exceptions, pass- 
 ed through a regular course of education 
 
 * Among the American preachers whose visits are 
 still remembered with interest in Great Britain (and 
 some of them on the Continent also), but who are no 
 longer with us, may be mentioned the Rev. Drs. 
 Mason, Romeyn, Bruen, Henry, Hobart, Emory, 
 Fisk, and Clark, who were certainly no mean men. 
 Of those who have visited Europe within the last few 
 years, and who are still permitted to prosecnte their 
 work among us, the Rev. Drs. Spring, Humphrey, 
 Cox, M'Auley, Codman, Spragiie, I5reckinridge. Pat- 
 ton, and Rev. Mr. Kirk, of the Presbyterian and Con- 
 gregational Cliiirches ; the Rev. Drs. Bethnne and 
 Ferris, of the Reformed Dutch ; the Rev. Drs. Mil- 
 nor, Milvaine (bishop of Ohio), Meade (bishop of 
 Virginia), Hawks, and Tyng, of the Episcopal ; the 
 Rev. Drs. Olin, Cajicrs, President Durbin, anii Bisliop 
 Soule, of the Methodist ; the Rev. Drs. Wayland, 
 Stowe, Sears, and .M '.Murray, of the Baptist ; and the 
 Rev. Dr. Kurtz and the Rev. ?1r. Riley of the Lu- 
 theran and German Reformed (^lurches, are widely 
 known in Great Britain, and some of them on the 
 Continent. The last-named two were kir.dly re- 
 ceived in Germany, and heard with attention, both 
 when they spoke of the infant seminaries for which 
 they pleaded, as well as when they proclaimed "that 
 Name which is above every name,'' and which is 
 "like ointment poured forth." 
 
 in Latin, Greek, the Natural and Moral 
 Sciences, and Theology, such as is now 
 pursued at our colleges and theological 
 seminaries, or what is tantamount to it. 
 Many, especially the younger men, have 
 some knowledge of Hebrew. As for the 
 Baptist ministers, it is not easy to say how 
 many have gone through a similar course — 
 certainly not half, perhaps not a fourth of 
 them. A still smaller proportion of the 
 Methodist preachers have had that advan- 
 tage, though, upon the whole, they are^ 
 probably as well informed as tfie Baptist 
 ministers are. Ministerial education among 
 the Cumberland Presbyterians is much in 
 the same state as among the Methodists. 
 
 The clergy of certain denominations, 
 who have not passed through a collegiate 
 course, are often spoken of, but very un- 
 justly, as " uneducated,'' " unlearned," " il- 
 literate," and so forth. Very many such 
 have, by great application, made most re- 
 spectable attainments. Some have aci- 
 quired a considerable knowledge of the 
 Latin and Greek classics, and a far greater 
 number have, by the diligent perusal of 
 valuable works in English, stored their 
 minds with a large amount of sound learn- 
 ing, which they use with much effect in 
 preaching. Nor is this surprising. A man 
 may acquire an immense fund of knowledge 
 through the sole medium of the EngUsk 
 tongue. Benjamin Franklin knew nothing 
 of the ancient languages, and not much of 
 any of the modern, beyond his mother 
 tongue and French; yet few men of his 
 day were better informed, or wrote their 
 mother tongue with equal purity. So, also, 
 with Washington. And who ever used the 
 English language with greater propriety 
 and effect than Bunyan ; or where in that 
 language shall we find a sounder or abler 
 theological writer than Andrew Fuller ? 
 Yet neither Bunyan nor Fuller was ever at 
 a college. 
 
 It is a great, though a conmion mistake, 
 to suppose that Methodist ministers, when 
 " on the circuit," read nothing. There beiiig 
 generally two on each circuit, each has a 
 good deal of time, especially in the older 
 portions of the country, for making up his 
 reports, carrying on his correspondence, 
 and prosecuting his studies ; and that this 
 last is done to some good purpose is 
 clearly shown by the preaching of the great 
 majority. Those who are labouring on the 
 " circuits" in the frontier and thinly-set- 
 tled districts, have much less time for read- 
 ing and study. Those who are stationed in. 
 the cities and large towns have as much 
 time for study as other ministers similarly 
 situated. Many Baptist ministers, also, 
 who have never attended college, are close 
 studeiUs,and carefully prepare for the pul- 
 pit ; while others, of whom so much can- 
 not be said, give themselves much to the 
 reading of certain favourite authors. 
 
Chap. VI.j 
 
 CHARACTER OF AMERICAN PREACHING. 
 
 191 
 
 Nearly all the Episcopal and Congrega- 
 tional clergy write their sermons, and read 
 more or less closely when delivering them. 
 So do many of the Presbyterian and Re- 
 formed Dutch, and some, also, of the Bap- 
 tist ministers. A large proportion of the 
 Presbyterian clergy, the great majority of 
 the Baptist, and nearly all the ministers of 
 the Methodist, Cumberland Presbyterian, 
 and some other evangelical denominations, 
 neither write their sermons in full, nor read 
 any considerable part of them. Few, how- 
 ever, of any church commit their sermons 
 to memory ; the great majority of such as 
 do not write out their discourses, carefully 
 study the subjects of them, and generally 
 note down the principal heads to be used 
 in the pulpit, as taste or habit may incline. 
 
 The delivery of the ministers among us 
 who read is not, in general, very animated ; 
 still, it is sufficiently attractive in most 
 instances to interest hearers endued with 
 any capacity for distinguishing between 
 sound and sense, and who prefer a well- 
 reasoned, well-expressed, and instructive 
 discourse to mere animated declamation, 
 accompanied with much less, commonly, 
 of these qualities. Good reading, though 
 in all countries much more rare than at- 
 tractive and effective speaking, will gen- 
 erally be preferred, nevertheless, by hear- 
 ers of high intellectual acquirements. 
 
 Ministers of all denominations who do 
 not read their discourses, possess a much 
 more animated delivery, and generally dis- 
 play more of what may be called " orato- 
 ry" in their manner, than their brethren 
 who read. But their sermons can hardly 
 have the same order, clearness, and free- 
 dom from repetition. Still, they need not 
 be defective in instructiveness, and they 
 have greatly the advantage in point of 
 fervour, and in those direct and powerful 
 appeals which owe their effect almost 
 as much to look, tone, and manner, as to 
 the truths which the speaker expresses. 
 Not that such appeals can be of much 
 avail if no truth be conveyed by them, but 
 truth may become much more effective 
 when pressed upon the attention in an at- 
 tractive and impressive manner. 
 
 Those of the clergy of the evangelical 
 churches in the United States who have 
 passed through a regular classical and the- 
 ological course of education, and who in 
 point of numbers may be estimated at 
 about 7000, taken as a whole, would be 
 pronounced less animated than the most 
 celebrated preachers in Great Britain and 
 Ireland, France and Germany, and, I may 
 add, Denmark and Sweden. Not a few of 
 them, however, are not wanting in fervour, 
 and even^Ve in their delivery. But this is 
 not the case with those of our ministers 
 who have had a less complete education, 
 and have been very differently trained. 
 Our Methodist ministers have a certain 
 
 course of reading prescribed to them for 
 the four probationary years preceding their 
 being ordained elders or presbyters. Du'- 
 ring that time they have their circuit la- 
 bours to perform ; what they learn is put 
 to instant use, and incorporated, as it 
 were, with their very being. Now, this 
 preparatory course has no tendency to 
 keep down the eagerness for energetic 
 preaching, so much felt by men who re- 
 gard themselves as called by God to preacli 
 his Gospel, but which is so much restrain- 
 ed by the precise knowledge and artificial 
 rules of eloquence taught in colleges. Be- 
 sides, as they generally preach to moder- 
 ate assemblages, and these, in many cases, 
 mainly composed of the plainer classes, 
 they are far less apt to feel embarrassed 
 than youths who, having first spent sever- 
 al years at a college, and then several 
 more at a theological seminary, have ac- 
 quired so fastidious a taste, and have be- 
 come so nervously sensible to the slightest 
 deviations from the strictest rules of gram- 
 mar and rhetoric, that they almost dread 
 to speak at all, lest they should offend 
 against both. But the grand advantage pos- 
 sessed by the Methodist itinerant preach- 
 er, and one which, if he has any talent at 
 all, he cannot fail to profit by, is, that he 
 may preach sooner or later in many or all 
 of the eight, ten, or more places in his cir- 
 cuit, the discourse with which he sets out, 
 and which he has been preparing during 
 the intervals of repose which he enjoys. 
 This frequent repetition of the same ser- 
 mon is an inestimable means of improve- 
 ment. Each repetition admits of some 
 modification, as the discourse is not writ- 
 ten out, and enables the preacher to im- 
 prove what seemed faulty, and to supply 
 what seemed deficient in the preceding 
 effort. No men, accordingly, with us be- 
 come readier or more effective speakers. 
 Their diction, indeed, may not always be 
 as pure as that of men who have spent 
 several years in the schools ; yet it is sur- 
 prising with what propriety vast numbers 
 of them express themselves, while in point 
 of forcible and effective delivery they far 
 surpass, upon the whole, preachers who 
 have passed through the colleges. 
 
 What has been said of the Methodists 
 applies to the Cumberland Presbyterians, 
 a body of Christians which we shall give 
 some account of hereafter, and which is 
 to be found exclusively in the West and in 
 Texas. Like the Methodists, they have 
 circuit or itinerant preachers, and about an 
 equal proportion of their ministers have 
 never pursued a course of study at col- 
 lege. It may be applied, also, but not to 
 the same extent, to what is called, neither 
 with strict propriety, nor always in kind- 
 liness of feeling, the " uneducated" por- 
 tion of Baptist preachers. They have not 
 the advantages of the itineracy, and many 
 
192 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 of them are too much occupied with their 
 secular pursuits to have much time to 
 spare for study. Still, among them, also, 
 there will be found a great deal of ener- 
 getic eloquence — rather homely at times, 
 yet often highly effective — and flowing 
 from a mind more intent upon its concep- 
 tions than upon the language in which 
 they are to be clothed, and more desirous 
 of producing a lasting effect on the under- 
 standing and hearts of the hearers than of 
 exciting admiration for the graces of a fine 
 style and elegant delivery. 
 
 Some of the tourists from abroad who 
 have visited the United States have affect- 
 ed to despise our " uneducated" and " ig- 
 norant" ministers, and have thought what 
 they call the " ranting" of such men a fit 
 subject of diversion for themselves and 
 their readers. Such authors know little 
 of the real worth and valuable labours of 
 these humble, and, in comparison with such 
 as have studied at colleges and universi- 
 ties, unlettered men. Their plain preach- 
 ing, in fact, is often far more likely to ben- 
 efit their usual hearers* than would that of 
 a learned doctor of divinity issuing from 
 some great university. Their language, 
 though not always refined, is intelligible to 
 those to whom it is addressed. Their il- 
 lustrations may not be classical, but they 
 will probably be drawn either from the 
 Bible or from the scenes amid which their 
 hearers move, and the events with which 
 they are familiar ; nor would the critical 
 knowledge of a Porson, or the vast learn- 
 ing of a Parr, be likely to make them 
 more successful in their work. I have 
 often heard most solemn and edifying dis- 
 courses from such men. I have met with 
 them in all parts of the United States ; 
 and though some, doubtless, bring discredit 
 upon the ministry by their ignorance, their 
 eccentricities, or tlieir incapacity, and do 
 more harm than good to the cause of reli- 
 gion, yet, taken as a whole, they are a 
 great blessing to the country. A Euro- 
 pean who should denounce the United 
 States as uncivilized, and the inhabitants 
 as wretched, because he does not every- 
 where find the luxuries and refinements of 
 London and Paris, would display no more 
 ignorance of the world, nor a greater want 
 of common sense, than were he to despise 
 the plain preaching of a man who enters 
 the pulpit with a mind replete with Scrip- 
 tural knowledge, obtained by frequent pe- 
 
 * Let me not he misiindprstood. I would not for 
 a moment convey the idea that the people who at- 
 tend the preachnig of the noti-classically educated 
 Methodist and 13aptist ministers consist only of the 
 poor and uneducated. On the contrary, in many 
 places, both in the North and in the South, they 
 nave a fair share of the most lutelli'^ent and respect- 
 able part of the population amonp; their hearers. At 
 the same time, it has ever been the peculiar glory of 
 the former, indeed, of Imth, that through their labours 
 " the poor have the Gospel preached to them." 
 
 rusal of the Bible, and the assistance of 
 valuable commentaries, besides being gen- 
 erally well informed, and with a heart full 
 of love to God and concern for men's souls, 
 even although he may never have fre- 
 quented the groves of an academy, or 
 studied the nicer graces of oratory. To 
 the labours of such men more than 20,000 
 neighbourhoods in the United States are 
 indebted for their general good order, tran- 
 quillity, and happiness, as well as for the 
 humble but sincere piety that reigns in 
 many a heart, and around many a fireside. 
 To them the country owes much of its 
 conservative character, for no men have 
 inculcated more effectively those doctrines 
 which promote obedience to law, respect 
 for magistracy, and the maintenance of 
 civil government ; and never more than 
 within the last year or two, during which 
 they have had to resist the anarchical 
 principles of self-styled reformers, both 
 religious and political. No men are more 
 hated and reviled by these demagogues, 
 whose projects, I rejoice to say, find com- 
 paratively but a small and decreasing num- 
 ber of friends and advocates. To the in- 
 fluence of the pulpit, and that of the reli- 
 gious and sound part of the political press, 
 we owe a return of better sentiments in 
 several states, in relation to capital punish- 
 ments in the case of murder in its highest 
 degree, and the more frequent condemna- 
 tion and execution of those who commit 
 it. And in a late insurrectionary move- 
 ment in Rhode Island, the leading journals 
 of that state attest that the clergy of all 
 denominations exerted a highly salutary 
 influence.* 
 
 But the subject of preaching ought to be 
 viewed in its highest and most important 
 aspect — that of the salvation of souls. 
 
 The first characteristic of American 
 preaching, I should say, is simplicity. It 
 is simple in the form of discourse or ser- 
 mon, usually adopted by the better-educa- 
 ted part of the ministry. The most natu- 
 ral and obvious view of a subject is pre- 
 ferred to the far-fetched, the philosophical, 
 it may be, and the striking. The grand 
 aitn of our preachers, taken as a body, is 
 to present the true meaning of a text rath- 
 er than to produce what is called effect. 
 Again, preaching in the United States is 
 simple in point of language, the plain and 
 familiar being preferred to the ornate and 
 rhetorical. Such of our preachers as wish 
 to be perfectly intelligible, prefer words of 
 Saxon to those of Latin origin, as being 
 better understood by the people. Vigour, 
 too, is preferred to beauty, and perspicuity 
 to embellishment. Not that we have no 
 preachers whose comp osition is ornate , 
 
 * '• Nothing," says the Providence Journal of .Tiily, 
 1842, "has tilled the enemies of law and order with 
 greater rage than the high and noble stand takeu liy 
 the clergy against their insurrectionary doctrines." 
 
Chap. VI.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF AMERICAN PREACHING. 
 
 193 
 
 and even elegant, but I speak of the mass. 
 Lastly, our preaching is simple in point of 
 delivery. The manner of our preachers, 
 their gestures, and their intonation, must 
 be allowed to be extremely simple. There 
 is little of the rhetorician's art in it, little 
 that is studied and theatrical. There may 
 be animation, and in some cases even vehe- 
 mence, accompanied with a loud and pow- 
 erful utterance, but the manner remains 
 simple — the hearer's attention is not di- 
 verted from what is said to him that says 
 it. Truth, accordingly, has a better chance, 
 so to speak, of making its way to the hearts 
 of the audience, than when announced with 
 all the fascinations of a splendid address 
 and captivating manner. Not that elo- 
 quence is unknown or undervalued, but 
 that simplicity of delivery predominates 
 over show, and the preacher would rather 
 carry truth home to his hearers' hearts 
 than extort their applause. Nor do our 
 ministers affect a peculiar manner or into 
 
 nation of voice,* as is the case in some 
 countries, but every good preacher endeav- 
 ours to take with him into the pulpit what 
 is natural and habitual to him in that re- 
 spect. 
 
 / The second grand characteristic of 
 American preaching lies in its bfing seri- 
 ous and earnest. Thanks be to God, the 
 preachers of our evangelical churches 
 seem, in general, to be truly converted 
 men, and preach as if they felt the infinite 
 importance of what they say. " We be- 
 lieve, and therefore speak," seems to be 
 the mainspring of all their endeavours, 
 and to give the tone to all their preaching. 
 They feel it to be a serious office to speak 
 to dying men of the interests of their im- 
 mortal souls, and help them to prepare 
 for death, judgment, and eternity. They 
 ■would recoil from the task under an over- 
 "whelming sense of its awfulness, were it 
 not that they believe themselves called to 
 it by the Holy Ghost. " Wo unto me if I 
 preach not the Gospel," are words that oft- 
 en address themselves to their hearts, and 
 urge them to the faithful discharge of their 
 vows. Can we wonder that the preaching 
 of such men is serious and earnest T 
 I A third characteristic of American preach- 
 ing is its dwelling much upon immediale rec- 
 onciliation with God, by sincere repentance 
 towards Him, and faith towards the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Reconciliation with God! 
 that is the great duly urged by the Gospel, 
 and the doing of that duty "now," "to-day," 
 while it is " the accepted time," and " the 
 
 *■ Many of the Methodist and Baptist preachers have 
 more of what may be called English intonation than 
 those of other denominations. This may doubtless 
 be ascribed to the influence of some leadmg English 
 preachers, such as Bishops Coke and Asbury among 
 the former, and the late Dr. Staughton and others 
 among the latter. This I mention not by way of 
 disparagement, but solely because I wish to state 
 what appears to me to be a real peculiarity. 
 N 
 
 day of salvation," not its postponement un- 
 til to-morrow, or a " more convenient sea- 
 son," is what is mainly urged by our evan- 
 gelical ministers generally, so as to form 
 a prominent characteristic of their preach- 
 ing. This> it is which communicates to 
 their preaching so much of Richard Bax- 
 ter's style, as exhibited in his writings. 
 No excuse, no delay on the part of the 
 unconverted sinner can be accepted ; the 
 solemn call to repent and seek now the 
 salvation of his never-dying soul is made 
 to sound in his ear, and no peace is given 
 until he has not only heard, but obeyed it. 
 A fourth characteristic of American 
 preaching is found in its being highly doc- 
 trinal. This is particularly the case with 
 such of our ministers as have passed 
 through a regular course of classical and 
 theological studies ; and of these, those 
 who write and read their discourses in- 
 dulge rather more, perhaps, than those who 
 speak from premeditation merely, in what 
 may be called a dogmatic style, using the 
 word in its original signification. And al- 
 though with those who have not pursued 
 such a regular course of study, the practi- 
 cal and hortatory style may prevail over 
 the doctrinal and exegetical, yet the latter 
 has unquestionably a very considerable 
 place in their sermons, as all will admit 
 who have regularly attended such preach- 
 ing for a sufficient time to enable them to 
 judge satisfactorily on the subject. Many 
 of our pastors expound certain portions of 
 the Bible in order, but this the most difficult, 
 and yet, when happily done, most profita- 
 ble of all methods of presenting truth, is not, 
 I am sorry to say, so common as it ought 
 to be. The Bible-classes may, perhaps, be 
 considered so far as a substitute for it, and 
 if a substitute can be admitted at all, they 
 are certainly the best that can be named. 
 
 A fifth characteristic of our preaching 
 lies in its being systematic or consecutive ; 
 words which make farther explanation ne- 
 cessary, as neither of them expresses the 
 idea which I wish to convey. What I mean 
 is, that the best preaching in our evangeh- 
 cal churches maintains a proper connexion 
 among the discourses successively deliv- 
 ered from the same pulpit, instead of each 
 presenting a separate or isolated state- 
 ment of truth, a sermon one Sabbath be- 
 ing given on one particular subject, on 
 the Sabbath following another sermon on a 
 totally distinct subject, and so on through- 
 out the year. A preacher ought, indeed, 
 to change his topics according to the cir- 
 cumstances and characters of his hearers. 
 But there is such a thing as dwelling on 
 one subject in all its bearings, in succes- 
 sive discourses, so as to make it more 
 thoroughly understood, and convey a deep- 
 er impression than could otherwise be 
 done. And there is such a thing, also, as 
 presenting all the subjects wliich should 
 
194 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 constitute the themes of a preacher's dis- 
 courses in their proper connexion with, 
 and relation to, one another. Preaching 
 on isolated subjects, without any connect- 
 ing link, and of which no better account 
 can be given than that the preacher finds 
 certain topics and texts easy to preach 
 upon, is not likely to do much good. This 
 is not what men do when they would 
 produce a deep and effectual impression 
 on any other subject. They strive, by all 
 possible means, to present it in all its as- 
 pects and bearings, and do not quit one 
 point until they have well established it. 
 They make every succeeding statement 
 and argument bear upon and strengthen 
 that which preceded, and in this way they 
 make it manifest that they are steadily 
 tending to a great final result, from which 
 nothing, not even want of systematic pro- 
 cess in argumentation, must be allowed 
 for a moment to divert them. " It is line 
 upon line, line upon line ; precept upon 
 precept, precept upon precept," with them ; 
 and as the blacksmith can expect to make 
 an impression upon the heated iron only 
 by directing his hammer to the same point 
 and its immediate vicinity in many suc- 
 cessive blows, so the minister does not 
 hope for success in opening the eyes of. 
 blind sinners, or rightly guiding those who 
 are scarcely more than half awake, but by 
 oft-repeated and faithful presentation of 
 the same truths in all their bearings. This 
 characteristic can hardly be called a pre- 
 vailing one, for, alas ! with a good deal of 
 systematic preaching, we have still too 
 much, even among our settled clergy, of 
 that sort which, with more propriety of 
 idea than accuracy of expression, has been 
 called scattering. 
 
 A. sixth characteristic of American 
 preaching is the extent to which it may 
 be called philosophical. By philosophical 
 I mean, founded on a knowledge of the 
 faculties and powers of the human mind, 
 and of the principles which govern its oper- 
 ations. Though not universal, this charac- 
 teristic distinguishes the evangelical cler- 
 gy of New-England in particular, and oth- 
 ers who have devoted much of their time 
 to theology as a study. Much that is true, 
 and much, also, that is absurd, has been 
 said against introducing philosophy into 
 religion. True philosophy, in its proper 
 place, is a valuable auxiliary or handmaid, 
 rather than an enemy to theology ; but 
 when she ceases to be a servant and as- 
 sumes the mastery, undertaking that for 
 which she is incompetent, she fails in do- 
 ing the good slie might otherwise have 
 done, and becomes purely mischievous.* 
 
 ♦ "I think," says M. de Tocqueville, "that in 
 no country in the civilized world is less attention 
 paid to philosophy than in the United States. The 
 Americans have no philosophical school of their own ; 
 and they care but little for all the schools into which 
 
 A seventh characteristic of American 
 preaching is its directness. This distin- 
 guishes our preaching so generally, that it 
 were hard to say which of the evangelical 
 denominations has most of it. You every- 
 where find it the preacher's object, first of 
 all, to be perfectly understood, and then to 
 preach to the heart and conscience, as 
 well as to the understanding. In doing 
 this great plainness of speech is used, 
 and care taken to avoid everything by 
 which the barbed dart may be arrested be- 
 fore it reaches the heart at which it is 
 aimed. 
 
 An eighth characteristic of American 
 preaching is its faithfulness. I know not 
 how often I have been asked in Europe 
 whether our ministers are not intimidated 
 by the rich and influential in their congre- 
 gations who may dislike the truth. The 
 question has not a little surprised me, for 
 I never dreamed that the courage of evaUr- 
 
 Europe is divided, the very names of which are 
 scarcely known to them. Nevertheless, it is easy 
 to perceive that almost all the inhabitants of the 
 United States conduct their understanding in the 
 same manner, and govern it by the same rules ; that 
 is to say, that without ever having taken the trouble 
 to define the rules of a philosophical method, they 
 are in possession of one, common to the whole peo- 
 ple." I do not know when I ever read anything 
 with more unmingled astonishment than I did these 
 opinions, which are faithfully transferred from the 
 author's original. Certainly, one rarely finds such 
 an acknowledgment of a widely-existing effect, for 
 which the proper and only possible cause is denied. 
 The fact is, that in few countries in the civilized 
 world is philosophy, in the sense in which this word 
 is used on the Continent, viz., metaphysical or psy- 
 chological science, more pursued, at least to all prac- 
 tical and valuable ends, than in the United States. 
 There is scarcely a college — at least a Protestant ' 
 one, and there are upward of eighty such — in which 
 it is not studied with no little care by the students 
 in the last year of the course. In addition to read- 
 ing such authors as Locke, Reid, Dugald Stewart, 
 Brown, &c., the professor of that department gives 
 lectures or e.xplanalions of the text-book employed. 
 Thus do the thousands of young collegians make 
 considerable proficiency in this science, especially 
 in its more popular and practical aspects. And thus 
 do our public men, our professional men, all, in a 
 word, who have passed through college (and they 
 are the men, with few exceptions, that most influ- 
 ence the public mind), become acquainted with the 
 principles that guide the operations of the human 
 mind. There is not a country in the world, not even 
 excepting Scotland itself, where metaphysics have 
 so much influence upon preaching as in New-Eng- 
 land, where, indeed, they have sometimes had too 
 much influence. We have not in the United States 
 great professors who occupy themselves with no- 
 thing but philosophy, and who have rivalled Kant, 
 and Hegel, and Schelling, in the nature of their 
 speculations ; nor is it likely that we ever shall have 
 such. The nature of our Anglo-Saxon mind hardly 
 admits of the thing. Besides, we have too much 
 public life, and too much to engross our attention, 
 to allow us to prosecute extensively impractical spec- 
 ulations, if 1 may use the expression. Nevertheless, 
 we have a few men, such as Mr. Ralph W. Emer- 
 son, of Boston, who equal Mr. Carlyle himself in ad- 
 miration of the German transcendentalists, and have, 
 probably, come quite as near to understanding them. 
 — Democracy in America, part ii., chap. i. (Reeves's 
 translation), p. 1. 
 
Chap. VI] CHARACTER OF AMERICAN PREACHING. 
 
 gelical ministers in preaching the Gospel 
 could be doubted. Certainly no man could 
 have such a doubt after witnessing what it 
 has been my lot to witness in all parts of 
 the United States. The dependence of our 
 ministers upon their flocks for their sala- 
 ries seems not to aflfect in the least their 
 faithfulness in preaching " repentance to- 
 wards God," and " faith towards our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." The relation that subsists 
 between pastor and people is certainly more 
 intimate and kindly, and calls for more 
 mutual forbearance, than where the law 
 makes the former wholly independent of 
 the latter. But the very kindness, tender- 
 ness of feeling, and respect which it cre- 
 ates, are only additional motives to ren- 
 der a good minister faithful to the souls of 
 those with whom he maintains such an in- j 
 teresting relation, and who show him so 
 many proofs of affection as a faithful pas- 
 tor is very sure to receive among us. Most 
 certainly facts do not establish the supe- 
 rior faithfulness of ministers who are in- 
 dependent of their flocks, taken as a body. 
 On the contrary, this very independence 
 often leads to indolence, neglect, and, 
 sometimes, even to insolence, qualities 
 which it ill becomes a minister of Christ 
 to display, and which are utterly incon- 
 sistent with the Gospel. And it may safe- 
 ly be affirmed that, with us, the great ma- 
 jorit}' of men who have been brought up 
 under evangelical preaching, but who have 
 not yet been converted, would rather have 
 a faithful than an unfaithful pastor. They 
 know that religion, though they profess it 
 not, is of vast importance, and they know 
 well the difference between him that 
 preaches " smooth things," and him that 
 faithfully declares the " counsel of the 
 Lord." Not only does their conscience ap- 
 prove of the former, and not the latter, but 
 they feel that there is far more prospect 
 of their salvation under the ministry of 
 the one than of the other. Besides, other 
 things being equal, a man who preaches 
 faithfully " Christ crucified" is sure to 
 prove, in the end, a more attractive preach- 
 er than he who does not. For what theme 
 can ever be compared with that of the love 
 of God towards sinners of mankind, and 
 the gift of his Son to redeem them from 
 destruction ] Therefore, if a man wishes 
 to be esteemed and supported by his peo- 
 ple, let him be faithful ; that is, in the 
 sense in which Paul was faithful, who was, 
 also, neither rash nor unfeeling, but, on 
 the contrary, prudent and mild, and strove 
 to commend himself, " in love," to all to 
 whom he preached the " unsearchable rich- 
 es of the Gospel." 
 
 The ninth characteristic of American 
 preaching is, that it is eminently practical. 
 Not only are the unconverted urged to 
 *' acquaint themselves with God, and be at 
 peace, that thereby good may come to 
 
 195 
 
 them," and believers exhorted to " grow 
 in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ," but the latter are also urged, 
 from the moment of their conversion, to 
 commence living for God, and for the sal- 
 vation of men. The doctrine has of late 
 years been more and more preached, that 
 every Christian, be his sphere in life what 
 it may, is under obligation to live for the 
 salvation of others ; and that by his con- 
 versation, by his holy example, as well as 
 by personal sacrifices, he should do all that 
 he can to promote this salvation far and 
 near. Blessed be God, this style of preach- 
 ing is not without effect. It is the cause, 
 under God's blessing, of the annually in- 
 creasing eflforts made by Christians of that 
 land, for the building up of Christ's king- 
 dom, both at home and abroad. 
 
 The tenth and last characteristic of 
 American preaching is, that it speaks much 
 of the work of the Spirit. I know of no one 
 idea that has been so much a dominant one 
 in the American churches for the last fifty 
 years, or, rather, for the last 100 years, as 
 that of the importance of the office and 
 work of the Holy Spirit. The need in 
 which the world lies of the operations of 
 this holy Agent, the indispensableness of 
 his co-operation with the preaching of the 
 Gospel, and the use of all other means to 
 effect the salvation of men, together with 
 the gracious promise of this great ascension 
 gift of the crucified and exalted Saviour, 
 are themes on which the ministry of the 
 evangelical churches in America often 
 dwells, and not in vain. 
 
 I have now said what I have deemed ne- 
 cessary respecting the character of Amer- 
 ican preaching. The limits of this work 
 have not permitted me to dwell on these 
 topics, nor is it necessary. All that I have 
 aimed at has been to give the reader what 
 I deem some just conceptions on a subject 
 in which I supposed he might be interested. 
 We come now to the consideration of the 
 question of revivals of religion in America, 
 a subject of the greatest importance, and, at 
 the same time, attended with no ordinary 
 difficulties in the minds, perhaps, of some 
 into whose hands this book may fall. I 
 would, however, most respectfully call the 
 attention of such, and, indeed, of all who 
 may read this volume, to the chapter which 
 follows. Though long, it will well reward 
 them for any attention they may bestow 
 upon it. I know not where the whole sub- 
 ject has been so well presented in any 
 language, and cannot but hope that, with 
 God^s blessing, it will prove eminently use- 
 ful. It confirms the opinions re.specting 
 American preaching which I have given in 
 the preceding pages. The distinguished 
 friend and professor to whom I am indebt- 
 ed for it, and of whom I have spoken -in the 
 introduction, is better qualified by his po- 
 sition, and by his experience, to write such 
 
196 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 an article than any other man I know of in 
 the United States. God grant that the day 
 may speedily arrive when the dispensation 
 of the Spirit will be better understood and 
 appreciated in all parts of Christendom 
 than it is at present ; and when the abun- 
 dant gift of this blessed Agent will fill the 
 churches with light, and life, and holiness. 
 Nowhere, as it seems to me, is the Holy 
 Spirit honoured as he ought to be, and must 
 be, before the world will be converted. This 
 is true of even the best portions of the Prot- 
 estant churches ; while as to some of the 
 rest, as well as the Roman Catholics in 
 mass, it would seem as if they had not yet 
 " heard whether there be any Holy Spirit." 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 Extraordinary seasons of religious inter- 
 est, denominated Revivals of Religion, have 
 existed in the American churches from a 
 very early period of their history. The 
 cause of this peculiarity in the dispensation 
 of divine grace may be traced, in part, to 
 the peculiar character and circumstances 
 of the first settlers of the country. They 
 were English Puritans, who had suffered 
 the severest persecution for their princi- 
 ples in their native land, and who fled into 
 the wilderness to enjoy those principles 
 unmolested, and to carry them out in their 
 full extent. 
 
 The leading point in controversy between 
 our fathers and the English government 
 was freedom of worship ; the right to have 
 the Gospel preached among them, in its 
 most seiuching application to the con- 
 science and the heart, " without human 
 mixtures or impositions." To secure this 
 privilege, they willingly " endured the loss 
 of all things," and it was therefore natural 
 that they should prize it highly. Accord- 
 ingly, the attachment of the first settlers of 
 New-England to the ordinances of public 
 worship, and especially the reliance they 
 placed on " the preaching of the word" as 
 the chief instrument, under God, for the 
 conversion of their children and depend- 
 ants, were among the most striking traits 
 in their character. Strict as they were, 
 even to sternness, in family discipline : lit- 
 erally as they obeyed the injunction, " Thou 
 shalt teach these things diligently unto thy 
 children, and shalt talk of them when thou 
 sittest in thy house, and when thou walk- 
 est in the way, and when thou licst down, 
 and when thou risest up," they still felt 
 that it is the truth pre-eminently, as dis- 
 pensed in " the great congregation," under 
 the combined influence of awakened sym- 
 pathy and awe of the divine presence, 
 which is made by the Holy Spirit " the 
 power of God unto salvation." This feel- 
 
 ing modified all their habits and institu- 
 tions as a people. It made them settle in 
 villages around their places of worship, and 
 not, like their Southern neighbours, upon 
 scattered plantations ; it led them to sup- 
 port two religious teachers for each of their 
 infant churches ; it founded colleges for the 
 preparation of a ministry adequate to these 
 high duties ; it established week-day lec- 
 tures, on which those who lived in the out- 
 er settlements, at the distance of six or 
 eight miles, felt it a privilege and a duty 
 regularly to attend ; it pervaded, in short, 
 all the arrangements of society, and gave a 
 prominence to preaching, a disposition to 
 multiply religious meetings, and a reliance 
 upon this mode of urging truth upon the 
 conscience, greater, perhaps, than has ever 
 existed among any other people. 
 
 Another trait in the character of the first 
 settlers of New-England, in common with 
 their brethren at home, was a strong faith 
 and expectation of sjiecial answers to pray- 
 er. The English Puritans never regarded 
 prayer as a mere means of grace, but (what 
 it truly is) as a means of moving God, of 
 inducing him to grant what he could not 
 otherwise be expected to bestow. Nor did 
 they stop here. They did not expect mere- 
 ly the blessing of God in general on the re- 
 quests they made, but direct and specific 
 answers, according to their need, in every 
 pressing emergency. This strong faith in 
 the efficacy of prayer the first settlers of 
 New-England carried with them when they 
 fled into the wilderness. It was their sup- 
 port and consolation under all the trials of 
 famine, pestilence, and savage warfare. 
 They felt that special and extraordinary 
 answers were often vouchsafed them when 
 they cried to God ; that there were periods 
 in their history when his arm was made 
 bare for their deliverance, in a manner 
 scarcely less remarkable than if He had in- 
 terposed by direct miracle ; and the result 
 was, that the spirit of the early New-Eng- 
 land Christians was emphatically a spirit 
 oi prayer ; which led them to the throne of 
 grace, with the highest confidence of being 
 heard, on every occasion of especial inter- 
 est to themselves, their families, and the 
 Church. 
 
 To see the connexion of these two traits 
 of character with the spirit of revivals, we 
 have only to consider the influence they 
 would naturally exert at one of the most 
 interesting crises which can ever happen to 
 a minister and his church — I mean the com- 
 mencement of increased thoughtfulness 
 among the unconverted part of the con- 
 gregation. Such season.s exist, at times, 
 in every place where the Gospel is faithful- 
 ly preached. Some alarming ])ruvidence, 
 some general calamity which weakens for 
 a time the fascination of worldly things, 
 some impressive sermon, some instances 
 of sudden conversion, may strike upon the 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 197 
 
 consciences of considerable numbers at 
 once, and awaken up that latent sense of 
 guilt and danger, which it is impossible for 
 the most thoughtless wholly to suppress. 
 At such a period, how has many a pastor 
 felt, both in Europe and America, that if he 
 could then enjoy the hearty co-operation 
 and fervent prayers of the whole body of his 
 church ; if he could draw the impenitent 
 around him in more frequent meetings, and 
 hold their minds fixed in the steady and 
 prolonged contemplation of divine truth, 
 while the world was shut out from view, 
 and the seriousness of one might spread by 
 contact till it reached the hearts of many ; 
 how has he felt, that, by the blessing of 
 God, this interest in religion might extend 
 throughout the whole congregation ; might 
 rise to deep anxiety and pungent convic- 
 tion ; that the Holy Spirit might be present 
 to renew the hearts of many ; and that 
 more might be done for the salvation of his 
 people in a few weeks or months, than, un- 
 der ordinary circumstances, in as many 
 years ! And what would this be, if his de- 
 sires were realized, but a revival of reUgion, 
 an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as a re- 
 sult of the prayers and elforts of the 
 people of God I Now I need not say how 
 entirely the early settlers of New-England 
 were prepared, by the traits of character 
 described above, to enter at once on this 
 very course of action. Prayer and preach- 
 ing were the living principle of their insti- 
 tutions ; special prayer upon special emer- 
 gencies, with the confident expectation of 
 direct and specific answers ; preaching, the 
 most plain and pungent, enforcing those 
 ' peculiar doctrines of grace which humble 
 man and exalt God, and which have in 
 every age been made powerful to the "pul- 
 ling down of strongholds." There was 
 much, also, in the state of their infant settle- 
 ments to favour the desired result. They 
 were a world within themselves, cut off by 
 their distance and poverty from most of the 
 alluring objects which seize on the hearts 
 of the unconverted in a more advanced 
 state of society. They were all of one 
 faith; there was none among them toques- 
 lion or deny the necessity of a work of the 
 Spirit ; and the minds of their children 
 were prepared, by their early religious 
 training, to bow submissive under the sa- 
 cred influence. In these circumstances, 
 how natural was it to multiply the means 
 of grace upon any appearance of increased 
 seriousness ; to press with redoubled zeal 
 and frequency to the throne of God in pray- 
 er; to urge their children and dependants, 
 with all the fervour of Christian affection, 
 to seize the golden opportunity, and make 
 their " calling and election sure ;" to re- 
 move, as far as possible, every obstacle of 
 business or amusement out of the way; 
 and to concentrate the entire interest of 
 their little communities oa the one object 
 
 of the soul's salvation ! How natural that 
 these labours and prayers should be bless- 
 ed of God ; that the truth preached under 
 these circumstances should be made, like 
 " the fire and the hammer, to break in pie- 
 ces the flinty rock ;" that extraordinary ef- 
 fusions of the Holy Spirit should be grant- 
 ed ; that there should be an " awakening," 
 as it was then called, or, in modern lan- 
 guage, a REVIVAL OF RELIGION ! 
 
 That such was actually the result in nu- 
 merous instances we have the fullest evi- 
 dence. The celebrated Jonathan Edwards, 
 author of the " Treatise on the Will," states 
 that his grandfather, who preceded him as 
 pastor of the church in Northampton, Mas- 
 sachusetts, was favoured during his minis- 
 try with five seasons of this kind, which he 
 called his "harvests," occurring at various 
 intervals during the space of forty years. 
 His father, he also says, had four or five 
 similar periods of " refreshing from on 
 high" among the people of his charge ; 
 and he adds, that such had been the case 
 with many other of the early ministers ; 
 that no one could tell when awakenings 
 commenced in New-England ; that they 
 must have been very nearly coeval with its 
 first settlement. 
 
 Some of the States farther South were 
 settled, to a limited extent, by Presbyteri- 
 ans from the west of Scotland and the north 
 of Ireland, who had also suffered persecu- 
 tion. Many of these had the same general 
 traits of character, and especially the same 
 absorbing interest in religion, with their 
 New- England brethren. In addition to this, 
 they had brought with them the cherished 
 tradition of several remarkable outpourings 
 of the Holy Spirit in their native land, at 
 Kilsyth, at Stewarton, at Irvine, at the Kirk 
 of Shotts, and in the county of Antrim, 
 which led them to pray for and expect sim- 
 ilar dispensations of the Spirit to their in- 
 fant churches. These, at a later period, 
 shared largely in the influences of divine 
 grace, and handed down the spirit of revi- 
 vals to their descendants. 
 
 The early awakenings, mentioned above, 
 seem to have been generally of a calm 
 and silent character ; and it rarely happen- 
 ed that two congregations in the same 
 neighbourhood were visited at the same 
 time. In the year 1735, a remarkable 
 change took place in this respect. An in- 
 creased power, and wider extent, were 
 given to the dispensation of the Spirit : a 
 large tract of country became in this and 
 the following year the seat of numerous 
 awakenings, which about this time took 
 the name of revivals. As this forms an 
 important epoch in the history of our revi- 
 vals, I shall dwell upon it somewhat at 
 large, and then trace more briefly the prog- 
 ress of these works of grace down to the 
 present time. 
 
 The revival of 1735 commenced at North- 
 
198 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 ampton, Massachusetts, under the preach- 
 ing of Jonathan Edwards, mentioned above. 
 The town, at an earher period, had enjoy- 
 ed five awakenings ; but at this time reli- 
 gion had suffered a very great dechne, not 
 only in Northampton, but in New-England 
 at large. A pernicious practice had been 
 gradually introduced of admitting persons 
 to full communion in the Church on the 
 ground of a blameless external deportment, 
 "without strict inquiry into their religious 
 experience, or decisive evidence of renew- 
 ing grace. The disastrous consequences 
 were soon felt. The tone of spiritual feel- 
 ing was lowered in the churches by the 
 admission of many who had a " name to 
 iive, but were dead." Prayer and effort for 
 the salvation of the impenitent had greatly 
 decreased ; and, as a natural consequence, 
 there had been for more than thirty years 
 a very marked suspension of divine influ- 
 ence throughout New-England. 
 
 The preaching of Mr. Edwards which 
 gave rise to this revival, like all preaching 
 which prepares the way for extensive ref- 
 ormations, was doctrinal in its character. 
 He dwelt with great force of argument and 
 closeness of application on the leading 
 doctrines of grace — which had begun to 
 lose their power in the prevailing declen- 
 sion — justification by faith alone, the neces- 
 sity of the Spirit's influences, and kindred 
 topics. 
 
 Under such preaching, in connexion with 
 a sudden and alarming providence, in the 
 beginning of 1735, a solemn, and very soon 
 an overwhelming interest in religious truth, 
 pervaded the whole town. For the space 
 of six months, the revival went on with a 
 power and extent never before known. 
 Hardly a family could be found in the place 
 in which there were not one or more under 
 conviction of sin, or rejoicing in hope. So 
 entire was the absorption in the interests 
 of the soul, that a report went abroad that 
 the people of Northampton had abandoned 
 all worldly employments, and given them- 
 selves wholly up to the pursuit of eternal 
 life ; and though this was an exaggeration, 
 it is true that Mr. Edwards found it neces- 
 sary to remind some of his flock that their 
 secular duties were not to be neglected. 
 The enlightened character of the popula- 
 tion, all of whom were well educated (all, 
 even the poorest, being taught in the same 
 schools at the public expense), guarded 
 them effectually against fanaticism ; while, 
 at the same time, the strength of emotion 
 which prevailed, the distress under a sense 
 of sin, and the joy in giving the heart to 
 God, were, in most cases, far greater than 
 in the early awakenings. The work was 
 confined to no class or age. 'I'cn persons 
 above ninety, and more than fifty above 
 forty years of age ; nearly thirty between 
 ten and fourteen, and one of only four, be- 
 came, in the view of Mr. Edwards, subjects 
 
 of renewing grace. More than 300 were 
 added to the Church as the fruits of this 
 revival, making the whole number of com- 
 municants about 620, being nearly the en- 
 tire adult population of the town, which 
 consisted of 200 families. I will only add, 
 that Mr. Edwards's well-known principles 
 on the subject led him to guard his peo- 
 ple, throughout the revival, with the most 
 watchful care, against hasty and delusive 
 hopes of having experienced renewing 
 grace. He conversed with each individual 
 separately, not only while under conviction 
 of sin, but in repeated instances after the 
 supposed change of heart took place ; 
 pointing out the evidences and nature of 
 true piety ; warning them against self-de- 
 ception, and leading them to the strictest 
 examination into their spiritual state. Such 
 has been the course pursued in the New- 
 England churches generally, down to the 
 present day ; and the consequence has 
 been, that neither in that revival, nor in 
 most of our well-conducted revivals, has 
 there been reason to suppose that more 
 persons were self-deceived than in the 
 ordinary accessions to the Church at times 
 of no prevailing religious concern. 
 
 The scenes presented in this work of 
 grace were so striking and wonderful as to 
 awaken the liveliest interest in the whole 
 country round. Many flocked to North- 
 ampton from the impulse of curiosity, or 
 even worse motives ; not a few of whom, 
 struck with the order, solemnity, and 
 strength of feeling which they everywhere 
 witnessed, and cut to the heart by the 
 powerful appeals of Mr. Edwards in the 
 meetings they attended, were themselves 
 brought under conviction of sin. Many of 
 these gave evidence of genuine repentance 
 after they returned home, and did much to 
 extend the work into the places where 
 they belonged. Members of the neighbour- 
 ing churches, also, and ministers of the 
 Gospel from parts more remote, resorted 
 thither to witness the triumphs of redeem- 
 ing grace ; to catch the spirit of the revival, 
 and bear it — a spirit of hope, and prayer, 
 and fervent effort — to the towns where 
 they resided. The blessing of God, in many 
 instances, went with them ; the work 
 spread from place to place, until, in less 
 than a year, ten of the adjacent towns in 
 Massachusetts, and seventeen in Connec- 
 ticut, lying directly south of them, were 
 favoured with an outpouring of the Holy 
 Spirit; and some remote places were vis- 
 ited in other states, where settlements had 
 been made by emigrants from New-Eng- 
 land, or by the Scottish Presbyterians spo- 
 ken of above. Many thousands gave evi- 
 dence in their subsequent lives of having 
 experienced a genuine conversion in this 
 work of grace. 
 
 In 1740, revivals commenced anew at 
 Northampton, Boston, and many other pla- 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 199 
 
 ces, very nearly at the same time, and 
 spread within eighteen months throughout 
 all the English colonies. For some time, 
 this appears to have been, to an unusual 
 degree, a silent, powerful, and glorious 
 work of the Spirit of God. An eyewitness 
 states^ under date of May, 1741, that from 
 Philadelphia to the remotest settlements 
 beyond Boston, a distance of nearly 500 
 miles, there was in most places more or 
 less concern for the soul. " Whole col- 
 leges are under conviction, and many sa- 
 vingly converted. Our minister (Mr. Pem- 
 berton, of New-York), being sent for to 
 Yale College on account of the many dis- 
 tressed persons there, in his going and 
 coming preached twice a day on the road, 
 and even children followed him to his 
 lodgings, weeping and anxiously concerned 
 about the salvation of their souls." At a 
 later period, however, some were unhap- 
 pily betrayed into intemperate zeal, which 
 called forth opposition, and produced great 
 excitement and contention. Mr. Edwards 
 came forward with his usual ability to de- 
 fend the work, and, at the same time, re- 
 press undue excesses. One hundred and 
 sixty of the most respectable ministers of 
 New-England, New- York, and New-Jer- 
 sey, joined in a public attestation to its 
 genuineness and purity in most places, 
 while they united with Mr. Edwards in 
 condemning the improprieties which had 
 occurred in too many instances. But a 
 spirit of jealousy and strife was engen- 
 dered, which is always fatal to the progress 
 of a revival. It therefore terminated in 
 the year 1743. Notwithstanding these un- 
 fortunate admixtures of human imperfec- 
 tion, the work, as a whole, was most evi- 
 dently shown by its results to have been 
 of God. Those who had the best means 
 of judging, estimated the number of true 
 converts, as proved by their subsequent 
 lives, at 30,000 in New-England alone, at a 
 time when the whole population was but 
 300,000 ; besides many thousands more 
 among the Presbyterians of New-York, 
 New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the more 
 southern settlements. 
 
 It will interest the reader to know, that 
 about this time there was an outpouring of 
 the Spirit upon one of our Indian tribes, 
 corresponding exactly in its character and 
 effects to the widely-extended work of 
 grace among the whites. 
 
 In June, 1745, DAvm Brainard, who has 
 been so extensively known for his piety 
 and missionary zeal, began to labour among 
 a small collection of Indians in New-Jer- 
 sey. For the first six weeks, they mani- 
 fested such entire indifference and stupid 
 unconcern, that he was about to leave 
 them, in despair, when he was somewhat 
 encouraged by the conversion of his inter- 
 preter. The interest with which this man 
 now entered into the subject, and the 
 
 warmth and unction with which he trans- 
 lated Mr. Brainard's discourses, struck the 
 Indians with surprise, and arrested their 
 attention. " On the eighth of August," 
 says Mr. Brainard in his journal (which I 
 slightly abridge), " 1 preached to the Indi- 
 ans, now about sixty-five in number. There 
 was much visible concern among them 
 when I discoursed publicly ; but afterward, 
 when I spoke to one and another particu- 
 larly, the power of God seemed to descend 
 upon them like ' a mighty rushing wind.' 
 Almost all persons, of all ages, were bowed 
 down with concern together, and were 
 scarcely able to withstand the shock. Old 
 men and women, who had been drunken 
 wretches for many years, and some chil- 
 dren, appeared in distress for their souls. 
 One who had been a murderer, a poivow or 
 conjurer, and a notorious drunkard, was 
 brought to cry for mercy with many tears. 
 A young Indian woman, who, I believe, 
 never before knew that she had a soul, 
 had come to see what was the matter. She 
 called on me on her way, and when I told 
 her that I meant presently to preach to the 
 Indians, she laughed, and seemed to mock. 
 I had not proceeded far in my public dis- 
 course when she felt effectually that she 
 had a soul ; and before the discourse closed, 
 was so distressed with concern for her 
 soul's salvation, that she seemed like one 
 pierced through with a dart." Such scenes 
 were repeated in a number of instances 
 during the following eight weeks. Some 
 months after, in reviewing the events of 
 this revival, he says, " This surprising 
 concern was never excited by any ha- 
 rangues of terror, but always appeared most 
 remarkable when 1 insisted on the com- 
 passion of a dying Saviour, the plentiful 
 provisions of the Gospel, and the free offer 
 of divine grace to needy sinners. The ef- 
 fects have been very remarkable. I doubt 
 not that many of these people have gained 
 more doctrinal knowledge of divine truth 
 since I visited them in June last, than 
 could have been instilled into their minds 
 by the most diligent use of proper and in- 
 structive means for whole years together 
 without such a divine influence. They 
 seem generally divorced from their di'unk- 
 enness, which is ' the sin that easily besets 
 them.' A principle of honesty and justice 
 appears among them, and they seem con- 
 cerned to discharge their old debts, which 
 they have neglected, and, perhaps, scarcely 
 thought of for years. Love seems to reign 
 among them, especially those who have 
 given evidence of having passed through a 
 saving change. Their consolations do not 
 incline them to lightness, but, on the con- 
 trary, are attended with solemnity, and 
 often w^ith tears and apparent brokenness 
 of heart." After some months of proba- 
 tion, he baptized forty-seven out of less 
 than 100, who composed the settlement. 
 
200 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Surely we may unite with him in saying, 
 " I think there are here all the evidences 
 of a remarkable work of grace among the 
 Indians which can reasonably be expect- 
 ed." 
 
 The fifty years that followed were years 
 of war and civil commotion ; first in a con- 
 flict of nearly twenty years between the 
 English and French for ascendency in 
 North America, and afterward in a strug- 
 gle of the colonies for independence, and 
 the formation of a Federal Government. 
 During this long period the country was 
 kept in a state of perpetual agitation, under 
 the influence of passions hostile to the prog- 
 ress of spiritual religion in any form, and 
 peculiarly hostile to the prevalence of any 
 extended work of grace. Revivals, how- 
 ever, did not wholly cease, as might rea- 
 sonably have been expected. On the con- 
 trary, I have been struck with surprise, in 
 looking over the accounts of that wide- 
 spread work of grace which soon after 
 commenced, to see in how many instances 
 they point back to some preceding season 
 of spiritual refreshing during those fifty 
 years of war and civil strife. 
 
 The period just referred to, of increased 
 influence from on high, commenced at the 
 clo^e of the last century, and has often 
 been styled the era of modern revivals. Ow- 
 ing to its importance in this character, I 
 shall dwell upon it somewhat more fully, 
 and shall then turn to other topics which 
 demand our attention. It was preceded 
 by a spirit of fervent prayer and deep so- 
 licitude among Christians, on account of 
 the growing tendency in our country to in- 
 fidel principles. For this a preparation 
 had been made by the crimes and vices of 
 a long-protracted war ; and the breaking 
 out of the French Revolution had given to 
 the enemies of religion the most confident 
 expectations of a speedy triumph. The 
 minds of multitudes had become unsettled. 
 Wild and vague expectations were every- 
 where entertained, especially among the 
 young, of a new order of things about to 
 commence, in which Christianity would be 
 laid aside as an obsolete system, 'i'he 
 people of God, under these circumstances, 
 were driven to the throne of grace with 
 redoubled fervour of supplication, that 
 while the enemy came in like a flood, the 
 Spirit of the Lord would lift up a standard 
 against him. Another subject of solici- 
 tude was the religious wants of our new 
 settlements, which began at this time to 
 spread abroad in the wilderness, to an un- 
 paralleled extent. There was every reason 
 to fear that, if left to themselves, in the 
 rapidity of their progress, they would leave 
 behind them the inslitutions of the Gospel. 
 This gave rise to a missionary spirit in the 
 older states, which has been tiie salvation 
 of that growing part of our country. Mas- 
 sachusetts and Connecticut, especially, 
 
 from which emigrants by tens of thousands 
 were going forth every year, entered into 
 this cause with the liveliest interest. Large 
 contributions were made from time to time 
 by the churches ; and as regular mission- 
 aries could not be procured in sufl5cient 
 numbers, many of the settled clergy were 
 induced, by the exigency of the case, to 
 leave their flocks under the care of the 
 neighbouring pastors, and perform long^ 
 tours of missionary labour in the new 
 states. 
 
 The spirit thus awakened of more fer- 
 vent prayer to God, and more active zeal 
 in his service, was followed by the divine 
 blessing. A number of churches in the in- 
 terior of Connecticut and Massachusetts 
 were favoured, in 1797, with an outpouring 
 of the Holy Spirit, which gradually spread 
 into many of the neighbouring towns. The 
 utmost care was taken to guard, from the 
 first, against any recurrence of that spirit 
 of intemperate zeal which had brought re- 
 proach, to some extent, on the revival of 
 1740. These eff'orts, most happily, were 
 attended with complete success. Rarely, 
 if ever, has there been a series of revivals 
 in our country more calm, more pure, 
 more lasting and salutary in their effects. 
 As one means of extending the work, 
 ministers who had enjoyed the presence 
 of God among their own people, were se- 
 lected by some ecclesiastical body, and 
 sent forth,' generally two together, on 
 preaching tours among the neighbouring 
 churches. The expectation of their com- 
 ing drew large audiences wherever they 
 preached. They came with that fervour 
 of spirit, and that close and direct dealing 
 with the consciences of men, which a 
 preacher gains during the progress of a re- 
 vival, and which he rarely gains to an equal 
 degree under any other circumstances. 
 The churches which they visited being, in 
 most cases, prepared to receive them by a 
 previous season of fasting and prayer, and 
 animated by their presence and labours to 
 redoubled fervour of supplication, were, in 
 many cases, favoured with an immediate 
 outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Under 
 these and similar influences, the work of 
 God spread into more than one hundred 
 towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
 and into a still greater number of places 
 in the new settlements of Vermont, New- 
 Hampshire, Maine, and New- York, which 
 had but recently formed a wide-spread field 
 of missionary labour. 
 
 In the mean time, our Presbyterian breth- 
 ren, already mentioned, entered into the 
 work with equal zeal and eflect, and carried 
 the spirit of revivals west of the Alleghany 
 Mountains. In Kentucky, lying in the 
 centre of these new states of the West, a 
 revival commenced in the year 1801, -which 
 spniad over the whole state, and within 
 the two following years extended to ther 
 
Ghap. viir 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 201 
 
 North and South, throughout a tract of 
 country 600 miles in length. Owing to the 
 rude state of society in those new settle- 
 ments, there occurred in these revivals 
 some irregularities, which threw a sus- 
 picion upon them for a time in the views of 
 Christians in the Eastern States. Some, 
 undoubtedly, of the vast multitudes who 
 were then awakened were wrought upon 
 merely by the excitement of the occasion. 
 But as to the character of the work in 
 general, we have the following testimony 
 from one of the most enlightened Presby- 
 terian clergymen of Virginia, who visited 
 the scene of those revivals, for the sake 
 of forming for himself a deliberate judg- 
 ment on the subject. " Upon the whole, 
 I think the revival in Kentucky among the 
 most extraordinary that have ever visited 
 the Church of Christ ; and, all things con- 
 sidered, it was peculiarly adapted to the 
 circumstances of the country into which 
 it came. Infidelity was triumphant, and 
 religion on the point of expiring. Some- 
 thing extraordinary seemed necessary to 
 arrest the attention of a giddy people, who 
 were ready to conclude that Christianity 
 was a fable, and futurity a delusion. This 
 revival has done it. It has confounded in- 
 fidelity, and brought numbers beyond cal- 
 culation under serious impressions." 
 
 In the year 1802, in answer to long- 
 continued and fervent prayer, the Holy 
 Spirit was poured out in a remarkable 
 manner on Yale College, then under the 
 presidency of the Rev. Timothy Dwight, 
 D.D. As a work of this kind, in a seat of 
 learning, will naturally be regarded with 
 peculiar interest, I shall here transcribe 
 (with some slight abridgment) an account 
 of this revival, drawn up at the request of 
 the writer by the Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., 
 who was then a member of the institution. 
 " The grace which some of the students 
 had witnessed, and of which they were all 
 informed, in churches abroad, they longed 
 to see in the college. That God would 
 pour out his Spirit upon it was an object 
 of distinct and earnest desire, and of their 
 fervent and united prayers. For many 
 months they were accustomed to meet 
 weekly ' in an upper room,' and ' with 
 one accord,' for prayer and supplication. 
 Those meetings are still remembered by 
 survivers who attended them, as seasons 
 of unwonted tenderness of heart, freedom 
 of communication, and wrestling with God. 
 Early in the spring of 1802, indications of 
 a gracious answer to their prayers began 
 to appear. It soon became obvious that 
 quite a number were especially impressed 
 with divine truth : that a new state of 
 things had commenced in the seminary ; 
 that God had indeed come to it in the plen- 
 itude and power of his grace. Some who, 
 not knowing that there were any to sym- 
 pathize with them, had concealed their con- 
 
 victions, were now encouraged to speak 
 out, and others, anxious to share in the 
 blessing, joined them ; so that in the last 
 ten days of the college term, not less than 
 fifty were numbered as serious inquirers, 
 and several, daily, and almost hourly, were • 
 found apparently submitting themselves to- 
 God. These were truly memorable days. 
 Such triumphs of grace none, whose priv- 
 ilege it was to witness them, had ever be- 
 fore seen. So sudden and so great was 
 the change in individuals, and in the gen- 
 eral aspect of the college, that those who 
 had been waiting for it were filled with 
 wonder as well as joy, and those who knew 
 not ' what it meant' were awe-struck and 
 amazed. Wherever students were found 
 — in their rooms, in the chapel, in the hall, 
 in the college yard, in their walks about 
 the city — the reigning impression was, 
 ' surely God is in this place.' The sal- 
 vation of the soul was the great subject of 
 thought, of conversation, of absorbing in- 
 terest. The convictions of many were 
 pungent and overwhelming, and the peace 
 in believing which succeeded was not less 
 strongly marked. Yet, amid these over- 
 powering impressions, there was no one, 
 except a single individual (who, having re- 
 sisted former convictions, yielded for a 
 time to dangerous temptations), in whose 
 conduct anything of a wild or irrational 
 character appeared. But the vacation 
 came, and they were to be separated. This 
 was anticipated with dread. It was to be 
 feared that their dispersion, and the new 
 scenes and intercourse attendant on their 
 going home, would efface the incipient im- 
 pressions of the serious, and break up the 
 hopeful purposes of the inquiring and anx- 
 ious. Such, however, was not the result. 
 It may even be doubted whether the num- 
 ber of sound conversions was not greater, 
 as well as more good done to the cause of 
 the Redeemer generally, than would other- 
 wise have been the case. Wherever they 
 went, they carried the tidings of what God 
 was doing for this venerated seat of learn- 
 ing; they engaged simultaneously the 
 prayers and thanksgiving of the Church 
 in its behalf; and many of them came di- 
 rectly under the guidance and counsel of 
 deeply-affected parents, ministers, or other 
 Christian acquaintances. By epistolary- 
 communications and personal visits to each 
 other, also, as had been agreed on at their 
 separation, special means were employed 
 to sustain the feelings which had been ex- 
 cited, and to conduct them to a happy re- 
 sult ; and it was so ordered by God that, 
 when they again assembled, the revival 
 immediately resumed its former interest, 
 and proceeded with uninterrupted success. 
 It was generally understood at the time, 
 that out of 230 students then in college, 
 about one third, in the course of this re- 
 vival, were hopefully converted to God." 
 
202 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 During the forty years which have since 
 elapsed, there have been fifteen similar 
 works of grace in the institution, one of 
 them more extensive, and the others less 
 so, than the one here described. At a later 
 period, Princeton College, which belongs 
 to the Presbyterians, was favoured with 
 one of the most extraordinary effusions of 
 the Holy Spirit ever experienced by any 
 of our seats of learning. The younger col- 
 leges have also shared richly in these vis- 
 itations of divine grace. The consequence 
 has been, that the number of pious students 
 has been very greatly increased. In Yale 
 College, not long before the revival of 1802, 
 there were only four members of the church 
 among the under-graduates ; for some years 
 past they have exceeded 200, being more 
 than half the entire number. In other col- 
 leges there has been a correspondent in- 
 crease ; though in all these cases it is to 
 be ascribed, in no small degree, to the gen- 
 eral advance of spiritual religion in our 
 churches. 
 
 From the period we have now reached 
 it is unnecessary, and, indeed, impossible, 
 to trace distinctly the progress of our re- 
 vivals. They have become, if I may so 
 speak, a constituent part of the rehgious 
 system of our country. Not a year has 
 passed without numerous instances of their 
 occurrence, though at some periods they 
 have been more powerful and prevalent 
 than at others. They have the entire con- 
 fidence of the great body of evangelical 
 Christians throughout our country. There 
 exists, indeed, a diversity of opinion as 
 to the proper means of promoting them, 
 some regarding one set of measures, and 
 some another, as best adapted to this end. 
 But, while these differences exist as to 
 what constitutes a well-conducted revival, 
 all, or nearly all, agree that such a revival 
 •is an inestimable blessing : so that he who 
 should oppose himself to revivals, as such, 
 •would be regarded by most of our evangel- 
 ical Christians as, ipso facto, an enemy to 
 spiritual religion itself. 
 
 In the foregoing sketch of the rise and 
 progress of our revivals, I have confined 
 myself chiefly to the Congregational and 
 Presbyterian churches (which are substan- 
 tially one), and have described these works 
 of grace, particularly as they exist in New- 
 England. I have done so because, having 
 their origin in those churches, it was prop- 
 er to trace them forward in the line where 
 they commenced ; and because I was best 
 acquainted with their history, and the char- 
 acter they assumed, in the communion to 
 ■which I belong. It is of such revivals that 
 I shall continue to speak, and, without dis- 
 paragement to others, I may be permitted 
 to express my preference for that mode of 
 conducting revivals which has generally 
 prevailed in the Congregational churches 
 of New-England. These churches have 
 
 had a longer experience on this subject 
 than any other ; they have enjoyed more 
 revivals in proportion to their numbers; 
 and, what I deem of the highest impor- 
 tance is, that they have uniformly kept them 
 under the guidance and control of a learn- 
 ed ministry, whose habits and principles 
 led them to repress all undue excitement, 
 to check everything extravagant, coarse, or 
 disorderly, and to guard the supposed sub- 
 jects of the work, by the severest tests, 
 against self-deception. Nearly all the ob- 
 jections against revivals, which have any 
 show of reason, have been occasioned by 
 a want of caution in these respects. The 
 things to which they apply are mere ad- 
 juncts and excrescences, forming no part 
 of a genuine revival. They are passing 
 away just in proportion as the ministry 
 where they exist become more thoroughly 
 educated, which, I rejoice to say, is con- 
 tinually more and more the case. 
 
 The view of revivals which we have now 
 taken, limited and imperfect as it is, sug- 
 gests many interesting topics of inquiry 
 and remark. I have time, however, to 
 touch on only two. First, What mode of 
 presenting truth, in these seasons of reli- 
 gious interest, has been found most effect- 
 ual to the conviction and conversion of 
 sinners ■? Secondly, What is the advantage 
 of such seasons ] What is there in the fact 
 that many are awakened at once, and are 
 pressing together into the kingdom of God, 
 which is peculiarly adapted (under the di- 
 vine blessing) to secure the desired result ? 
 
 In entering upon the first of these sub- 
 jects, I would remark, that the ordinary 
 strain of preaching in the Congregational 
 churches of New-England, where revivals 
 have prevailed with great frequency, is, 
 to an uncommon degree, doctrinal in its 
 character. A preparation is thus made to 
 give the Gospel its full effect whenever a 
 season of religious interest arrives. The 
 mind is preoccupied with clear and discrim- 
 inating views of divine truth. The argu- 
 ment, upon every point, has been gone over 
 again and again in its full extent. Those 
 humbling doctrines, especially, which men 
 so love to misrepresent and abuse, are 
 dwelt upon much, explained fully, and 
 argued out at large ; and great pains are 
 taken so to state them as to sliow their 
 perfect consistency with the dictates of 
 right reason and the consciousness of ev- 
 ery honest mind. In seasons of revival, 
 the most effective preaching is of the same 
 general character, though, of course, more 
 fervid and urgent. It does not consist, to 
 any great extent, in exhortation, in any 
 appeals, however forcible or just, to mere 
 excited sensibility or feeling. Its object 
 still is to pour truth upon the sinner's mind ; 
 to make him see, under his new circum- 
 stances of awakened interest, the evidence 
 of those doctrines which he has admitted, 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 203 
 
 perhaps, in speculation, all his life, and yet 
 never once truly believed; to anticipate 
 all his objections ; to strip him of every 
 plea and pretence for delay; to fill and oc- 
 cupy his whole soul with reasons for im- 
 mediate right action, and thus shut him up 
 to " the obedience of the truth." Such 
 preaching, though it be plain, and even 
 homely, if it flows from a full heart and 
 large experience, is ordinarily much bless- 
 ed of God in seasons of revival. 
 
 The leading doctrine at such seasons is 
 that .of " the new birth" — of the sinner's 
 entire dependance, for a change of heart, 
 aw the direct interposition of God. And 
 yet, for this very reason, the other doc- 
 trine implied above, of duty, of obligation 
 to immediate right action, is urged with 
 redoubled force. Without feeling this, the 
 sinner cannot feel his guilt, for there is no 
 guilt, except in the violation of duty ; and 
 where guilt is not felt, the influences of 
 the Spirit are not given to renew the heart. 
 And here, at this precise point, is the great 
 difliculty in dealing with the impenitent. 
 They do not believe that God requires 
 them, in their present state, to become in- 
 stantly holy. It is not possible, they think, 
 that he should command them to do that 
 very thing without the influences of his 
 Spirit, which, if ever done, will be the re- 
 sult of those influences. They therefore 
 feel that there must be, somewhere at this 
 stage of their progress, a kind of neutral 
 ground — a resting-place, where, having 
 done their part in "awaking out of sleep," 
 they are allowed to " wait God's time" (in 
 the customary phrase), until He has done 
 his part, and renewed their souls. Nor 
 are these views confined to the impeni- 
 tent. They have been openly avowed by 
 some theological writers, and have exert- 
 ed a secret but most powerful influence 
 upon far greater numbers who never main- 
 tained them in form. There has been, ex- 
 tensively, a feeling that all which the un- 
 converted are bound to do is diligently to 
 use the means of grace ; that if they do 
 this, it would be hard in God to withhold 
 the renewing influence of his Spirit ; and 
 that He has promised that influence to 
 their prayers and exertions if sincere — 
 meaning, of course, a kind of sincerity in 
 ■which there is no true holiness. These j 
 views prevailed in New-England previous | 
 to the revival of 1735, and were one cause 
 of the great decline in religion which pre- 
 ceded that event. Mr. Edwards was there- 
 fore called upon, when that work com- 
 menced, to take his ground on this sub- 
 ject, and the principles which guided him 
 in that revival have been the great con- 
 trolling principles in all our revivals ever 
 since. They are thus stated by his biog- 
 rapher : " To urge repentance on every 
 dinner as his immediate duty ; to insist that 
 God is under no obligation to any unre- 
 
 newed man ; and that a man can challenge 
 nothing, either in absolute justice or by 
 free promise, on account of anything he 
 does before he repents and believes." The 
 celebrated Whitefield, when he first visited 
 America, in 1740, was much struck with 
 the power imparted to our preaching by 
 these principles. " How can they possi- 
 bly stand," says he in a letter to an Eng- 
 lish friend, " who were never brought to 
 see, and heartily confess, that after they 
 had done all, God might, notwithstanding, 
 deny them mercy ! It is for preaching in 
 this manner that I like Messrs. Tennents. 
 They wound deeply before they heal. They 
 know there is no promise made but to him 
 that believeth, and, therefore, they are 
 careful not to comfort overmuch those that 
 are convicted. I fear I have been too in- 
 cautious in this respect, and often given 
 comfort too soon. The Lord pardon me 
 for what is past, and teach me more right- 
 ly to divide the word of life in future." 
 Against this disposition to " comfort too 
 soon" — to allow the impenitent some rest- 
 ing-place short of instant submission, the 
 following very pointed cautions were once 
 given by Dr. Nettleton, who has had great 
 experience in the conduct of revivals. 
 "Now, what do you mean by thisi Do 
 you mean to encourage the sinner in his 
 sins, and take his part against God? You 
 are attempting to ease and soothe him while 
 he is in rebellion against God. When the 
 sinner is in this distress, there are two 
 things that press heavily upon him — a 
 sense of his obligation to repent, and a 
 fearful apprehension that he never will re- 
 pent. Now, if you tell him to 'wait God's 
 time,' and the like, you take oft' this obli- 
 gation at once. You remove all anxiety, 
 and most probably cause him to sink down 
 into a state of stupidity and indifference 
 on the subject. You take away the ap- 
 prehension also ; and the danger is that he 
 will sink down into a state of stupidity, or 
 mistake the relief he feels for a change of . 
 heart. Now, instead of quieting him in 
 his sins by such language, you should en- 
 deavour to increase his distress as much 
 as possible. You should press him down, 
 and tell him he must submit to God, and 
 generally he will. I know some have been 
 brought out truly regenerated after all this 
 flattery, but it was not in consequence, but 
 in spite of it. Again, you say, ' Look to 
 the promises.' Now, there is no promise 
 to the impenitent, and how can you expect 
 him to look to the promises while he is in 
 his sins ? I distinguish between promises 
 and invitations. Men are invited to repent, 
 but there is no promise to them till they 
 do repent." Such has been the uniform 
 mode of exhibiting this subject. The prom- 
 ises of God are a part of his covenant, and 
 the indispensable conditions of the cove- 
 nant are repentance and faith. 
 
204 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 But the impenitent, when thus pressed 
 Avith the duty of at once giving their hearts 
 to God, are extremely apt to say (or at 
 least to feel), " I cannot ; Christ has decla- 
 red it to be I -jjpnd my power. It cannot, 
 therefore, be my immediate duty; I am 
 authorized to wait till power is given me 
 from on higli." Here, as in the former 
 case, the New-England clergy are guided 
 by the principles of Edwards. They ap- 
 ply that familiar distinction of common 
 life which he made so clear and palpable 
 in theological science, the distinction be- 
 tween natural and moral ability and inabil- 
 ity. You are not unable in the sense 
 you claim. You have all the faculties 
 which constitute a moral being. He who 
 is capacitated to do wrong, must, from the 
 nature of the case, be capacitated to do 
 right. Your cannot, therefore, is only will 
 not. Christ, who has spoken of the inabil- 
 ity you plead, lias explained its nature : 
 " Ye will not come unto me that ye might 
 have life." "Oh! Jerusalem, how often 
 would I have gathered thy children to- 
 gether, as a hen gathereth her chickens 
 under her wings, and ye would not." These 
 views have formed the basis of New-Eng- 
 land preaching for nearly a century. Dr. 
 Dwight, speaking of this subject, says, 
 " The nature of this inability to obey the 
 law of God is, in my view, completely in- 
 dicated by the word indisposition, or the 
 word disinclination. A child is equally lui- 
 able to obey a parent, against whom his 
 will is as much opposed, as to obey God. 
 In both cases this inability, I apprehend, is 
 of exactly the same nature. Indisposition 
 to come to Christ, therefore, is the true 
 and the only difficulty which lies in our 
 way."* Nor are these views confined to 
 New-England. A distinguished Scottish 
 divine, Dr. Witherspoon, afterward presi- 
 dent of Princeton College, speaking of the 
 alleged impossibility, says, " Now consid- 
 er, I pray, what sort of impossibility this 
 is. It is not natural, but moral. It is not 
 want of power, but want of inclination.''''^ 
 I am far from saying that no preacher is 
 favoured with revivals of religion who 
 does not thus explicitly assert man's pow- 
 er as a moral agent to give his heart to 
 God. Men see their way with very differ- 
 ent degrees of clearness and confidence, 
 through the numerous questions that arise 
 out of such a statement. I only say, that 
 the views of Dwight and Witherspoon, giv- 
 en above, prevail universally among the 
 New-England clergy, and to a great extent 
 in the Presbyterian Church ; and that those 
 who maintain tliem consider these views 
 as lying at tlie foundation of all their suc- 
 cessful efl'orts to j)njuiotc revivals. Wlien 
 they can go to the inipcniteiU sinner and 
 treat him (after tiie manner of Dr. Dwight) 
 
 * Theology, Sermon cxxxiii. 
 t Works, vol. li., p. 279. 
 
 just as they would treat a child in rebellion 
 against an earthly parent, and can make 
 \um feel that the whole difficulty in his case 
 is a mere reluctance to duty, they find the 
 great impediment removed out of the way. 
 They feel an unembarrassed freedom in 
 pressing obligation, and a power of fasten- 
 ing conviction of sin upon the conscience, 
 which they never possessed before. A 
 writer of great experience in revivals has 
 remarked, " Whatever may be the specu- 
 lative opinions of ministers with regard to 
 the nature of depravity, inability, regener- 
 ation, &c., it is a fact, that where their 
 ministry is successful, as it is in revivals, 
 they preach to sinners as if they believed 
 them to be possessed of all the powers of 
 moral agency, capable of turning to God, 
 and on this account, and no other, inexcu- 
 sable for not doing so. Some have seen 
 these points more clearly, and have ex- 
 plained them more philosophically, and 
 more scripturaliy than others, but there 
 has always been a substantial agreement 
 in their mode of preaching among those 
 who have been blessed in turning sinners 
 to righteousness."* 
 
 But it may be said, granting (as, indeed, 
 we must on some ground) the duty of the 
 unconverted to turn instantly to God, still 
 they will never succeed in doing it with- 
 out an influence from on high. Why, then, 
 press them so urgently to the act \ Why 
 multiply motives, as if you expected to pro- 
 duce the change by the force of moral sua- 
 sion T Is it not true, after all, that both 
 you and they must " wait God's time V 
 It would be enough to answer, that God 
 himself has set us the example : " Make 
 you a new heart and a new spirit, yb?- lohy 
 ivill ye die V Christ and his apostles urged 
 to repentance by argument and persuasion, 
 just as they did to any of the ordinary acts 
 of life. The whole Bible is filled with 
 warnings, expostulations, and entreaties, 
 pressing a lost race, with every motive that 
 two worlds can offer, to immediate right 
 action. Nor is it difficult to see, at least, 
 some of the reasons. First : Let the sin- 
 ner really put himself to the act of giving 
 his lieart to God, and he will learn, as he 
 can never learn in any other way, the depth- 
 of his depravity, the utter and hopeless des- 
 titution of all spiritual sensibility within 
 him. Nothing can so eft'ectually crush his 
 pride arid self-reliance. This practical dem- 
 onstration of his entire helplessness, in him- 
 self considered, may be just the thing that 
 was necessary to bring him to that point 
 where alone it would be proper for God to 
 grant him the renewing influences of his 
 grace. Secondly : The Spirit, in sanctify- 
 ing, operates " tlirough the truth ;" and tlie 
 j)resence of that truUi upon the mind as an 
 uistrumental cause is, therefore, j ust as ne- 
 
 * Views and Feelings requisite to Success in the 
 Gospel Ministry. By W. G. Walton. 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 205 
 
 cessary to the result (at least in the case 
 of adults) as the renewing influence itself. 
 While it was the uniform doctrine of the 
 Apostle Paul that the redeemed are "be- 
 gotten of God," he thought it no arrogance 
 to say, " / have begotten you through the 
 Gospel." Without affirming that the influ- 
 ences of the Spirit are granted in exact 
 proportion to the wisdom and power with 
 ■which truth is urged upon the conscience, 
 we may safely say that such, to a very 
 great and prevailing extent, is the fact. It 
 is, at least, all that man can do ; and if the 
 doctrines of the sinner's dependence leads 
 us to do this with one particle of diminish- 
 ed force, if we do not ply him with truth 
 and motive just as earnestly as if we ex- 
 pected to convert him by our own efforts 
 alone, it is a serious question whether our 
 orthodoxy has not lost its true balance. 
 Is there not reason to fear that very ex- 
 cellent men sometimes err on this subject 
 from the best of motives, the desire to ex- 
 alt the grace of God ! " How often," says 
 a writer quoted above, (W. G. Walton), 
 " do we hear the preaching of the word 
 compared to the blowing of rams' horns 
 around the walls of Jericho ! The man 
 who preaches has certainly, in himself con- 
 sidered, no more power to convert the souls 
 of his hearers, than was possessed by the 
 Jewish priests to demolish the bulwarks of 
 that city. But are the instruments used in 
 the two cases equally impotent ■? Are the 
 truths of the Gospel no more adapted to the 
 conversion of the soul than the blast of a 
 horn to the destruction of a cityl" No 
 honour is done to the Holy Spirit by exalt- 
 ing His influences in conversion, at the ex- 
 pense of the truth which He has himself 
 revealed. It is the glory of that blessed 
 Agent, that in turning the soul to God, He 
 does it in strict accordance with the laws 
 of our moral constitution. " Sanctify them 
 through thy truth," was the prayer of Christ 
 himself; and 1 believe it will be found that 
 the most successful preachers are those 
 who have the most exalted views of the 
 power of divine truth in turning the soul 
 to God. Such views give a peculiar so- 
 lemnity, and earnestness, and authority in 
 preaching, by which attention is secured, 
 and conviction wrought in the minds of the 
 hearers. Thirdly : The result produced 
 by renewing grace is right action. " God," 
 says Edwards, '"produces all, and we act all. 
 For that is wiiat he produces, viz., our own 
 acts^ — {Efficacious Grace, sec. 64.) Is it 
 not, therefore, most reasonable to suppose 
 that this grace (if bestowed at all) will be 
 granted to those who are putting tliein- 
 selves to the act of giving their hearts to 
 God, who " strive to enter in at the strait 
 gate ;" and not to those who remain in the 
 attitude of mere passive recipients ? Ac- 
 count for it as we Avill, there is no fact 
 which our revivals have taught us more 
 
 fully than this, the great success lohich 
 attends the urging of sinners to turn immedi- 
 atehj to God, as though we expected them to 
 do it at once and upon the spot. Among the 
 numerous cases in point v'feach occur at 
 once to my mind, I will briefly mention 
 one. A young man, soon after joining one 
 of our colleges, called on a friend one even- 
 ing, and stated that he had always been 
 taught to regard religion as the highest in- 
 terest of life, but had ever shrunk from ma- 
 king it a personal concern; that his change 
 of residence, separation from friends, and 
 sense of loneliness, had made him desirous 
 to seek salvation, and that he now wished 
 to learn the way. A long conversation 
 ensued, in which the object was, not so 
 much to point out what he should do when 
 he returned to his room, as to lead him (if 
 such were the will of God) to embrace the 
 Saviour at once, even before the conver- 
 sation closed. With this view, the char- 
 acter of God and Christ was dwelt upon at 
 large ; their treatment of him during his 
 years of past rebellion, and his treatment 
 of them under the continued invitations of 
 their mercy ; with examples taken from 
 the case of those whose absence had pro- 
 duced this unwonted tenderness, of un- 
 w^earied assiduity and kindness on their 
 part, requited with insult, ingratitude, and 
 rebellion on his. The design was to 
 show him, in this familiar way, the exact 
 state of mind into which he was required 
 to come ; the ingenuous sorrow, heartfelt 
 confidence, and grateful love, whose nature 
 and reasonableness he could so perfectly 
 understand in respect to an earthly parent. 
 I have thus dwelt for a moment on the in- 
 structions given, for the sake of remark- 
 ing how extremely simple and elementary 
 it has been found necessary to make them. 
 Such is the case even with those who, like 
 this young man, have been most religious- 
 ly educated. As these views of the sub- 
 ject were seen to open his mind with con- 
 tinually deepening interest and solemnity, 
 under the prolonged exhibition of divine 
 truth, the question was at length proposed, 
 " Can there ever be a more favourable 
 moment than the present for attempting 
 to put forth the feelings now described? 
 You will not do it, indeed, without an in- 
 fluence from on high. That influence may 
 justly be withheld, but it may, also, be 
 granted : ' Peradventure, God may give 
 you repentance.' Will you, then, go with 
 me to the throne of grace, not to gain 
 more conviction, not to do any preparato- 
 ry work (for this will defeat the object), 
 but to put yourself at once, as 1 go before 
 you in prayer, to the exercise of this in- 
 genuous sorrow for sin, and grateful trust 
 in the blood of Christ V They knelt down 
 together to perform this duty, and closed 
 with a solemn dedication of the soul to 
 God. They rose and read over the fifty- 
 
206 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 first Psalm, the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, 
 and other appropriate passages, and went 
 again, with increased solemnity, to the 
 throne of grace. Four hours were thus 
 spent, and they separated for the night. 
 They met in the morning, and the young 
 man said, " I hope I have given my heart 
 to God ; I think I did it before we parted 
 last evening." That hope he has never 
 relinquished, and during a number of years 
 which have since elapsed, the uniform 
 tenour of his life, as an active and devoted 
 member of the Church of Christ, has given 
 satisfactory evidence that he was not de- 
 ceived. 
 
 This, then, is the point to which all my 
 observations are directed — the union of 
 these two doctrines of activity and depend- 
 ence, which are so commonly felt lo be 
 subversive of each other ; the bringing of 
 both to bear with undiminished force on 
 the minds of the impenitent. Establish 
 one of these doctrines to the exclusion or 
 weakening of the other, and just to the 
 same extent is the Gospel robbed of its 
 power. Inculcate dependence without 
 pressing to the act of instantly giving up 
 the heart to Christ, and the sinner sits 
 down quietly to " wait God's time." Urge 
 him to duty on the ground of his possess- 
 ing all the requisite power, while (with 
 the Pelagians) you do away his depend- 
 ence, and his reluctant heart will lead him 
 to take his own time, and that is never. 
 Address him on the Arminian scheme of 
 gracious aid, which is always ready at his 
 call (except in cases of extreme contu- 
 macy), and how strongly is he tempted to 
 put off to a more " convenient season" 
 what lie feels may at any time be done ! 
 But place him under the pressure of both 
 these doctrines — the necessity of action 
 on his part in coming to God, the weighty 
 obligations which urge him to it, the crush- 
 ing sense of guilt every moment he de- 
 lays, the momentous interests which seem 
 to be crowded into the decision of the 
 passing hour, the encouragement to " strive 
 as in an agony" afforded by the gift of the 
 Spirit's influences to others around him 
 (an encouragement peculiarly great in sea- 
 .sons of revival, and giving them so much 
 of iheir power), the feeling that God may 
 justly withhold those influences, and that 
 every moment of delay increases the dan- 
 ger of this fearful doom — and have we not 
 here, most perfectly combined, all the ele- 
 ments of that system of grace which is 
 emphatically tjie power of God unto sal- 
 vation ? 
 
 I will conclude my remarks on this part 
 of the subject in the words of the late Rev. 
 Dr. Griffin, formerly a professor at Ando- 
 ver, and afterward president of Williams 
 College, Massachusetts. Being requested 
 to account for the prevalence of revivals 
 in this country, he gave the following as 
 
 the principal reason : " It is found in the' 
 distinct apprehensions which prevail in 
 New-England about the instantaneousness 
 of regeneration, the sinfulness of every 
 moral exercise up to that moment, and 
 the duty of immediate submission. Such 
 a view of things leads the preacher to di- 
 vide his audience into two classes, and to 
 run a strong and' affecting line of demar- 
 cation between them. When one feels 
 that the moral, sober, prayerful, unregen- 
 erate part of his audience are doing pretty 
 well, and can afford to wait a little longer 
 before they submit, he will not be so press- 
 ing, nor fall with such a tremendous weight 
 upon their conscience. When he feels 
 that they cannot do much more than they 
 do, but must wait God's time, he will not 
 annoy and weary them, and make them 
 sick of waiting, and compel them to come 
 in. But when one enters the pulpit under 
 a solemn sense that every unregenerate 
 man before him, however awakened, is an 
 enemy to God, is resisting with all his 
 heart, and will continue to resist till he 
 submits ; that he must be ' born again' be- 
 fore he is any better than an enemy, or has 
 made any approaches towards holiness ; 
 when one looks round upon the unregen- 
 erate part of his audience, and sees that 
 they are under indispensable obligations 
 to yield at once, that they have no man- 
 ner of excuse for delaying ; that they de- 
 serve eternal reprobation for postponing 
 an hour ; when one feels from the bottom 
 of his heart that there is nothing short of ' 
 regeneration that can answer any purpose, , 
 and that he cannot leave his dear charge 
 to be turned from enemies of God to friends- 
 ten years hence ; delivered from condem- 
 nation ten years hence ; but must see it 
 noiv, oh ! how will he pray and preach ! 
 He will give God no rest, and he will give 
 sinners no rest ; and he will bring down 
 their immediate, pressing, boundless obli- 
 gations upoil them with the weight of a 
 world. Under such preaching sinners must 
 either turn to God or be miserable. There 
 is no chance for them to remain at ease 
 this side of infidelity itself." 
 
 We pass now to consider the second 
 question proposed, viz.. What is there in 
 the fact that many are awakened at once, 
 and are pressing together into the kingdom 
 of God, which is peculiarly adapted (un- 
 der the divine blessing) to secure the de- 
 sired result ? This question has been vir- 
 tually answered in the facts stated or im- 
 plied in the preceding part of this chap- 
 ter. I will, however, briefly advert to 
 them again, and present in a single view 
 some of those influences which unite to 
 give extraordinary power to a well-con- 
 ducted revival of religion. 
 
 As far as human instrumentality is con- 
 f erned, the conversion of sinners depends 
 on two things — the clear and vivid pres- 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 267 
 
 sentation of divine truth to their minds, and 
 importunate prayer, on the part of Chris- 
 tians, for the influences of the Holy Spirit 
 to give that truth effect. I am, therefore, 
 to show vifhat there is in these seasons of 
 concentrated religious interest, which is 
 peculiarly adapted both to animate the 
 prayers and efforts of the people of God, 
 and to give the Gospel readier access to 
 the hearts of the impenitent, and superior 
 efficacy in bringing them to " the obedi- 
 ence of the truth." In doing so, I shall 
 point to certain original principles of our 
 mental constitution which have confess- 
 edly very great power in moving the minds 
 of men, and shall endeavour to show that 
 revivals appeal to these principles or 
 springs of human action, with a force and 
 effect altogether greater than can ever be 
 realized under any other circumstances. 
 I shall thus give what may not improperly 
 be termed a theory of revivals, and shall 
 show that they are not seasons of mere 
 excitement and fanaticism, but might rea- 
 sonably be expected, from their consisten- 
 cy with the laws of human action, to pro- 
 duce those great and lasting reformations 
 with which they have actually blessed the 
 American churches. In pursuing the sub- 
 ject, 1 hope I shall not be suspected of 
 losing sight for one moment of the fact, 
 that the Holy Spirit is the author of all 
 the good produced in this case, both in 
 the hearts of Christians and impenitent 
 sinners. But it is the glory of that bless- 
 ed Agent, that, in dispensing his sanctify- 
 ing influences, he does not set aside or de- 
 stroy the established laws of human agen- 
 cy ; and it is not, therefore, detracting from 
 these influences, but rather doing them 
 honour, to point out their perfect consist- 
 ency with the great principles of our men- 
 tal constitution. 
 
 I. The first of these principles to which 
 I shall now advert, and which relates par- 
 ticularly to Christians, is strongly-awaken- 
 ed desire. 
 
 The scenes presented in a revival are 
 eminently adapted to create those strong 
 spiritual desires which are only another 
 name for fervent prayer, and are indispen- 
 sable to all successful Christian effort. Let 
 any church, in its ordinary state of feel- 
 ing, hear that the Holy Spirit is poured out 
 on a neighbouring town ; let some of its 
 members visit the spot, and bring back a 
 report of what is passing there ; that the 
 people of God are animated with all the 
 zeal of their first love, fervent in pray- 
 ers and labours for the salvation of sin- 
 ners, full of joy and hope ; let them tell 
 of the crowded assemblies, the deathlike 
 stillness, the solemnity and awe depicted 
 on every countenance ; of some who but 
 a few days before were thoughtless and 
 even abandoned to sin, now bowed down 
 under a sense of guilt, and of others re- 
 
 joicing in the hope of having found the 
 Saviour, and reconciliation through his 
 blood ; let it appear that there is nothing 
 disorderly or extravagant in this move- 
 ment, nothing but the natural and appro- 
 priate effect of divine truth applied to the 
 conscience by the Spirit of God ; and what 
 is there that can appeal more strongly to 
 all the sensibiUties of a Christian heart? 
 What more natural, under the impulse of 
 the fervent desires thus awakened, than to 
 •' put away all their idols," to bow before 
 God in deep self-abasement for their past 
 backslidings, to mourn over the multi- 
 tudes around them who are in danger of 
 perishing in their sins, and to pour out the 
 prayer of the prophet from overflowing 
 hearts, " O Lord, revive thy work in the 
 midst of the years, in the midst of the 
 years make known ; in wrath remember 
 mercy." And if, through the grace of God, 
 a similar dispensation of the Spirit is grant- 
 ed in answer to their prayers, how much 
 more fervent and absorbing do those de- 
 sires become as the blessing is brought 
 home to their own doors ! How do we 
 see parents pleading for their children, 
 wives for their husbands, friend for friend, 
 with all the importunity of the patriarch of 
 old, " I will not let thee go, except thou 
 bless me."' How is all reserve laid aside 
 — all the ordinary backwardness of Chris- 
 tians to speak and act openly on the side 
 of the Redeemer, and every feeling ab- 
 sorbed amid these triumphs of divine 
 grace, in the one great question, "Lord, 
 what wilt thou have me to do" for the ad- 
 vancement of thy cause ] Faint and fee- 
 ble, indeed, when compared with these, are 
 the spiritual desires which are found to 
 prevail in any ordinary state of the Church. 
 
 2. The second of these principles, now 
 to be mentioned, is expectation. 
 
 If I were asked why revivals are so fre- 
 quent in America, and so rare in Europe, 
 my first answer would be, that Christian.?! 
 on one side of the Atlantic expect them, 
 and on the other they do not expect them. 
 These seasons of " refreshing from on 
 high" are a part of the blessing that rested 
 on our fathers ; and the events of the last 
 forty years, especially, have taught us, that 
 if we seek their continuance in tlie spirit 
 of those with whom they commenced, wo 
 shall never seek in vain. Nor is there 
 anything to confine them within our owrr 
 borders. They have been carried by our 
 missionaries to a number of Indian tribes. 
 Our stations in Ceylon have been repeat- 
 edly visited with the effusions of the Holy 
 Spirit, and the Sandwich Islands, within 
 the last three years, have been favoured 
 with one of the most glorious dispensa- 
 tions of divine grace which the world has 
 ever witnessed. Similar periods of " re- 
 freshing from on high" existed formerly iu 
 Scotland ; and there are cheering indica- 
 
■208 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA, 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 lions in recent events, that God may even 
 now be ready to bring down again the 
 blessing of their fathers upon the churches 
 in that country. In all the evangelical 
 churches of Europe, indeed, where the 
 Gospel is preached with plainness and 
 power, there are seasons of more than 
 ordinary religious interest, which, if not 
 revivals in our sense of the term (and 
 they sometimes are), would undoubtedly 
 become revivals if the same expectation 
 of this result could only pervade those 
 churches which animates their brethren of 
 America under similar circumstances. 
 
 But, leaving this more general view of 
 the subject, it is obvious that nothing is 
 more calculated to fill the hearts of Chris- 
 tians with courage, and expectation, and 
 hope, than the feeling that God is in the 
 midst of them with the peculiar dispensa- 
 tion of his grace. One must witness the 
 scene, indeed, to have any just conception 
 of the power of a revival in this respect 
 — of the multiplied appeals which it makes 
 to this most essential element in all the 
 successful efforts of men. " God is pour- 
 ing out his Spirit in a neighbouring town I" 
 In how many hundreds of instances has 
 this thought, and the encouragement it af- 
 forded, been the starling-point of those ex- 
 ertions, which resulted, under the divine 
 blessing, in the commencement of one re- 
 vival more ! " God is here with the effu- 
 sions of his Spirit !" Who does not feel 
 the thrill of joy, of hope, of confidence, 
 "which pervades the heart of every spiritu- 
 ally-minded Christian 1 What can be more 
 suited to revive the decaying graces of 
 backsliders, and to bring the whole Church 
 to harmonious action, to fervent prayer, 
 and strenuous efforts ? When the confi- 
 dence thus inspired has been high, and yet 
 humble, resting on the mighty power of 
 the Spirit and tlie efficacy of divine truth, 
 when has God ever failed to bestow a sig- 
 nal blessing 1 On the contrary, if the 
 work of grace has not gone forward, as 
 was hoped, how uniformly do we find that 
 the people of God either became faint- 
 hearted in consequence of some difficulty 
 or delay, and did not expect to succeed ; or 
 that their confidence was misplaced, that 
 they rested on some favourite instrument 
 or system of measures, and not on the arm 
 of the Most High ! Nor is the influence of 
 which I speak confined to Christians. It 
 acts on the minds of the impenitent in va- 
 rious ways, and with great power. " God 
 is calling some of my companions into his 
 kingdom !" This tliought strikes upon the' 
 hearts of many who have been religiously 
 educated, who have always intended at 
 some time to seek eternal life, and who 
 are induced by what is passing around 
 them to do it 7i()w, because they are en- 
 couraged to hope they shall succeed. " God 
 is renewing the hearts of many others, why 
 
 may he not renew mine V This thought 
 to the awakened sinner, writhing under 
 conviction of sin, crushed by a sense of 
 his utterly helpless condition in himself 
 considered, tempted, under repeated fail- 
 ures, to give up all in despair — this thought 
 aflx)rds him an encouragement which is 
 worth to him more than worlds besides ; 
 and, as I before remarked, it is an encour- 
 agement which especially abounds in a 
 season of revival. " God is causing the 
 stout-hearted to fall before him!" This 
 thought often awakens in the impenitent 
 another kind of expectation, mingled with 
 dread, as a revival goes forward ; it is, 
 that they will be compelled to yield ; that they 
 cannot stand before it. Sometimes it dis- 
 arms opposition, and sometimes it makes 
 men flee. An instance occurs to me, 
 which I will briefly mention. A student 
 in one of our colleges, during a powerful 
 work of grace, struggled for a time to ward 
 off conviction by argument and ridicule, 
 and finding that he could not succeed, 
 framed a plausible excuse, and obtained 
 liberty to return home. As he drove into 
 his native village, at the close of the day, 
 rejoicing at the thought of having escaped 
 from the revival, he saw large numbers of 
 people returning from the house of God. 
 " What has happened ? What is going on?" 
 was his first inquiry when he alighted at 
 his father's door. " A revival of religion 
 has just commenced," was the reply ; and 
 one and another of his most thoughtless 
 companions were mentioned as under con- 
 viction of sin. He felt, like one of old, 
 that it was in vain to flee from the pres- 
 ence of God. All his former convictions 
 revived at once, aggravated by a sense of 
 his guilt in striving to suppress them. He 
 gave himself to the pursuit of eternal life, 
 and, through the grace of God (as he 
 hoped), within a few days found the Sav- 
 iour from whom he had attempted to flee. 
 He returned at once to college, called im- 
 mediately on those whom he had deterred 
 from seriousness by his influence and ex- 
 ample, and invited them to his room that 
 evening, telling them that he had a story 
 to relate. When they met, he gave tliem 
 a full account of the efforts lie had made 
 to resist the strivings of the Spirit, and the 
 conclusion to which (through the grace of 
 God) he had come, and ended with tlie ex- 
 hortation, " Go ye and do likewise." Such 
 are some of the ways in which revivals 
 appeal to this powerful principle of our 
 nature with a force never to be expected 
 at a period of no general interest in reli- 
 gion. 
 
 3. A third principle intimately connect- 
 ed with this subject is sympathy. God, 
 in establishing public worship, has deci- 
 ded that the social and sympathetic feel- 
 ings of our nature ought to be enlisted in 
 the cause of reUgion. It would be strange, 
 
Chap. VII.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 209 
 
 indeed, if it were otherwise ; if that pow- 
 erful principle which binds man to his fel- 
 low were yielded up to Satan for the de- 
 struction of unnumbered millions who " fol- 
 low a multitude to do evil," and were nev- 
 er employed by the Holy Spirit in bring^ing 
 those who act in masses on every other 
 subject, to act, at least, sometimes togeth- 
 er in coming to -the "obedience of the 
 truth." That strong tendency of our na- 
 ture to be moved and excited because we 
 see others excited around us, is not of ne- 
 cessity a blind and headlong impulse ; it 
 may be guided by reason, and made sub- 
 servient to the best ends of our intellectual 
 and moral existence. In respect to every 
 subject but religion, this is conceded by 
 all ; and he would be thought superlatively 
 "weak who should refuse the aid of sympa- 
 thy in any other enterprise for the well- 
 being of man. But what is there so mys- 
 terious or unreasonable in the fact, that 
 "when the Holy Spirit has impressed one 
 mind with a sense of its responsibilities 
 and violated obligations, and awakened 
 "within it correspondent feelings of fear, 
 shame, and self-condemnation, these views 
 and feelings should spread by contact into 
 other minds ; that this blessed Agent should 
 make use of sympathy as well as attention, 
 memory, and various other principles of 
 our nature, in bringing men to a knowl- 
 edge of God 1 That he does so operate 
 where revivals are wholly unknown, that 
 the awakening of one individual is fre- 
 quently made the occasion of arresting the 
 attention of a number of his associates, 
 and fastening conviction on their minds, is 
 matter of faminar observation in every re- 
 ligious community. When such cases be- 
 come numerous, and other influences unite 
 "with this to deepen the impression of di- 
 vine truth, that is, when there is a revival, 
 this principle operates with still greater 
 power and much wider extent. Hundreds 
 are drawn to religious meetings at first, 
 simply because the current sets that way. 
 "W'hen there, they are led by the awe and 
 solemnity which pervade the place to lis- 
 ten, perhaps for the first time in their 
 lives, with fixed attention and impartial 
 self-application to the word dispensed. 
 Their incipient conviction of sin is height- 
 ened by the emotion which prevails around 
 them, and by conversation with those who 
 have felt longer and more deeply than 
 themselves. They are led to " strive as 
 in an agony," to " enter in at the strait 
 gate," and thus " the kingdom of heaven 
 suffereth violence, and the violent take it 
 by force." As the strong images 1 have 
 used, so perfectly descriptive of the state 
 of things in a revival, are borrowed from 
 the language employed by our Saviour 
 himself, with evident approbation, in de- 
 scribing similar scenes in his own day, it 
 
 with perfect soundness of mind, or the 
 presence of the sanctifying Spirit, in a 
 season of simultaneous and highly-awa- 
 kened interest on the subject of the soul's 
 salvation. That such seasons are liable 
 to be abused, and have, in some instances, 
 actually degenerated, under the guidance 
 of weak and rash men, into scenes of dis- 
 order or mere animal excitement, is no 
 more an argument against them, than a 
 similar abuse of any of the great powers 
 of nature, or principles of our mental con- 
 stitution, is an argument against their le- 
 gitimate and well-directed use. We should 
 remember, too, that if there is danger on 
 one side, there is danger also on the other. 
 Men may die of palsy as well as fever. 
 And when so many millions are sunk in 
 the anticipated slumbers of the second 
 death, we ought not to be too timid or fas- 
 tidious as to the means employed in awa- 
 kening them to the extremity of their dan- 
 ger. Tiie fact, however, is (as more and 
 more fully shown in our revivals), there 
 can be in very powerful operation what 
 may be called moral sympathy, that is, the 
 action of one mind upon another in sober, 
 calm, but very deep emotion, under just 
 views of divine truth, without any of that 
 animal excitement or nervous agitation 
 which leads to strong and sometimes dis- 
 orderly exhibitions of feeling. In this re- 
 spect a very important change has taken 
 place in our New-England revivals in the 
 progress of a century. During the re- 
 markable work of grace in 1735, persons 
 were often so agitated under the powerful 
 preaching of the word, as to groan and 
 cry out in the midst of religious worship, 
 under the anguish of their spirit. The 
 clergy did not encourage these strong ex- 
 pressions of feeling, but they thought them, 
 to some extent, perhaps unavoidable, and, 
 therefore, to be tolerated. In the progress 
 of the next great revival, in 1740-3, this 
 practice became still more prevalent, and 
 was connected, to a certain extent, with 
 other forms of bodily excitement, such as 
 trances, &c., which produced great con- 
 tention, and created a prejudice, in the 
 minds of many, against the entire work. 
 'I'his led our Congregational clergy, when 
 revivals recommenced on a broad scale at 
 the close of the last century, to unite from 
 the first to discountenance this practice; 
 to repress mere animal excitement of 
 every kind ; to make their religious meet- 
 ings, especially in the evening, sliort (not 
 generally exceeding an hour or an hour and 
 a half), in order to prevent exhaustion and 
 nervous agitation ; and to impress upon 
 their people that the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit ought to be recognised in silence 
 and awe, not with noise and confusion. 
 So complete was their success, that, al- 
 _, , .. though 1 have been much conversant with 
 is certain there is nothing inconsistent | revivals for more than thirty years, I have 
 O 
 
210 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 never, but in one instance, and that a very 
 slight one and for a moment, witnessed 
 any audible expression of emotion in a re- 
 ligious assembly. All our experience has 
 shown that it is wholly unnecessary, and 
 from what we see in some sects where it 
 prevails to some extent, we are constrain- 
 ed to feel that it is injurious, not only as 
 creating prejudices against revivals, but as 
 leading many to mistake nervous excite- 
 ment for the influence of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 4. A fourth of these principles is the 
 spirit of inquiry awakened among the 
 thoughtless and prejudiced by the striking 
 scenes of a revival. 
 
 When crowds are seen flocking to the 
 house of God, many persons are drawn 
 thither by the impulse of mere curiosity, 
 and when thus brought under the power of 
 divine truth, are often taught of the Spirit ; 
 like the Athenians assembled by the same 
 impulse around Paul on Mars Hill, who, 
 we are told, " clave unto him and bcheved." 
 Others, who have always doubted or denied 
 the doctrines of grace, are led, by what is 
 going on around them, to enter into the 
 argument for the first time with candour 
 and attention ; until, struck by the blaze of 
 evidence, not only from the word preached, 
 but from the lives and conversation of 
 Christians in their revived state, like the 
 man described in the Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians, they are " convinced of all, are 
 judged of all, and so falling down on the 
 face, shall worship God, and report that 
 God is in you of a truth." Others still, 
 who were wholly skeptical as to the ex- 
 istence of any inward principle of spiritual 
 life, when they witness the amazing change 
 produced in the character of many around 
 them, are compelled to exclaim, " This is 
 indeed the finger of God." Many, too, 
 who went to religious meetings purposely 
 to find occasion to cavil and blaspheme, 
 have had the scales fall from their eyes in 
 the midst of their iniquity, and been led to 
 cry out with the persecutor of old, "Lord, 
 what wilt thou have me to do V Thus the 
 notoriety given to religion by the scenes of 
 a revival is turned with great effect to the 
 furtherance of the Gospel. 
 
 5. As a fifth of these principles, I may 
 mention the influence of that prolonged and 
 exclusive attention to divine truth which pre- 
 vails in a revival. 
 
 The power of fixed and continuous at- 
 tention in deepening the impressions of 
 any subject is one of the most familiar 
 principles of mental science. To nothing, 
 however, does it apply with so much force 
 as religion, whose objects are at once so 
 vast, so remote, and so repulsive to the 
 natural heart. Men must look at their 
 condition and ponder it deeply, before they 
 can feel the extremity of their wretched- 
 ness and guilt. It is the first step in turn- 
 ing to God ; and one reason, no doubt, why 
 
 so many sit from year to year under the 
 ordinary preaching of the word, moved 
 and affected, in some degree, almost every 
 Sabbath, and yet making no progress in 
 divine things, is, that the impressions pro- 
 duced are not folloived up and deepened du- 
 ring the subsequent week. On the con- 
 trary, even when a person feels but slightly 
 moved, if his mind can be held to the sub- 
 ject in steady and prolonged attention, 
 while every object is excluded that can 
 divert his thoughts, and the whole field of 
 vision is filled with clear and vivid exhi- 
 bitions of divine truth, it is surprising to 
 see how rapid, in many cases, the progress 
 of conviction becomes. An instance has 
 already been mentioned (and many others 
 might be adduced) of a young man who 
 appeared to be brought in this way, through 
 divine grace, into the kingdom of God, in 
 a conversation of a few hours. The pe- 
 riod was still shorter in the days of the 
 Apostles ; and whether it be the will of 
 God to make it long or short, the best 
 means certainly that a man can use is, to 
 hold the mind fixed in the solemn con- 
 templation of divine truth. 
 
 But the impenitent, to a great extent, are 
 very imperfectly qualified for such a task. 
 Their minds are so wandering, so unused 
 to dwell on spiritual objects, so estranged 
 from the throne of grace, so entirely in the 
 dark as to the nature of those feelings with 
 which they must come to God, that most 
 of the time they give to contemplation is 
 wasted in chaotic thought ; and they are 
 often led to relinquish the attempt in de- 
 spair. It is not, therefore, sufficient, when 
 their attention is awakened, to send them 
 to their Bibles and their closets. In addi- 
 tion to this, they need, at every step, the- 
 assistance of an experienced mind to hold 
 them to the subject, to remove obstacles out 
 of the way, and throw light on the path 
 before them. Here, then, is the great 
 principle of revivals. At certain seasons 
 which seem peculiarly to promise a divine 
 blessing, an extraordinary effort is made 
 (such as cannot from its nature last many 
 months) to bring the impenitent complete- 
 ly under the power of divine truth. Re- 
 ligious meetings are made so frequent, as 
 not, on the one hand, to weary and distract 
 the mind, nor, on the other, to leave the 
 impression made at one meeting to be ef- 
 faced or much weakened before the next 
 arrives ; but to keep the impenitent con- 
 stantly, as it were, in an atmosphere of di- 
 vine truth, brightening continually around 
 them, and bringing their minds more and 
 more j)erfect]y under " the power of the 
 world to come." There is preaching, per- 
 haps, an hour every evening, but the sub- 
 ject is not left there. At the close of the 
 service, all who are willing to be considered 
 as serious inquirers are invited to remain 
 for a half hour longer, to receive more fa- 
 
Chap. HI.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 211 
 
 miliar and direct instruction suited to their 
 case ; while the members of the church 
 withdraw to the vestry, or some other 
 convenient room, to implore the influences 
 of the Holy Spirit on the meeting to be 
 continued under these new and more in- 
 teresting circumstances. There is much 
 to awaken deep emotion in the separation 
 thus made ; as parent and child, husband 
 and wife, friend and friend, part from each 
 other, the one to be prayed for and the 
 other to pray. The great object of the 
 meeting with inquirers, as thus continued, 
 is to bring them at once to the point ; to 
 anticipate and remove objections ; to draw 
 them off from resting in any mere prepar- 
 atory work ; to set before them the great 
 objects in view of which, if at all, they 
 will (through divine grace) exercise right 
 affections, and then call them to do it ; lead- 
 ing them to the throne of grace in the fer- 
 vent expression of repentance for sin, faith 
 in Christ, and deliberate consecration to 
 the service of God. The inquirers are then 
 invited to assemble again at some conve- 
 nient hour the next day — or the next even- 
 ing, if there is preaching only every other 
 night — at what is called the meeting for 
 inquiry. Here the pastor converses for a 
 few moments with each individual sep- 
 arately as to the peculiar state of his feel- 
 ings, and then addresses them collectively, 
 as before, on the one great subject of 
 coming at once to Christ. An hour is also 
 appointed at which he will meet those who 
 are desirous to see him alone. Those 
 who entertain hopes are strictly examined, 
 formed into praying associations, encour- 
 aged to judicious effort for the salvation 
 of others, and frequently assembled as a 
 body to receive instruction in the eviden- 
 ces of genuine piety. The members of 
 the church, in the mean time, if they do 
 their duty, are actively engaged, according 
 to their ability, in similar labours in their 
 own families and neighbourhoods. Their 
 efforts, if well directed, present religion in 
 a new and striking form. It is brought 
 home to " the business and bosoms of 
 men," as it can never be by mere preach- 
 ing. Thus, in a great variety of ways, 
 divine truth is made to bear on the impeni- 
 tent during the progress of a revival, with 
 a directness, force, and continuity of im- 
 pression, which can never be attained 
 under any other circumstances ; while the 
 people of God are pleading before him to 
 give that truth effect, with a fervour of 
 supplication corresponding to the interest 
 of the scene around them. 
 
 6. Another principle involved in revivals 
 is, the removal of many causes which prevent 
 the access of divine truth to the mind undh- 
 ordinary circumstances. 
 
 I can barely glance at a few of these. In 
 a season of general religious interest, much 
 of that reserve is laid aside which ordinarily 
 
 prevails in respect to close conversation 
 on personal religion, and which forms so 
 effectual a guard for backsliding Christians 
 and impenitent sinners, against the intru- 
 sion of this unwelcome subject. Men are 
 expected, at such times, to speak freely ; 
 and if they do it with kindness and a little 
 tact, they can converse with almost any 
 one on the state of his spiritual concerns 
 without wounding his pride or awakening 
 his resentment. 
 
 The sense of shame, the reluctance to be 
 singular — one of the strongest impediments 
 (especially with the young) to entering on 
 a religious course — loses, at such times, al- 
 most all its power. In an extensive revi- 
 val, the singularity lies on the other side. 
 
 Those changes in business or family ar- 
 rangements, which must often be made as 
 the result of becoming religious, are re- 
 garded at such seasons with diminished 
 dread and repugnance. Is a man engaged 
 in some dishonourable or sinful employ- 
 ment, as, for instance, the making or vend- 
 ing of ardent spirits 1 The sacrifice is less 
 when he is only one among many who are 
 called to make it. Has the subject of 
 family prayer been an impediment to his 
 entering on a religious Course 1 Sftch are 
 the habits and feelings of our churches, 
 that no one can be recognised as a con- 
 sistent Christian who refuses to lead his 
 household statedly to the throne of grace. 
 Has a feelingof diffidence or awkwardness 
 as to commencing this duty been one rea- 
 son for shrinking from the service of 
 Christ ? How entirely does this obstacle 
 disappear when so many around are erect- 
 ing the family altar, when, as I once knew 
 in a single small neighbourhood, twelve 
 plain and uneducated men in one week are 
 seen entering on the duty of family wor- 
 ship ! 
 
 The ordinary amusements of life, which 
 interest the feelings and divert the atten- 
 tion, are at such periods wholly laid aside 
 among those who are friendly to revivals. 
 
 The concerns of business are made to 
 yield on such occasions to the higher in- 
 terests of eternity. The people of God 
 will find or make time for the numerous 
 seasons of prayer and preaching which 
 demand their presence ; and will so ar- 
 range that their children and dependents 
 shall enjoy every facility that is requisite 
 to the effectual pursuit of eternal life. 
 
 Such, without dwelling farther on the 
 subject, are some of the ways in which im- 
 pediments to the progress of the Gospel 
 are removed out of the way, by extraordi- 
 nary seasons of attention to religion. 
 
 7. The next principle which I shall men- 
 tion is, the tendency of revivals to bring 
 men to a decision, and to make them decide 
 right on the subject of religion. 
 
 " Hell," says an old Enghsh writer, " is 
 paved with good intentions" — intentions 
 
212 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 never carried into effect, because the time 
 for their execution never quite arrived. 
 On these dreams of the future a revival 
 breaks in with startling power, and calls 
 men to instant decision : " Choose ye this 
 day whom ye will serve." Those who 
 believe in religion at all, believe and know 
 that they can never enjoy a more favour- 
 able season to secure the salvation of their 
 souls. Everything, at such a time, presses 
 upon them with united force to make them 
 decide at once, and decide right. The 
 Avell-known shortness of such a season, to 
 them, perhaps, the end of their day of 
 grace — the uncommon clearness and pun- 
 gency with which the truth is preached — 
 the solicitude of Christian friends — the im- 
 portunity of young converts who have just 
 "tasted that the Lord is gracious" — the 
 impulse of the mass of mind around them, 
 moving in one direction, with all the mul- 
 tiplied influences that concentre in a re- 
 vival, unite to impress the truth with irre- 
 sistible force, " Now is the accepted time, 
 now is the day of salvation." In the mean 
 time, one step prepares the way for an- 
 other; a decision on one point braces up 
 the mind for farther and more important 
 decisions in the (Tiiward progress. " Shall 
 I yield to the urgency of my friends, and 
 regularly attend religious meetings'?" The 
 effort costs perhaps but little. " Shall I 
 remain after the service closes, and thus 
 acknowledge myself an inquirer ]" The 
 struggle is far greater, but if the victory is 
 gained over his backwardness and pride, 
 he is still more likely to go on. " Shall I 
 attend the meeting for inquiry V " Shall I 
 go to my pastor, lay open my heart, and 
 tell him of the world of iniquity which I 
 find within V In addition to the other 
 happy consequences of taking such a step, 
 the strength of purpose gained by the effort 
 is one security against his going back : he 
 is now committed, and a sense of consist- 
 ency unites with higher motives to urge 
 him forward. Thus the multiplied exer- 
 cises of a revival bring the sinner continu- 
 ally to the trial ; press him to instantane- 
 ous decision ; and prepare the way, through 
 divine grace, for his entering into the king- 
 dom of God. 
 
 8. Another principle involved in revivals 
 is the tendency of that lively joy tohich pre- 
 vails amo7)g Chrislians, and especially yonng 
 converts, to render religion attractive to the 
 unconverted. 
 
 At ordinary seasons, a life of piety too 
 often appears to the impenitent, and espe- 
 cially to tlic yomig, under a forbidding as- 
 pect. Christians lind but little in the state 
 of things around them to call forth their 
 affections, before the unconverted, in lively 
 expressions of si)iritual joy. If tJK^y do not 
 decline in the warmth of their feelings (as 
 they too often do), they arc apt at least to 
 retire within themselves, and to seek their 
 
 chief enjoyment in secret communion with 
 God. But in times of revival everything 
 is changed. Their hearts naturally flow 
 forth in warm expressions of thankfulness 
 and joy, as they witness again the triumphs 
 of divine grace. They renew the fervours 
 of their first love. In their intercourse 
 with the unconverted, they naturally as- 
 sume an unwonted tenderness of manner, 
 as they seek to bring them by their faith- 
 ful admonitions to the cross of Christ. 
 The effect is often most striking. The im- 
 penitent look at religion under a new as- 
 pect, as they see the kindness and solici- 
 tude of so many around them for their 
 spiritual good. A lady, during a recent 
 revival, as she entered the shop of a trades- 
 man of infidel principles, recollected that, 
 though she had dealt with him for some 
 years, she had never spoken to him on the 
 subject of religion. She alluded at once to 
 the scenes which were then passing in the 
 town ; to the surprising changes that had 
 taken place in some of her acquaintance ; 
 and inquired whether any of those whom 
 he employed were interested in the work. 
 The man was deeply affected as the con- 
 versation went on, and at last, wiping his 
 eyes, he said, with much emotion, " I know 
 not why it is that the ladies who deal with 
 me are so anxious for my good. A num- 
 ber have spoken to me on the subject be- 
 fore, and one or two have conversed with 
 some of my workmen. Religion must be 
 something very different from what I had 
 supposed." 
 
 But the effect on the impenitent is still 
 more striking, when they witness the joy 
 which is manifested in the countenance 
 and conversation of the new converts to 
 religion. Every natural man bears in his 
 bosom a testimony that he is in the wrong. 
 He has, too, a sense of want, an insatiable 
 desire of some good which he has never 
 yet obtained ; and when he sees multitudes 
 around him who have found that good, 
 where he knows it can alone exist, in the 
 favour of God, how strong is the appeal 
 to one of the deepest principles of our na- 
 ture, especially in the case of those who 
 are already somewhat convinced of sin, 
 and of the unsatisfying nature of all worldly 
 enjoyment! It is the very appeal so beau- 
 tifully set forth in the parable of the prodi- 
 gal son. It was the reflection that there 
 was bread enough and to spare in his father's 
 liouse, while he perished with hunger, that 
 made him exclaim, " I will arise and go 
 unto my father!" Some years ago, two 
 young ladies, under deep conviction of sin, 
 went, after an evening meeting, to the house 
 of their pastor for farther instruction. As 
 the preacher conversed with them much 
 at large, and was urging them, by motives 
 drawn from the love of Christ, instantly to 
 accept the offered salvation, one of them 
 was observed to rest her head upon her 
 
Chap. VIII.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 213 
 
 hand, as in deep abstraction, till her face 
 sank at last on the table, in solemn and 
 overpowering emotion. After a few mo- 
 ments of entire silence, she looked up with 
 a countenance of serene joy, dropped upon 
 one knee before her companion, and said, 
 with the simplicity of a child, " Julia, do 
 love Christ. He is so beautiful. Do come 
 with me and love him !" This led Julia to 
 the reflection, " She has entered in while 
 I remain out." " One shall be taken and 
 another left." It was this which seemed 
 to be the means (under God) of bringing 
 her also to Christ before she laid her head 
 that night upon her pillow. 
 
 9. The last of these principles to which 
 I shall advert is, the solemnity and awe in- 
 spired by a sense of the peculiar presence of 
 God, the sanctifying Spirit. 
 
 The feeling of the supernatural is one 
 of the strongest and most subduing emo- 
 tions of the human heart. It has been 
 used by the adversary of souls to convert 
 unnumbered millions into bond-slaves of 
 the most degrading superstition ; and it is 
 worthy of being employed by the Spirit of 
 all grace, as an instrument of bringing the 
 chosen of God to that liberty wherewith 
 Christ shall make them free. It is the 
 great distinctive sentiment of a revival of 
 religion. *' How dreadful is this place : it 
 is none other than the house of God and 
 the gate of heaven." Such is the feeling 
 with which those who believe in the reality 
 of divine influence move amid the scenes 
 which are hallowed by the especial pres- 
 ence of the sanctifying Spirit. In the chil- 
 dren of God, as they are employed in bear- 
 ing forward the triumphs of his grace, it 
 awakens that mingled awe and delight 
 which we may imagine filled the breasts of 
 those who bore before the armies of Israel 
 the ark of the covenant, on which rested 
 the Shechinah of the Most High. To the en- 
 emies of God it comes with a solemnity of 
 appeal second only to that of the bed of 
 death and the scenes of approaching judg- 
 ment, as they see around them the striking 
 manifestations of his presence who " will 
 have mercy on whom he will have mercy, 
 and whom he will he hardeneth." " Grieve 
 not the Spirit," is the admonition continu- 
 ally impressed upon them by the messen- 
 gers of the Most High. " Grieve not the 
 Spirit," is the argument urged especially by 
 those who have recently tasted the sweet- 
 ness of his renovating grace. " Grieve 
 not the Spirit," is the admonition which 
 comes to them at times from those who 
 feel that they have wasted their day of 
 grace. A striking instance of this kind 
 occurred within my own knowledge. A 
 lady who had passed unsubdued through 
 more than one of these seasons of visita- 
 tion from on high, and who had deliber- 
 ately stifled her convictions and delayed 
 repentance, was lying on the bed of death 
 
 when another revival commenced. When 
 entreated to avail herself of this last period 
 (to her) of the Spirit's influences, she re- 
 plied that it was utterly in vain ; that she 
 had deliberately resisted his grace, and 
 now felt that the curse of abandonment 
 was upon her. Nothing could change her 
 views. She went down to the grave with 
 the admonition continually upon her lips, 
 to those who stood around her bedside, 
 " Grieve not the Spirit." These were the 
 last words she uttered as she entered the 
 eternal world. 
 
 Thus have I given a brief sketch of the 
 rise and progress of our revivals ; of the 
 mode of presenting divine truth which has 
 been found most eff'ectual at such periods ; 
 and of those principles in our mental con- 
 stitution which are appealed to with pecu- 
 liar power by these seasons of concentra- 
 ted religious interest. As the limits as- 
 signed me have already been exceeded, I 
 must here leave the subject, commending 
 the very imperfect exhibition which has 
 now been made to the candour and prayers 
 of the Christian reader." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS ON REVIVALS OF 
 RELIGION. 
 
 I WILL add only a few words to the full 
 and able discussion of the subject of reli- 
 gious revivals contained in the preceding 
 chapter. 
 
 The reader will have perceived that it 
 treats particularly of the revivals which 
 have taken place in New-England, that 
 being the part of the United States with 
 which its author is most intimately ac- 
 quainted. But as it has fallen to my lot 
 to be conversant with the different evan- 
 gelical denominations of all parts of the 
 country, during several years devoted to 
 religious and philanthropic enterprises be- 
 fore my going to Europe, it may not be 
 amiss that I should give the result of that 
 experience. 
 
 I should say, then, that the same blessed 
 influences of the Spirit, which have been 
 so signally manifested in the churches and 
 many of the literary institutions of New- 
 England, have been experienced, and per- 
 haps in no less a measure, in the evangel- 
 ical churches of all denominations through- 
 out the United States. I have been my- 
 self a witness to these blessed movements 
 in almost every one of those States, at one 
 time or another, and have ever found their 
 effects to be, in all essential respects, the 
 same. 
 
 It may be fairly remarked, I think, that 
 under a permanent, well-instructed minis- 
 ter, revivals are usually less alloyed with 
 unnecessary, and, on the whole, injurious 
 
214 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 accompaniments, such as great physical 
 excitement, i:ianifesting itself in sobbing, 
 or crying, or ineffectual effoi'ts to retain 
 one's composure. Still, it is not the case 
 that a preacher has it in his power to re- 
 press all such agitation. Much depends 
 on the kind of people he has to do with. 
 Among the rude and uneducated, who are 
 accustomed to boisterous expressions of 
 feeling, there will always be found more 
 visible and irrepressible excitement than 
 in other cases, as any one who is acquaint- 
 ed with such classes, in any country, will 
 readily acknowledge. Judicious preachers 
 will certainly endeavour to suppress all 
 undue excitement and agitation, as inter- 
 rupting the services, and preventing the 
 more composed from profiting by them. 
 
 It is not very wonderful, however, when 
 a considerable number of persons who 
 have been living all their lives in rebellion 
 against God, and in the neglect of their 
 souls, become, as it were, suddenly awa- 
 kened out of a profound sleep, that in the 
 distress into which they are thrown by a 
 view of the jeopardy in which they stand, 
 they should be ready, like Saul of Tarsus, 
 to exclaim, " Lord ! what wilt thou have 
 me to do V No man can be more a friend 
 of order than I am, yet I have seen times 
 when, under the preaching of the Gospel, 
 such pungent distress has been produced 
 by pressing the truth on plain and com- 
 paratively ignorant minds, that it was im- 
 possible to maintain the calmness that 
 might be found in a congregation of better- 
 educated and more refined persons, among 
 whom, nevertheless, there might be quite 
 as much real contrition of heart for sin. 
 
 That some excellent men, who have 
 been eminently useful in the ministry, are 
 not sufficiently careful in repressing un- 
 necessary manifestations of feeling is cer- 
 tain, and they are to be found in all denom- 
 inations. Some, even, are so much want- 
 ing in prudence as rather to encourage 
 such outbursts of feeling. But among so 
 many ministers, widely different from each 
 other in education, intellectual acquire- 
 ments, and modes of thinking on almost 
 every subject, entire agreement as to the 
 best ways of conducting a revival, so far 
 as human agency is concerned, is not to be 
 expected. 
 
 It is delightful to think that revivals of 
 religion have really occurred, and do ev- 
 ery year occur, to a greater or less extent, 
 in all our States, and among all the evan- 
 gelical denominations. And although they 
 may not always be so quietly and judi- 
 ciously conducted as might be desired, in 
 the newer parts of the country, and where 
 the population is somewhat rude, yet they 
 have certainly exerted a happy influence 
 upon the churches and upon society, wher- 
 ever they have occurred. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ALLEGED ABUSES IN REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 It was my first intention not to add any- 
 thing to what has been said in the chapter 
 on revivals respecting the abuses alleged 
 to have been connected with them, but, on 
 farther reflection, I consider that a few 
 words more oi^ that point would not be 
 amiss. 
 
 No man, certainly, who is at all acquaint- 
 ed with human nature, should be surprised 
 to hear that the greatest blessings bestowed 
 on mankind are liable to be abused, and 
 even the purest and noblest qualities to be 
 counterfeited. Where, then, is there any 
 matter of astonishment should we find 
 that abuses mingle with religious revivals, 
 through man's imprudence and the malig- 
 nity of the great Adversary, or should we 
 even discover some revivals which deserve 
 to be called spurious ? 
 
 I ought, however, to premise that, what- 
 ever abuses may have at any time taken 
 place in the revivals in America, or what- 
 ever spurious ones may have occurred, it 
 cannot be disputed that our truly zealous, 
 intelligent, and devoted Christians, what- 
 ever be their denomination, not only be- 
 lieve in the reality of revivals, but consid- 
 er that, when wisely promoted, they are 
 the greatest and most desirable blessings 
 that can be bestowed upon the churches. 
 There are, I admit, persons among us who 
 oppose religious revivals, and it would be 
 sad evidence against them if there were 
 not. There are the openly wicked, the 
 profane, wSabbath-breakers, enemies of pure 
 religion in every form, and avowed or se- 
 cret infidels. These form the first catego- 
 ry, and it is not a very small one. They 
 may be found in our cities and large towns, 
 and sometimes in our villages, and are the 
 very persons whom strangers are most 
 likely to meet with about our hotels and 
 taverns. Next, there are Roman Catholics, 
 Unitarians, Universalists, and others whose 
 Christianity is greatly marred with errors 
 and heresies. These, too, almost with- 
 out exception, hate revivals, nor can we 
 wonder that they should. A third class 
 consists of those members of our evangel- 
 ical churches who conform too much to 
 the opinions and practices of the world ; 
 are so much afraid of what they call en- 
 thusiasm and fanaticism as to do nothing, 
 or nothing worthy of mention, for the pro- 
 motion of the Gospel ; and vvould never be 
 known to be Christians, either by the world 
 or by their fellow-Chnstians, were they 
 not occasionally seen to take their places 
 at the communion-table. Some such there 
 are in all our evangelical churches, and in 
 one or two of those whose discipline is lax- 
 er than it should be, they constitute a con- 
 siderable party. 
 
 Now it is natural that European travel- 
 
Chap. IX.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 215 
 
 lers in the United States, when not deci- 
 dedly religious themselves, should chiefly 
 associate with one or all of these three 
 classes ; and that, taking up their notions 
 from them, they should have their note- 
 books and journals filled with all sorts of 
 misrepresentations with respect to our re- 
 ligious revivals. Hence many, who have 
 never visited America, owe all their ideas 
 on that subject to writers whose own in- 
 formation was partial and incorrect, and 
 who, as their very books show, know no- 
 thing of true religion, and would never have 
 touched upon the subject, but that they 
 wished to give piquancy to their pages by 
 working up for the wonder and amusement 
 of their readers every false and exaggera- 
 ted statement, and foolish anecdote, which 
 on that subject had been poured into their 
 ears. 
 
 But serious and worthy people in Europe, 
 and particularly in Great Britain, have been 
 prejudiced against revivals in another way. 
 They have too readily allowed themselves 
 to be influenced by what has been written 
 by excellent men among us, who, appre- 
 hending much danger to the cause of revi- 
 vals from the measures taken to promote 
 them by some zealous, but, in their opinion, 
 imprudent men, and perceiving the mis- 
 chievous results of such measures, have 
 faithfully exposed them, and warned the 
 churches to be upon their guard ; and this 
 they have done in the columns of our reli- 
 gious journals, in pamphlets, and in books. 
 Their endeavours met with much success 
 against the Enemy, who, on failing to pre- 
 vent, had been seeking to pervert these 
 blessed manifestations of divine mercy ; 
 but, as was natural, the strong language in 
 which they had been prompted to indulge 
 by the actual view of some evils, and the 
 apprehension of worse, impressed foreign- 
 ers with very exaggerated ideas of those 
 evils. This result was perhaps unavoida- 
 ble, yet it is much to be deplored ; for in- 
 jury has thus been done to the cause abroad 
 by men who would be the last to intend it. 
 
 It is an infelicity to which all endeav- 
 ours for good are subject in this evil world, 
 that they are liable to be marred by prof- 
 fered aid from men who, notwithstanding 
 the fairest professions, prove, at length, to 
 have been more actuated by their own mis- 
 erable ambition than by a true zeal for God's 
 glory and man's salvation. Such false 
 friends did no small injury to the great revi- 
 val of religion in 1740-43, already mention- 
 ed ; and so, likewise, did the successive 
 revivals that took place in the West in 
 1801-3 suff'er much from the imprudence 
 of some who desired to be leaders in the 
 work of God. This was the case partic- 
 ularly in Kentucky. And within the last 
 few years, after a blessed period marked 
 by revivals in many parts of the country, 
 the same Adversary who, when " the sons 
 
 of God come to present themselves before 
 the Lord," seldom fails to obtrude himself 
 among them, and who can on such occa- 
 sions assume the garb, as it were, " of an 
 angel of hght," contrived for a while to do 
 no little damage to the work. Some good 
 men, as we still consider the greater num- 
 ber of them to have been, not content with 
 the more quiet and prudent character which 
 had hitherto marked the revivals, attempted 
 to precipitate matters by measures deem- 
 ed unwise and mischievous by many wor- 
 thy and experienced persons, both minis- 
 ters and laymen. The passions, instead 
 of the judgment and the conscience, were 
 too much appealed to ; too much stress 
 was laid on the sinner's natural ability, 
 and not enough on the needed influence 
 of the Holy Spirit ; too superficial a view 
 was presented of the nature and evidences 
 of conversion ; in a word, the Gospel was 
 held forth in such a way as not to lead to 
 that self-abasement which becomes a sin- 
 ner saved wholly by grace. 
 
 One of the reprehended measures was 
 the practice of earnestly pressing those 
 who were somewhat awakened to a sense 
 of their sin and danger, to come, at the 
 close of the sermon, to seats immediately 
 before the pulpit, called "anxious seats," 
 or seats for such as were anxious to be 
 saved, in order that they might be specially 
 prayed for, and receive some special coun- 
 sels. This, though comparatively harm- 
 less, perhaps, when adopted by prudent 
 men among certain classes of people, was 
 much the reverse when attempted in large 
 congregations by men not gifted with ex- 
 traordinary wisdom. It proved a poor 
 substitute for the simpler and quieter meth- 
 od of meeting such as chose to remain af- 
 ter the public services were over, in order 
 to receive such advice as their case might 
 require, or for the good old practice of 
 having special meetings at the pastor's 
 house, or in the church vestry or lecture- 
 room, for such as were " inquiring the way 
 to Zion." 
 
 Another measure, hardly deserving to 
 be called new, for it has long existed in 
 substance in the Presbyterian churches of 
 the interior, and at one time, I understand, 
 in Scotland also, that of having public ser- 
 vices during three or four days on sacra- 
 mental occasions, was found hurtful, when 
 carried to the extent encouraged by some, 
 at what are called " protracted meetings." 
 These, when transferred from the West 
 to the East, and when they began to be 
 more frequent with us, were called " four 
 days' meetings" or " three days' meetings," 
 from the length of time during which they 
 were held. But when prolonged, as they 
 were in some places — I know not how 
 long, sometimes, I believe, for a month or 
 forty days— the practice was regarded as 
 an abuse, and as such it was resisted. 
 
216 
 
 RELIGION IN'AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 No one, perhaps, would condemn such 
 meetings when called for by particular cir- 
 cumstances ; but when people seem in- 
 clined to rely more on them than on the 
 ordinary services of the sanctuary, and to 
 think that without them there can be no 
 revivals and no conversions, it is time 
 they were abolished, or at least restored 
 to their proper use. 
 
 But what was thought worst of all Avas 
 the proposal, for it hardly went farther, 
 of having an order of " revival preachers," 
 who should go through the churches, 
 spending a few weeks here and a few 
 there, for the sole object of promoting re- 
 vivals. This was justly opposed as sub- 
 versive of the regular ministry, for it is 
 easy to see that such men, going about 
 with a few well-prepared discourses on ex- 
 citing topics, and recommended, perhaps, 
 by a popular deliver^-, would throw the 
 pastors in the background, give the peo- 
 ple " itching ears," and in a lew weeks do 
 more harm than good. No one would 
 deny that " evangelists" might be very 
 useful in the new settlements, where a 
 regular clergy cannot be at once establish- 
 ed, and even in building up churches in 
 the older parts of the country, or preach- 
 ing to churches without pastors. Few, 
 likewise, would deny that some zealous, 
 able, and judicious ministers might render 
 important services in goiug from church 
 to church at the special request of the 
 pastors for their assistance. Such men 
 should have an eminently humble, kind, 
 and prudent spirit, and an overruhng de- 
 sire to seek the interests of their brethren 
 rather than to promote their own, and some 
 such we have had who were widely use- 
 ful. But should it be thought that the 
 churches require such men, they ought to 
 be placed under the special control of the 
 ecclesiastical bodies to which they belong, 
 and without whose express and continued 
 approbation they ought not to undertake 
 or continue such engagements. Nothing 
 could be more dangerous to the peace of 
 the churches than that every man, who 
 may fancy himself a " revivaUst," or " re- 
 vival preacher," should be allowed to go 
 wherever people desire to have him, with 
 or without the consent of their pastors. 
 Accordingly, the institution of any such 
 order was opposed, and the preachers who 
 had been thus employed were urged each 
 to settle at some one spot, which they 
 did ; and thus the churches hear no more 
 of " revival preachers," or " revival ma- 
 kers," as some deserved to be called. 
 
 I have said more on this subject than I 
 intended, but not more, perhaps, than was 
 required. Yet, should any of my readers 
 have been led to suppose that the abuses 
 I have described affected our churches 
 generally, he is mistaken. They began 
 to manifest themselves about the year 
 
 1828, and lasted about ten years, without,, 
 however, having ever prevailed widely ; 
 and in some extensive districts they have 
 been altogether unknown. Of the twice 
 ten thousand churches of all denominations 
 among us, in which " the truth as it is in 
 Jesus" is preached, only a few hundreds 
 are believed to have been affected by them, 
 and even these have now become pretty 
 well rid both of the abuses and their con- 
 sequences. During the last four years 
 our churches have been more extensively 
 blessed with revivals than at any time be- 
 fore, and all well-informed persons, whom 
 I have consulted, agree that those blessed 
 seasons have never, probably, been more 
 free from whatever could offend a judicious 
 Christian. For these things we are glad ; 
 they demonstrably prove that, though our 
 sins be great, the God of our fathers has 
 not forsaken us. 
 
 Before closing the subject of the abuses 
 attending religious revivals, although there 
 be no special connexion between them, I 
 may say something about camp- meetings,, 
 respecting which I have had many ques- 
 tions put to me in some parts of Europe. 
 Most foreigners owe their notions of these 
 meetings to the same sources from which 
 they have taken their ideas of revivals — 
 the pages of tourists, who have raked up 
 and woven into episodes for their travels, 
 all the stories they have chanced to meet 
 with, and some of whom, possibly, have 
 even gone to the outskirts of one of these 
 assemblages, and looked on with all the 
 wonder natural to persons who had never 
 entered into the spirit of such scenes, so 
 far as either to comprehend their nature 
 or ascertain their results. 
 
 Camp-meetings, as they are called, ori- 
 ginated in sheer necessity among the- 
 Presbyterians of Kentucky in the year 
 1801, during that great religious revival, 
 which, after commencing in the west- 
 ern part of North Carolina, penetrated 
 into Tennessee, and spread over all the 
 then settled parts of the West. It so hap- 
 pened that, on one occasion, in the ear- 
 ly part of that revival, so many people 
 had come from a distance to the adminis- 
 tration of the Lord's Supper at a particu- 
 lar church, tliat accommodation could no- 
 where be found in the neighbourhood for 
 all, during the successive days and nights 
 which they wished to spend at the place. 
 This induced as many as could to procure 
 tents, and form something like a military 
 encampment, where, as provisions were 
 easily to be had, they might stay till the 
 meetings closed. Such was the origin of 
 camp- meetings. They were afterward 
 held at various points during that extraor- 
 dinary season of religious solicitude. The 
 country was still very thinly settled, and 
 as a proof of the deep and wide-spread 
 feelings that prevailed on the subject of 
 
Chap. IX.] 
 
 REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 
 
 21T 
 
 religion, many persons attended from dis- 
 tances of thirty, forty, and fifty miles ; nay, 
 on one occasion, some came from a dis- 
 tance of even one hundred miles. It is not 
 surprising that the meetings should have 
 lasted for a period of several days, for 
 many who attended them had few oppor- 
 tunities of attending public worship and of 
 hearing the Gospel in the wilderness in 
 which they lived. 
 
 They were held, when the weather per- 
 mitted, in the midst of the noble forest. 
 Seats were made of logs and plank, the 
 under rubbish having been cleared away ; 
 a pulpit was erected in front of the rows of 
 seats ; and there, in the forenoon, after- 
 noon, and evening, the ministers of the 
 Gospel made known the "words of eternal 
 life." Public prayer was also held at the 
 same spot early in the morning, and at the 
 close of the services at night. Around, at 
 proper distances, were placed the tents, 
 looking to the seated area prepared for the 
 great congregation. Lamps were sus- 
 pended at night from the boughs of the 
 trees, and torches blazed from stakes some 
 eight or ten feet high, in front of each tent. 
 In the rear of the tents, in the mornings 
 and evenings, such simple cooking opera- 
 tions went on as were necessary. Each 
 tent was occupied by one or two families, 
 intimate friends and neighbours sometimes 
 sharing in one tent, when their families 
 were not too large. A horn or trumpet 
 announced the hour for the commencement 
 of the public services. 
 
 Such was a primitive camp-meeting in 
 the sombre forests of Kentucky forty years 
 ago. Solemn scenes occurred at them, 
 such as might well have caused many who 
 scoffed to tremble. Such, also, both as re- 
 pects their arrangements, and in many pla- 
 ces, also, as respects the spirit that has pre- 
 dominated at them, have been the camp- 
 meetings held since. They were confined 
 for years to the frontier settlements, as they 
 ought, perhaps, always to have been, for 
 there they were in some measure necessa- 
 ry. I have attended them in such circum- 
 stances, have been struck with the order 
 that prevailed at them, and seen them be- 
 come the means of doing unquestionable 
 good. They served to bring together, to 
 the profit of immortal souls, a population 
 scattered far and wide, and remaining some- 
 times for years remote from any regular 
 place of worship. 
 
 The reader must not suppose that all 
 who come to these meetings encamp at 
 them. Only families from a great distance 
 do so. Those within a circuit even of five 
 miles, generally go home at night and re- 
 turn in the morning, bringing something to 
 eat during the interval of public worship. 
 
 In the remote settlements of the Far 
 West, the utility of camp-meetings seems 
 to be admitted by all who know anything 
 
 about them; but in densely- settled neigh- 
 bourhoods, and especially near cities and 
 large towns, whether in the West or the- 
 East, they are apt to give rise to disorder. 
 The idle rabble are sure to flock to them, 
 especially on the Sabbath, and there they 
 drink and create disturbance, not so much 
 at the camp itself, for the police would 
 prevent them, but at taverns and temporary 
 booths for the sale of beer and ardent spir- 
 its in the neighbourhood. It is true that,, 
 since Temperance societies have made 
 such progress, these evils have much dimin- 
 ished ; and even in more populous places, 
 good is undoubtedly done at these meet- 
 ings ; the thoughtless, who go to them from 
 mere curiosity, being made to hear truths 
 that they never can forget. Nor are these 
 meetings blessed only to the lower classes, 
 as they are called. A young man of the 
 finest talents, once my class-fellow at col- 
 lege, and afterward my intimate friend, 
 having gone to one of them from mere cu- 
 riosity, was awakened by a faithful sermoa 
 to a sense of his need of salvation ; his 
 convictions never left him until he found 
 peace by " believing in the Son of God." 
 He lived to become a most popular and el- 
 oquent minister of the Gospel.* 
 
 Camp-meetings are occasionally held in 
 the Far West by the Presbyterians, espe- 
 cially by the Cumberland Presbyterians, as 
 also by some of the Baptists, possibly, but 
 for a longtime they have been held mainly 
 by the Methodists ; and I understand that 
 many among these have the impression 
 that, except in the frontier and new settle- 
 ments, they had better give place to "■ Pro- 
 tracted Meetings," which is the course, I 
 believe, they are now taking. 
 
 Such is the account I have to give of 
 camp-meetings. Wicked men have some- 
 times taken advantage of them for their 
 own bad purposes, and such abuses have 
 been trumpeted through the world with the 
 view of bringing discredit on the religion of 
 the country. Without having ever been a ■ 
 great admirer of such meetings, 1 must say^ 
 after having attended several, and careful- 
 ly observed the whole proceedings, that I 
 am satisfied that the mischiefs alleged to 
 arise from them have been greatly exagger- 
 ated, while there has been no proper ac- 
 knowledgment of the good that they have 
 done. 
 
 In some parts of the West there is a 
 practice, familiar to me in early life, and of 
 which I still retain very tender and pleas- 
 ing recollections. It consists in hold- 
 ing the services of the sanctuary in a for- 
 est during summer, both to accommodate . 
 a greater number of people, and also for 
 
 ♦ The late Rev. Joseph S. Christmas, some time 
 pastor of a Presbyterian church at Montreal in Cana- 
 da, and afterward settled in New- York, where he 
 died a few years ago. An interesting Memoir of him 
 has been published. 
 
218 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 the sake of the refreshing shade afforded 
 by the trees. Seats are prepared in rows 
 before a temporary pulpit made of boards, 
 and there, from a temple made by God him- 
 self, prayer and praise ascend unto Him 
 *' who dwelleth not in temples made with 
 hands," and who is ever present where 
 ■contrite and believing hearts are engaged 
 in worshipping Him. 
 
 In such scenes, too, it is now common, 
 in almost all parts of the United States, 
 for Sabbath-schools to assemble on the 
 J'ourth of July, if the weather be good; for 
 the purpose of hearing appropriate address- 
 es, far more religious than political ; of 
 uniting in prayer for the blessing of God 
 upon the country, and the country's hope, 
 the rising generation ; and of praising Him 
 from whom all our privileges, civil and re- 
 ligious, have been received. Temperance 
 meetings on the same occasion are now 
 held in our beautiful forests, and some- 
 thing better is heard than the boastful and 
 unchristian self-adulation, to say nothing 
 of the profaneness and ribaldry which too 
 often characterized such scenes in the 
 "olden time," when Temperance societies 
 and Sunday-schools were unknown. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE CHURCH AND THE 
 PULPIT IN AMERICA. 
 
 A STRANGER, upou visiting extensively 
 our evangelical churches of all denomina- 
 tions, would be struck, I am sure, with the 
 order that prevails in them ; and this ap- 
 plies equally to the smaller prayer-meet- 
 ings to be found in every parish and con- 
 gregation that has any life in it, and to the 
 greater assemblies that meet for public 
 worship. Foreigners seem impressed with 
 the idea, if I may judge from what I have 
 often heard hinted rather than expressed, 
 that there is a great deal of disorder and 
 lawlessness in the United States, and they 
 infer that there must be no less insubordi- 
 nation in the religious commonwealth than 
 they ascribe to the civil. But both opin- 
 ions are totally unfounded. It docs not 
 follow, because of a few disturbances, ari- 
 sing from the disgraceful opposition made 
 in some places to abolitionists, and the 
 resentment of an exasperated populace 
 against gangs of gamblers in others, that 
 the whole country is a scene of continual 
 commotion. In no part of the world have 
 there been so few dreadful riots, attended 
 with loss of life, as in the United States, 
 during tlicse last sixty years. There arc 
 bad men among us, and there are crimes, 
 but, after all, life is quite as safe among us 
 38 in any country I have ever visited, and 
 I have been in most of those that are con- 
 sidered civilized. 
 
 As for the Church, a regard for law and 
 
 order reigns to a degree not surpassed in 
 any other country. There is no confusion 
 of the respective rights of the ministry and 
 people. The duties of both are well under- 
 stood everywhere. Most of the churches, 
 such as the Presbyterian and the Episco- 
 palian in all their branches, possess and 
 maintain a strong ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment, and even the Congregational, how- 
 ever democratic in theory, have a govern- 
 ment that exercises a hardly less powerful 
 control. How seldom do we hear of dis- 
 order occurring at the little meetings of 
 Christians held for prayer and the read- 
 ing of the Word of God — meetings so nu- 
 merous, and almost always conducted by 
 pious laymen ! How seldom do private 
 church members encroach by word or deed, 
 at meetings of any kind, on the proper 
 sphere of those who hold office in the 
 churches! Indeed, on no one point are 
 our churches more perfectly united in opin- 
 ion than with respect to the necessity of 
 maintaining due order and subordination. 
 The ministry enjoys its full share of influ- 
 ence. No one ever hears of unauthorized, 
 unlicensed persons being allowed to speak 
 in our meetings for public worship. Those 
 levelling doctrines, now spreading in other 
 countries — doctrines which would reduce 
 the ministry to nothing, and encourage lay 
 brethren to take it upon them to preach or 
 teach in the churches — I dare affirm, will 
 not make much progress among us. At- 
 tempts to introduce something of this sort 
 have often been made, but in vain. We 
 have, indeed, our meetings in which debate 
 is allowed, and there the laity may even 
 take the lead, but these meetings are about 
 the temporal affairs of the church, or the 
 caUing of a pastor, not for the public wor- 
 ship of God. 
 
 Experience has also taught us the ne- 
 cessity of maintaining order at meetings 
 held during revivals — occasions on which, 
 in consequence of the strong excitement 
 of the most powerful feelings of the human 
 heart, there is a special call for watchful- 
 ness in this respect. It is a sad mistake 
 to multiply meetings unnecessarily during 
 revivals, or to prolong them to unseason- 
 able hours at night, to the exhaustion ot 
 strength, the loss of needed repose, and 
 the unnatural and dangerous irritation of 
 the nervous system. Yet these are the 
 points in which the inexperienced are most 
 liable to err. They begin a meeting, say 
 at seven o'clock in the evening. The 
 preacher feels deeply, and the people are 
 much interested. Instead of preaching for 
 an hour, he is tempted, by the manifest at- 
 tention of his hearers, to go on for an hour 
 and a half or two hours, and instead of send- 
 ing them home at half past eight o'clock, 
 or at nine at the farthest, so that they may 
 have time for meditation and secret prayer, 
 in which, after all, the sinner is most like- 
 
Ghap. X.] 
 
 EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 
 
 219 
 
 ly to give his heart unto God, he dismisses 
 them at ten or eleven o'clock, fatigued, 
 yet excited, and altogether unfit for the ex- 
 ercises of the closet. This is sometimes 
 done under the idea that the people would 
 lose their serious impressions vv^ere the 
 service to be short. But here there is 
 often a temptation of the Adversary. No 
 revival ever suffered by evening meetings 
 being confined to a moderate length. Let 
 the people be almost compelled to leave 
 the house rather than unduly protract such 
 meetings. 
 
 One of the most important and difficult 
 duties of a minister in a revival is rightly 
 to direct awakened souls. Alas! how often 
 are even good men found to fail in this. 
 Many ministers, whom I have known, seem 
 to me to excel in addressing unawakened 
 sinners, and yet to fail when called to give 
 clear, intelligible, and scriptural directions 
 to those who are awakened. Many, too, 
 fail in judging of the evidences of conver- 
 sion, and " heal the hurt of the people 
 softly." 
 
 But on no point, I am convinced, from 
 what I have seen in America, is there a 
 greater call for the exercise of a sound pru- 
 dence than in receiving into the Church 
 persons who entertain the belief that they 
 have " passed from death unto life." While 
 they may possibly be kept back too long, 
 the great error lies on the other side. The 
 new convert naturally desires to join him- 
 self to those whom he now considers to be 
 the children of God. He thinks that it is 
 his duty to do so, and he may possibly be 
 right. But the office-bearers in the Church, 
 whose duty it is to see to the admission of 
 none but proper persons into it, are no less 
 
 clearly bound to see that the candidate 
 for membership gives such evidences of 
 piety as, on scriptural grounds, shall be 
 deemed satisfactory. The one may be 
 perfectly right in desiring to enter, and in 
 coming to them for admission ; the others 
 may be no less justified in refusing until 
 they have had satisfactory evidence of the 
 applicant's piety. No harm can result from 
 this temporary conflict of duty, if I may 
 call it so. Both seek to do what is right, 
 and both will soon find their way clear. 
 
 1 consider hasty admissions to our church- 
 es to be the greatest of all the evils con- 
 nected with revivals in some parts of the 
 country, and among some denominations 
 in particular. But this evil is not peculiar 
 to revivals. It is quite as likely to occur 
 when there is no revival as when there is. 
 With all possible care it is difficult to keep 
 a church pure, in a reasonable sense of 
 that word. How absurd, then, to expect 
 it when the doors are thrown wide open to 
 admit hastily all that profess to be con- 
 verted ! Experience shows the necessity 
 of decided views on this subject, and of 
 firmness in enforcing them. On this point, 
 as well as on all others relating to the dis- 
 cipline and government of the Church, too 
 much care cannot be taken to avoid latitu- 
 dinarian practices. The Church must be 
 kept a living body of believers — a compa- 
 ny of persons who have come out from 
 the world, and are determined to adorn the 
 profession which they have made. In their 
 organization and action, order, which is 
 said to be " heaven's first law," must be 
 maintained. In this opinion, I am sure, 
 Christians of all denominations in the Uni- 
 ted States sincerely and entirely concur. 
 
 BOOK V I. 
 
 THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS IN REFERENCE TO THIS 
 SUBJECT. 
 
 This part of our work we propose to de- 
 vote to a brief notice of the doctrines, or- 
 ganization, and history of each of the evan- 
 gelical denominations in the United States, 
 nothing beyond a sketch of these being 
 consistent with our limits. We shall en- 
 deavour, of course, to confine ourselves as 
 much as possible to what is important, 
 omitting what is least essential or neces- 
 sary. 
 
 We begin with the five most numerous 
 evangelical denominations in the United 
 States. These, in the order of their rise, 
 are the Episcopalians, the Congregational- 
 ists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and 
 
 the Methodists, and in that order we shall 
 proceed to notice them. We shall then 
 consider as briefly as possible the smaller 
 orthodox denominations, such as the Mora- 
 vians, the Lutherans, the German Reform- 
 ed, and other German sects, the Reformed 
 Dutch Church, the Cumberland Presbyte- 
 rians, the Protestant or Reformed Metho- 
 dists, the Reformed Presbyterians or Cov- 
 enanters, the Associate Church, the Asso- 
 ciate Reformed, the Quakers, &c. 
 
 Numerous as are the evangelical denom- 
 inations in the United States, yet when 
 grouped in reference to doctrine on the one 
 hand, or church government on the other, 
 it is surprising into how small a number 
 they may be reduced. In doctrine we have 
 but two great divisions — the Calvinistic 
 and the Arminian schools ; the former, 
 
220 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 with its various peculiarities, comprehend- 
 ing the Presbyterians, usually so called, 
 the evangelical Baptists, the Kpiscopahans 
 (though they generally consider them- 
 selves as intermediate between the two), 
 the Congregationalists, the German Re- 
 formed, the Dutch Reformed, the Cove- 
 nanters, the Associate, and the Associate 
 Reformed Churches ; the latter, with its 
 variations, comprehending the Methodists 
 of all branches, the Lutherans, the Cum- 
 berland Presbyterians, the United Brethren 
 or Moravians, and some other small bodies. 
 
 Considered in reference to their forms 
 of church government, they all range them- 
 selves in three great families. The Epis- 
 copal, comprehending the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church, the Methodist Episcopal, 
 and the Moravians ; the Presby lerian, in- 
 cluding the Presbyterians usually so called, 
 the Dutch Reformed, the German Re- 
 formed, the Lutherans, the Cumberland 
 Presbyterians, the Protestant Methodists, 
 the Covenanters, the Associate, and the 
 Associate Reformed ; the Congregational 
 (or Lidependent, as it is more commonly 
 called in England), embracing the Congre- 
 gationalists and the Baptists. 
 
 But when viewed in relation to the great 
 doctrines which are universally conceded 
 by Protestants to be fundamental and ne- 
 cessary to salvation, then they all form but 
 one body, recognising Christ as their com- 
 mon Head. They then resemble the differ- 
 ent parts of a great temple, all constituting 
 but one whole ; or the various corps of an 
 army, which, though ranged in various 
 divisions, and each division having an or- 
 ganization perfect in itself, yet form but 
 one great host, and are under the command 
 of one chief. 
 
 This suggests the observation that on no 
 one point are all these churches more 
 completely united, or more firmly estab- 
 lished, than on the doctrine of the suprem- 
 acy of Christ in his Church, and the unlaw- 
 fulness of any interference with its doc- 
 trine, discipline, and government, on the 
 part of the civil magistrate. There is not 
 a single evangelical church in the United 
 States that does not assert and maintain 
 the glorious doctrine of the Headship of 
 Christ in his Church, and that from Him 
 alone comes all just and lawful authority 
 in the same. On this point they hold 
 imanimously the great doctrine which the 
 Church of Scotland has been so nobly con- 
 tending for. If the civil power has ever 
 referred for a moment to the doctrine and 
 discipline of the Church, it has only been 
 in courts of justice, and that solely for the 
 purjjose of determining which of two par- 
 ties has a legal title to be considered as the 
 church in question. For example : A 
 church divides ; the parties into which it 
 is divided contend for the property tliat be- 
 longed to it when entire ; and the court 
 
 before which they come for a decision of 
 their claims, is compelled to look to 
 points of doctrine and discipline in order 
 to settle this question as to property. 
 Thus it was in the great Quaker case 
 formerly referred to. 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Church in the 
 United States derives its origin from the 
 Church of England, of which it is not only 
 an offshoot, but to which it is " indebted, 
 under God, for a long continuance of nur- 
 sing care and protection."* It agrees with 
 that Church in doctrine ; and its ritual and 
 formularies, with some variations intro- 
 duced after the Revolution by which the 
 Colonies became independent States, are 
 the same. Unlike the mother-church, 
 however, it is in no way connected with 
 the State, nor do its bishops, in virtue of 
 their office, enjoy any civil powers, im- 
 munities, or emoluments. 
 
 The chief particulars in which the Ser- 
 vice Book differs from that of the Church 
 of England are as follows : 1. A shorter 
 form of absolution is allowed to be used 
 instead of the English, which is, however, 
 retained, and frequently used in the public 
 service. 2. The Athanasian creed is omit- 
 ted. 3. Li the administration of baptism, 
 the sign of the cross may be dispensed 
 with, if requested. 4. The marriage ser- 
 vice has been considerably abridged. 5. la 
 the funeral service, some expressions, con- 
 sidered as liable to misconstruction, have 
 been altered or omitted. 6. There has 
 been a change, of course, in the prayers 
 for rulers. 7. It is allowed to omit in 
 communion service the prayer called the 
 " Oblation," and the Invocation. 8. It is 
 permitted to change the words " He de- 
 scended into hell," which occur in the 
 Apostles' Creed, into " He descended into 
 the world of departed spirits," or words 
 equivalent. The other modifications, being 
 of less importance and chiefly verbal, need 
 not be specified. 
 
 As in the parent church in England, 
 there are three ranks or orders in the 
 ministry, and these are believed, by its 
 friends, to be of apostolical institution, viz., 
 bishops, priests, and deacons. Ordination 
 is peformed solely by the bishops. The 
 churches choose their own pastors, but 
 their installation, or induction, requires the 
 consent of the bishop of the diocess.f The 
 
 * Preface to the American Book of Common 
 Prayer. 
 
 t When the bishop is unable to preside at the in- 
 stallation or institution of a minister as rector or 
 pastor of a church, he appoints a committee of neigh- 
 iiouring presbyters to act as institutors on the occa- 
 sion. So, also, in diocesses that have no bishops, if 
 
Chap. II.] 
 
 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 221 
 
 regulation of the temporal affairs of each 
 church is confided to a board of church- 
 wardens, and vestry, the former of which 
 are chosen by the communicants, the lat- 
 ter by the members of the pari.sh general- 
 ly. The spiritual rule rests mainly with 
 the pastor, or rector, as he is more com- 
 monly called. 
 
 The increase and wide diffusion of the 
 Episcopal Church in the United States has 
 led, I understand, to the determination that 
 each state shall constitute a diocess, ex- 
 cept when its extent, and the number of 
 churches in it, may require its being divi- 
 ded, like that of New-York, into two dio- 
 cesses. In some instances, however, as 
 in Virginia, where the state is extensive, 
 and the churches not very numerous, and 
 especially where the principal or senior 
 bishop does not enjoy robust health, an 
 assistant bishop has been appointed. 
 
 Each diocess has its affairs directed by 
 an Annual Convention, composed of the 
 diocesan clergy and one or more lay dele- 
 gates ft-om each parish, elected by the peo- 
 ple, or appointed by the wardens and ves- 
 try ; the clergy and laity forming one body, 
 but voting separately whenever this is de- 
 manded, the clergy forming one house and 
 the laity another. The bishop presides, 
 should there be one ; if not, a president is 
 <;hosen in his place. A concurrent vote of 
 both orders, when voting separately, is 
 necessary before any measure or law can 
 pass. 
 
 Every three years a General Convention 
 is held ; the last always appointing the 
 place of meeting for the next after. This 
 body is composed of clerical and lay dele- 
 gates from each state or diocesan conven- 
 tion, who form the house of delegates, and of 
 the bishops, who form the house of bishops. 
 When any proposed act has passed one 
 house, it is sent to the other for its concur- 
 rence, the consent of both houses being 
 requisite to its having the force of law. 
 The Episcopal Church, throughout the 
 country, is governed by the canons of the 
 General Convention. These canons regu- 
 late the election of bishops, declare the 
 qualifications necessary for obtaining the 
 orders of deacon and priest, the studies to 
 be previously pursued, the examinations to 
 be undergone, and the age which candidates 
 must have attained before they can be ad- 
 mitted to the three grades of the ministry. 
 The age of twenty-one is required for 
 deacon's orders, twenty-four for those of 
 priest, and before a man can be ordained 
 a bishop he must have completed his thir- 
 tieth year. 
 
 Candidates for ordination do not, as in 
 the Church of England, subscribe the Thir- 
 ty-nine Articles, but simply the following 
 
 the services of a neighbouring prelate cannot be ob- 
 tained, a selt'-constiiuted committee of neighbouring 
 presbyters may give institution. 
 
 declaration : " 1 do believe the Holy Scrip- 
 tures of the Old and New Testaments to 
 be the word of God, and to contain all 
 things necessary to salvation ; and I do 
 solemnly engage to conform to the doc- 
 trines and worship of the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church in these United States." 
 These doctrines are understood to be con- 
 tained in the articles of religion printed 
 with the Book of Common Prayer, and 
 impHed in the liturgy of the Church. The 
 fall of man, the Trinity of divine persons 
 in the Godhead, the proper Deity and hu- 
 manity of the Saviour, the atonement 
 through his sufferings and death, the re- 
 generating and sanctifying influence of the 
 Holy Spirit, tlie general judgment, the 
 everlasting reward of the righteous and 
 punishment of the wicked — or, in other 
 words, what are called the doctrines of 
 the Reformation — are fully taught in these 
 formularies, and are in reality professed 
 by those who subscribe the above decla- 
 ration. 
 
 The Episcopal was the first Protestant 
 Church planted on the American Conti- 
 nent, and the reader has seen how it was 
 the favoured Church in Virginia from the 
 earliest settlement of that state until the 
 Revolution ; also, how it came to be estab- 
 lished in the colonies of Maryland, New- 
 York, and the Carolinas. But, notwith- 
 sianding all the aid which it received from 
 the civil government, its prosperity was 
 far from commensurate with its external 
 advantages. "When the Revolution com- 
 menced it had not more than eighty min^ 
 isters in the colonies north and east of 
 Maryland, and even these, with the excep- 
 tion of such as were settled in Philadel- 
 phia, New- York, Newport, Boston, and a 
 few other of the most important cities and 
 towns, were supported by the Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts ; while in the colonies south of Vir- 
 ginia, viz., the Carolinas and Georgia, all 
 the clergy taken together were but few. 
 The number in Virginia and Maryland, 
 amounting to about 150, greatly exceeded 
 that of all the other colonies. 
 
 The causes of this ill success during the 
 colonial era lay, as we have stated, in the 
 Church being dependant upon England al- 
 together for Episcopal supervision, and, in 
 a great degree, for its ministers ; in the 
 unfitness, for the colonies, of many that 
 were sent over by the Bishop of London, to 
 whose diocess the Episcopal churches in 
 America were then attached ; and the great 
 difficulties attending the raising up of a na- 
 tive clergy, and sending them to England 
 for consecration, though this had been 
 done to a very great extent in the colony 
 of Connecticut, and it was in that colony 
 that the Episcopal Church had made by 
 far the greatest advance. We have also 
 seen how disastrous were the Revolution 
 
222 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 and the changes it effected on the Episco- 
 pal Church in all the colonies, and particu- 
 larly in Virginia, and that it was many 
 years before it could rise from the pros- 
 tration in which the return of peace in 1783 
 found it. 
 
 One of the first measures attempted after 
 that event was tlie formation of an eccle- 
 siastical constitution, by a special conven- 
 tion of the clergy from several of the 
 states, held in Philadelphia in 1785, for 
 the purpose of uniting all the Episcopal 
 churches in one body. Another important 
 measure was the ordination of American 
 bishops. For this purpose, the above con- 
 vention, which was the first that was held, 
 opened a correspondence with the Arch- 
 bishops of Canterbury and York. This 
 was followed by the British Parliament 
 passing an act authorizing the English prel- 
 ates to consecrate bishops for America. 
 The Rev. Drs. White and Provoost, the 
 former of Philadelphia, and the latter of 
 New- York, were thereupon sent over to 
 England, and received ordination to the 
 Episcopal office from the hands of the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop 
 of York, the Bishops of Bath and Wells 
 and of Peterborough assisting. Upon their 
 return to America, Bishops White and Pro- 
 voost entered upon the discharge of their 
 Episcopal duties in their respective dio- 
 cesses. 
 
 A short time before the consecration of 
 Bishops White and Provoost, the Rev. 
 Samuel Seabury, D.D., had gone over to 
 England for consecration to the Episcopal 
 office. But having abandoned all hope of 
 success from that quarter, he went to Scot- 
 land, and was consecrated by three of the 
 non-juring bishops of that kingdom. Upon 
 his return he became Bishoj) of Connecti- 
 cut. In the Convention of 1789, it being 
 proposed to ordain another bishop, that 
 body requested Bishops White and Pro- 
 voost to unite with Bishop Seabury in per- 
 forming that act, the presence of three 
 bishops being necessary. But Bishop 
 White having some doubts whether it was 
 consistent with the faith understood to 
 have been pledged to the English bishops, 
 not to proceed to an act of consecration 
 without having first obtained from them 
 the number held in their church to be ca- 
 nonically necessary to such an act, tlie dif- 
 ficulty was terminated by sending the Rev. 
 James Madison, D.U., of Virginia, to Eng- 
 land, and his consecration there. At tlio 
 next triennial convention, held in the city 
 of New- York in 179-2, the four bishops, 
 Drs. White, Provoost, Madison, and Sea- 
 bury, ordained the Rev. Dr. Tliomas Jolm 
 Clagget to the lC|)iscopal ollice in the dio- 
 cess of Maryland. 
 
 About that epocli the Cluirch may be 
 said to have passed its apogee of depres- 
 sion, occasioned by the Revolution and its 
 
 effects. Its subsequent history has been 
 marked by an ever-increasing prosperity. 
 I have not the means of knowing what 
 was the precise number of its clergy in 
 1792, but I am sure that it could not have 
 exceeded 200, and its bishops were four. 
 Just forty years later, in 1832, according- 
 to the .Journal of the General Convention 
 held in New- York in October of that year, 
 the number of the bisliops had increased 
 to fifteen, and that of the clergy to 583. 
 Twelve years later still, in 1844, we find 
 the number of bishops augmented to twen- 
 ty-three, the clergy to 1176,* while the- 
 churches probably exceed 1200. 
 
 Nor has the spiritual prosperity of this 
 church been less remarkable than its ex- 
 ternal. It possesses a degree of life and 
 energy throughout all its extent, and an 
 amount of vital piety in its ministers and 
 members, such as it never had in its colo- 
 nial days. It is blessed with precious re- 
 vivals, and flourishes like a tree planted 
 by the rivers of water. And in no por- 
 tions of the country does it possess more 
 spiritual health than in the States of Vir- 
 ginia and Maryland, where, in the ante- 
 revolutionary era, it was in a deplorable 
 state as regards piety, both in its ministry 
 and its laity. Happier days have dawned, 
 upon it in those states, and, indeed, every- 
 where else. Even while writing this chap- 
 ter, I have received a letter from an excel- 
 lent young Episcopal minister settled in a 
 country parish in the centre of Virginia,, 
 who informs me that the last winter and 
 spring were seasons of remarkable bless- 
 ing to the Episcopal Church in that state. 
 He states that about 100 persons have 
 been added to the church at Norfolk ; near- 
 ly as many to that of Petersburg ; while 
 at Richmond,! so interesting was the state 
 of things, that the rectors of the churches 
 there (three or four in number) did not 
 feel it to be their duty to leave their flocks- 
 in order to attend the Convention of the 
 Diocess which had just taken place. 
 
 I have already spoken of the societies 
 which have sprung up in the Episcopal 
 Church for the promotion of domestic mis- 
 sions, Sunday-schools, the education of 
 poor and pious young men for the minis- 
 try, and the publication of religious tracts 
 and books. 
 
 I have also taken some notice of the 
 theological schools or seminaries connect- 
 ed with it, viz., one at New- York, another 
 in Fairfax county, Virginia, a few miles 
 from Alexandria, in the District of Colum- 
 bia, and a third at Gambler, Ohio, in con- 
 nexion with Kenyon College. These insti- 
 tutions have already sent forth a large 
 
 * Sworils's Pocket Almanac for 1844. The pres- 
 ent nnmber of bishops in the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church HI America is twenty-three, including the 
 bishop elect of New-Hampshire. 
 
 t These three are the largest cities in the state. 
 
Chap. III.1 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES. 
 
 223 
 
 number of young men into the ministry, 
 and some 140 or 150 are at this moment 
 pm'suing their theological studies at them, 
 under the instruction of able professors. 
 
 The clergy of the Episcopal Church in 
 America, like those of the Established 
 Church in England, are divided into two 
 classes, one called " high church" and the 
 other " low." Sometimes these parties 
 are called " evangelical" and " non-evan- 
 gelical," but not with accuracy, for not a 
 few of the high-churchmen, that is, men 
 charged with carrying their preference for 
 Episcopacy to an extravagant length, are 
 entirely evangelical in their doctrines and 
 preaching. But a part of these high- 
 churchmen are not considered evangelical 
 — not so much because of what they do 
 preach, as because of what they do not 
 preach. Their sermons are of too nega- 
 tive a character; an efficacy unknown to 
 the Scriptures is ascribed to ceremonies 
 and forms ; neither are the sinner's sin 
 and danger as fully and earnestly set forth 
 as they should be, nor is the glorious suffi- 
 ciency of Christ unfolded, and salvation 
 by faith alone fully and clearly presented. 
 Their preaching, consequently, does not 
 reach the hearts of their hearers as does 
 that of their evangelical brethren, nor does 
 it lead the members of their churches to 
 renounce the " world, its pomps and its 
 vanities," to as great an extent as thej' 
 should do. Yet they are not to be classed 
 with the fox-hunting, theatre-going, ball- 
 frequenting, and card-playing clergy of 
 some other countries. They are an infi- 
 nitely better class of men and ministers. 
 
 I know not the comparative numbers of 
 the evangelical and non-evangelical cler- 
 gy, but infer, from the statements of the 
 Rev. Dr. Tyng,* in his speech in London 
 before the Church Missionary Society, in 
 May, 1842, that they are in the proportion 
 of about two thirds of the former to one 
 third of the latter. Of the twenty-three 
 bishops, fourteen or fifteen are considered, 
 I believe, entirely evangelical, while seven 
 or eight cannot properly be placed in that 
 category. But all are laboriously occu- 
 pied in their official work ; and I believe it 
 would be difficult to find an Episcopal body 
 of equal number, in any other country, sur- 
 passing them in talents, zeal, and piety. 
 To be a bishop with us is quite a different 
 thing from holding that office where bish- 
 ops live in palaces and have princely rev- 
 enues. Our bishops are frequently parish 
 priests also, and can find time to visit their 
 diocesses only by employing an assistant 
 preacher, or rector, to fill their places 
 when they are engaged in their visitations. 
 Their revenues do not much exceed, in 
 some instances do not equal, those of 
 many of their clergy. 
 
 * Dr. Tyng is one of the most distinguished of the 
 Episcopal ministers in the United States. 
 
 As for the Puseyite or Tractarian doc- 
 trines, or whatever they may be called, 
 three, or perhaps four, of the high-church 
 bishops are supposed to have embraced 
 them, or at least to be favourable to them, 
 as understood in America. But there is 
 not one who adopts the notions recently put 
 forth by the " British Critic," the advocate 
 of this party in England, and but one who 
 has ever declined the name of Protestant. 
 Among the .inferior clergy it has been 
 feared that these sentiments have made 
 considerable progress ; but those whose sit- 
 uation enables them to judge with a good 
 deal of accuracy, say that it is much less 
 than has been supposed. Among the laity 
 there is scarcely any sympathy with these 
 semi-popish doctrines, and \ cannot be- 
 Ueve that they will make much way in the 
 country at large. 
 
 The prospects of the Episcopal Church 
 in the United States are certainly very en- 
 couraging. The friend of a learned and 
 able ministry, to form which she has found- 
 ed colleges and theological institutions,* 
 she sees among her clergy not a few men 
 of the highest distinction for talents, for 
 learning, for eloquence, and for piety and 
 zeal. A large number of the most respect- 
 able people in all parts of the countr}'- are 
 among her friends and her members, es- 
 pecially in the cities and large towns. 
 Under such circumstances, if she be true 
 to herself and her proper interests, with 
 God's blessing she cannot but continue ta 
 prosper and extend her borders. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES. 
 
 The faith of the Congregational church- 
 es of America is common to the evangeli- 
 cal churches of both hemispheres, but their 
 organization and discipline are, to a con- 
 siderable extent, peculiar to themselves. 
 A large and most respectable body of dis- 
 senters in Great Britain, formerly known 
 as Independents, have of late preferred the 
 name of Congregational, but the diff'erences 
 between American Congregationalism and 
 that which bears the same nam* in Eng- 
 land are, in some respects, highly impor- 
 tant. Some of these differences, as well 
 as the points of agreement, will appear in 
 the statements which follow. 
 
 New-England is the principal seat of the 
 Congregational churches in America. This 
 is the region which the Puritans planted 
 in the first half of the seventeentii centu- 
 ry ; and here they have left upon the struc- 
 
 ♦ The founding of the Theological Seminary of this 
 Church, at the city of New-York, was greatly pro- 
 moted by the princely gift of 60,000 dollars (above 
 £12,000) by a Mr. Jacob Sherred. Such beneficence 
 deserves to be most gratefully commemorated. 
 
224 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 ture and institutions of society, and upon 
 the opinions and manners of the people, 
 the deepest impression of their peculiar 
 character. In all these states, with the 
 exception of Khode Island, the Congrega- 
 tionalists are more numerous than any 
 other sect, and in Massachusetts and Con- 
 necticut they are probably more numerous 
 than all others united. 
 
 Out of New-England the Congregation- 
 alists have never been zealous to propa- 
 gate their own peculiar forms and institu- 
 tions. Of the vast multitudes of emigrants 
 from New-England into other states, the 
 great majority have chosen to unite with 
 churches of the Presbyterian connexion 
 rather than to maintain their own peculi- 
 arities at the expense of increased division 
 in the household of faith. In so doing, 
 they have followed the advice and fallen 
 in with the arrangements of the associated 
 bodies of Congregational pastors in New- 
 p]ngland. Yet in the vStates of New- York, 
 Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and the Territories 
 of Wisconsin and Iowa, many congrega- 
 tions retain the forms of administration 
 which have descended to them fi'om the 
 New-England fathers, and refuse to come 
 into connexion with any of the Presbyte- 
 rian judicatories Since the recent division 
 in the Presbyterian Church, the number of 
 such congregations is increasing. 
 
 The whole number of Congregational 
 churches in the Ihiited States is probably 
 not far from 1500, of which more than 1000 
 are in New-England. The number of min- 
 isters is about 1350, and the members or 
 communicants may be stated at 180.000. 
 This estimate does not include those 
 churches originally or nominally Congre- 
 gational, which have rejected what are 
 called the doctrines of the Reformation. 
 These churches are better known by their 
 distinctive title. Unitarian. The churches 
 of this description are nearly all in Massa- 
 chu.setts ; a few are in Maine, two or three 
 in New-Hampshire, one or more in Ver- 
 mont, as many in Khode Island, and one, 
 in a state of suspended animation, in Con- 
 necticut. Out of New-England there are 
 perhaps from six to ten churches of the 
 same kind, difJering very little in their 
 principles, or in their forms, from the Uni- 
 tarians of England. 
 
 The " Pilgrims," as they are called — the 
 little hand of exiles who, having fled from 
 Enghmd into Holland, afterward, in 1620, 
 migrated from Holland to America, and 
 formed at Plymouth the first settlement in 
 New-I'higlaiid — were separatists from the 
 Church of Enghuul,* and for the crime of 
 attempting to set up religious institutions 
 not established by law, they were com- 
 
 ♦ In what sense they were Separatists the reader 
 will have perceived from what was said in chapter 
 iv. of l)ook ii. He will also perceive in what sense 
 they were not Separatists. 
 
 pelled to flee from their native country, 
 embarking by stealth and at night as fugi- 
 tives from justice, as we have related in 
 detail elsewhere.* But those bodies of 
 emigrants, far more numerous and far bet- 
 ter prepared and furnished, which, from 
 I6i.'8 onward, planted Salem and Boston, 
 Hartford, and New-Haven — the emigra- 
 ting Puritans, who were the actual found- 
 ers of New-England, and whose character 
 gave direction to its destiny — were men 
 who considered themselves as belonging 
 to the Church of England till their emi- 
 gration into the American wilderness dis- 
 solved the tie. They were Puritans in 
 England, it is true, but the Puritans were 
 a party within the Church contending for 
 a purer and more thorough renovation, and 
 not a dissenting body, with institutions of 
 their own, out of the Church. The minis- 
 ters who accompanied the Puritan emi- 
 grants, or, rather, who led them into the 
 wilderness, and who were the first pastors 
 of the churches in New-England, were, be- 
 fore their emigration, almost without ex- 
 ception, ministers of the Church of Eng- 
 land, educated at the universities, episco- 
 pally ordained, regularly inducted into liv- 
 ings ; Nonconformists, it is true, as refu- 
 sing to wear the white surplice, to baptize 
 with the sign of the cross, or to use other 
 ceremonies which seemed to them super- 
 stitious, but yet exercising their ministry 
 as well as they could under many disabili- 
 ties and annoyances. Cotton and Wilson, 
 of Boston, Hooker and Stone, of Hartford, 
 Davenport and Hooke, of New-Haven — 
 not to extend the catalogue — were all ben- 
 ficed clergymen before their emigration. 
 These men having emigrated to what were 
 then called " the ends of the earth," and 
 supposing that their expatriation had made 
 them free from that ecclesiastical bondage 
 to which they had been " subjected unwill- 
 ingly," set themselves to study, with their 
 Bibles in their hands, the Scriptural model 
 of church order and discipline, and to form 
 their churches after the pattern thus dis- 
 covered. The result was Congregational- 
 ism — a system which diflfered as much 
 from Brownism on the one hand, as it did 
 from Presbyterianism on the other, i^fter 
 the Puritans in America had set up their 
 church order, the Puritans in England, 
 having become a majority in Parliament, 
 attempted to reduce the Established Church 
 of that nation to the Presbyterian form ; 
 and it was not till a still later period that 
 Congregationalism, or, as it was more gen- 
 erally called there, Independency, began 
 to make a figure under the favour of 
 Cromwell. 
 
 Thus it appears that Congregationalism 
 in America, instead of being an offset from 
 that in England, is the parent stock. No 
 
 * See book ii., chap, i 
 
•Chap. Ill] 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES. 
 
 S25 
 
 Congregational church in England, it is 
 believed, dates its existence so far back as 
 the Act of Uniformity in 1662 ; but many 
 of the New- England churches have records 
 of more than 200 years. 
 
 It may also be remarked that American 
 Congregationalists are not " dissenters," 
 and never were. In New-England the 
 Congregational churches were for a long 
 time the ecclesiastical establishment of the 
 country, as much as the Presbyterian 
 Church is now in Scotland. The whole 
 economy of the civil state was arranged 
 with reference to the welfare of these 
 churches ; for the state existed, and the 
 country had been redeemed from the wil- 
 derness, for this very purpose. At first no 
 dissenting assembly, not even if adopting 
 the ritual and order of the Church of Eng- 
 land, was tolerated. Afterward dissenters 
 of various names were permitted to wor- 
 ship as they pleased, and were not only 
 released from the obligation to contribute 
 towards the support of the established re- 
 ligion, but so incorporated by law that each 
 congregation was empowered to tax its 
 own members for the support of its own 
 religious ministrations. But still, till the 
 principle was adopted that the support of 
 religion is not among the duties of civil 
 government, the Congregationalists main- 
 tained this precedence — that every man 
 who did not prefer to contribute to the sup- 
 port of public worship in some other form, 
 was liable to be taxed as a Congregation- 
 alist. Thus, though some of the members 
 ofone denomination in New-England some- 
 times affect to speak of the Congregation- 
 alists around them as " dissenters," those 
 who do so only expose themselves to ridi- 
 cule. Every man sees that if there is such 
 a thing as " dissent" in New-England, the 
 Episcopalians, with the Baptists and the 
 Methodists, and all the other sects who 
 have at different times separated them- 
 selves from the ecclesiastical order origi- 
 nally established on the soil, and still flour- 
 ishing there, are the dissenters. 
 
 The Congregationalists differ from most 
 other communions, in that they have no 
 common authoritative standards of Faith 
 and Order, other than the Holy Scriptures. 
 Yet their system is well known among 
 themselves, and from the beginning they 
 have spared no reasonable pains to make it 
 known to others. John Cotton, the first 
 teacher of the first church in Boston, was 
 the author of a book on " the Keys of tlie 
 Kingdom of Heaven," published as early 
 as 1644, which, in its time, was highly es- 
 teemed, not only as a controversial defence 
 of Congregationalism, but also as a practi- 
 cal exposition of its principles. John 
 Norton, too, teacher of the church in Ips- 
 wich, and afterward settled in Boston, 
 gave to the Reformed churches of Europe 
 -in 1646 a full account of the ecclesiastical 
 
 order of New-England, in a Latin epistle 
 to Apollonius, a Dutch minister, who, in 
 the name of the divines of Zealand, had 
 written to America for information on that 
 subject. In 1648, a synod of pastors and 
 churches, called together at Cambridge (a 
 town near Boston) by the invitation of the 
 civil authorities of Massachusetts, drew 
 up a scheme of church discipline, which, 
 from the place at which the synod met, 
 was called the " Cambridge Platform." 
 This platform, however, though highly ap- 
 proved at the time, and still quoted with 
 great deference, was never an authorita- 
 tive rule ; and at this day some of its prin- 
 ciples have become entirely obsolete. In 
 1708, a synod, or council, representing the 
 pastors and churches of Connecticut, was 
 assembled at Saybrook by the invitation of 
 the Legislature of that colony. By this 
 Connecticut synod a system was formed, 
 differing in some respects from the Cam- 
 bridge Platform, and designed to supply 
 what was deemed the deficiencies of that 
 older system. The Saybrook Platform 
 was adopted by the churches of Connecti- 
 cut, and was for many years in that colony 
 a sort of standard recognised by law. Its 
 application was gradually modified, and its 
 stringency relaxed or increased by various 
 local rules and usages, and by successive 
 acts of the Legislature ; and at the present 
 time this Platform alone is a very inade- 
 quate account of the ecclesiastical order 
 of Connecticut. 
 
 The following outline, it is believed, will 
 give the reader some idea of the system of 
 New-England Congregationalism as it is at 
 this day. 
 
 1. The Congregational system recog- 
 nises no church as an organized body poli- 
 tic, other than a congregation of believers 
 statedly assembling for worship and reli- 
 gious communion. It falls back upon the 
 original meaning of the Gi'eek word kmi'kjjaia, 
 and of the Latin ccetus. 
 
 Popery claims that all Christians consti- 
 tute one visible, organized body, having its 
 oflUcers, its centre, and its head on earth. 
 The first reformers seem to have supposed 
 that each national church has its own in- 
 dependent existence, and is to be consid- 
 ered as otie organic body, which has some- 
 where within itself, in the clergy, or in the 
 people, or in the civil government of the 
 nation, a power to regulate and govern all 
 the parts. Congregationalism rejects both 
 tlie universal church of the Papists, and the 
 national churches which the Reformation 
 established in England, in Scotland, in cer- 
 tain States of Germany and Switzerland, 
 and attempted to establish in France. 
 
 Hence the name Congregational. Each 
 congregation of believers is a church ; and 
 exists not as a subordinate part, or as 
 under the sovereignty of a national church, 
 nor as a part, or under the sovereignty of 
 
226 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VL 
 
 an organized universal church, but sub- 
 stantively and independently. 
 
 Other religious communions in America 
 are organized under the form of national 
 churches, and are named accordingly. Thus 
 we have " the Presbyterian Church in the 
 United States,'- " the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in the United States," " the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church in the United States ;" 
 but no intelligent person ever speaks of 
 the Congregational Church in the United 
 States, or of the American Congregational 
 Church. Congregationalists always speak 
 of the churches of America, or of New-Eng- 
 land, or of Massachusetts, except when, in 
 courtesy to other denominations, they use 
 their forms of speech in speaking of them 
 and of their affairs. In like manner, the 
 Apostles speak of the churches of Mace- 
 donia, Galatia, or Judea, but never of 
 Church national or Church provincial. 
 
 2. A church exists by the consent, ex- 
 pressed or implied, of its members to walk 
 together in obedience to the principles of 
 the Gospel, and the institutions of Christ. 
 In otlier words, a church does not derive 
 its existence and rights from some char- 
 ter conceded to it by another church, or 
 by some higher ecclesiastical judicatory. 
 When any competent number of believers 
 meet together in the name of Christ, and 
 agree, cither expressly or by some impli- 
 cation, to commune together statedly in 
 Christian worship, and in the observance 
 of Christ's ordinances, and to perform to- 
 wards each other the mutual duties of such 
 Christian fellowship, Christ himself is pres- 
 ent with them (Matt., xviii., 20), and they 
 receive from Him all the powers and priv- 
 ileges which belong to a church of Christ. 
 
 At the orderly formation of a church, the 
 neighbouring churches are ordinarily invi- 
 ted to be present by their pastors and del- 
 egates, as witnesses of the Faith and Order 
 of those engaged in the transaction, and 
 that tliey may extend the " right hand of 
 fellowship," recognising the new church as 
 one of the sisterhood of churches. The 
 neglect of this, though it might be deemed 
 a breacli of courtesy and order, would not, 
 of itself, so vitiate the proc(!edings as to 
 prevent the new church from being recog- 
 nised ultimately by the churches of the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 3. 'J'lie officers of a church are of two 
 sorts — elders and deacons. When the Con- 
 gregational churches of New-England were 
 first organized, two centuries ago, the plan 
 was that each church should have two or 
 more elders — one a pastor — another chnr- 
 ged with similar duties under the title of a 
 teacher — the third ordained to his office 
 like the other two, a ruling elder, who, 
 with his colleagues, presided over the dis- 
 cipline and order of the church, but took 
 no part in the official authoritative preach- 
 ing of tlie word, or in the administration 
 
 of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Thus 
 it was intended that eac_h church should 
 have within itself a presbytery, or clerical 
 body, perpetuating itself by the ordination 
 of those who .should be elected to fill suc- 
 cessive vacancies. This plan, however, 
 soon fell into disuse ; and now, except in 
 the rare cases of colleagues in office, all 
 the powers and duties of the eldership de- 
 volve upon one whose ordinary official title 
 is pastor. The office of deacons, of whom 
 there are from two to six in each church, 
 is to serve at the Lord's Table, and to re- 
 ceive, keep, and apply the contributions 
 which the church makes at each commu- 
 nion for the expenses of the Table, and for 
 the poor among its own members. Ori- 
 ginally, the deacons, as in the primitive 
 churches, received on each Lord's Day the 
 contributions of the whole congregation, 
 which were applied by them for the sup- 
 port of the ministers, and for all other ec- 
 clesiastical uses. But at an early period 
 other arrangements were adopted, as more 
 convenient. 
 
 4. Admission to membership in the 
 church takes place as follows. The per- 
 son desiring to unite himself with the 
 church makes known his wishes to the 
 pastor. The pastor (or in some churches 
 the pastor and deacons, or in others, the 
 pastor and a committee appointed for the 
 purpose), having conversed with the can- 
 didate, and having obtained by conversa- 
 tion and inquiry satisfactory evidence of 
 his having th;it spiritual renovation — that 
 inward living piety which is considered 
 as the condition of membership, he is pub- 
 licly proposed in the congregation, on the 
 Lord's Day, as a candidate, so that if there 
 be any objection in any quarter, it may be 
 seasonably made known. One, two, three, 
 or four weeks afterward, according to the 
 particular rule or usage of the church, a 
 vote of the " brotherhood" (or male mem- 
 bers) is taken on thequestion, " Shall this 
 person be admitted to membership in the 
 church V After this, the candidate ap- 
 pears before the congregation, and gives 
 his assent to a formal profession of the 
 Christian faith read to him by the pastor, 
 and to a form of covenant, by which he en- 
 gages to give himself up to God as a child 
 and servant, and to Christ as a redeemed 
 sinner, and binds himself to tlie church 
 conscientiously to perform all the duties 
 of Christian communion and brotherhood. 
 
 5. The censures of the church are pro- 
 nounced by the pastor in accordance with a 
 previous vote or determination of the broth- 
 erhood. The directions given by Cliristin 
 regard to the treatment of an offending 
 brother (Matt., xviii., 15-17) are, in most 
 churches, literally and directly adhered to 
 in all cases. First, one brother alone con- 
 fers with the brother offending or supposed 
 to offend, and this is tlie first admonition. 
 
Chap. Ill ] 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES. 
 
 Then, if satisfaction has not been obtained, 
 the same brother takes with him one or 
 two others, and the effort is repeated : this 
 is the second admonition. If tliis effort is 
 ineffectual, the whole case is reported to 
 the church, i. e., the brotherhood ; and if 
 the church do not obtain satisfaction, in 
 other words, if they find him guilty of the 
 offence alleged against him, and do not find 
 him at the same time penitent and ready 
 to confess his fault, they, as a body, ad- 
 monish him, and wait for his repentance. 
 If he refuses to hear the church, that is, if 
 the admonition, after due forbearance, is 
 unsuccessful, the brethren by a vote ex- 
 clude hun from their fellowship, and the 
 pastor, as Christ's minister, pronounces a 
 public sentence of excommunication. 
 
 In some churches a public and notorious 
 scandal is sometimes taken up by the church 
 as a body, without waiting for the first and 
 second admonition in private. Yet, in such 
 cases, the church commonly acts by a com- 
 mittee, who follow the method just descri- 
 bed ; first one, and next two or more confer 
 with the offender privately, and then they 
 report to the church what they have done, 
 and with what success. 
 
 Some churches have a " standing com- 
 mittee," who, with the pastor, prepare all 
 business of this nature for the action of the 
 church. Every complaint or accusation 
 against a brother is brought first to this 
 committee, and an attempt is made by them 
 to adjust the difficulty, and to remove the 
 offence without bringing the matter to the 
 church. If that attempt is unsuccessful, the 
 committee, having investigated the case, 
 having heard the parties and the witnesses, 
 report to the church the facts of the case, 
 with their own opinion as to what ought to 
 be done. The committee are never invest- 
 ed with the power of infiicting any church 
 censures. 
 
 6. The arrangements among the Congre- 
 gationalists of New-England for the sup- 
 port of public worship are in some points 
 peculiar. The church, of which we have 
 thus far spoken exclusively, is entirely a 
 spiritual association. But it exists in an 
 amicable connexion with a civil corpora- 
 tion called the parish, or the ecclesiastical 
 society, which includes the congregation at 
 large, or, more accurately, those adult mem- 
 bers of the congregation who consent to be 
 a civil society for the support of public wor- 
 ship. This civil corporation is the propri- 
 etor of the house of worship, of the par- 
 sonage,* if there be one, and somelimes of 
 other endowments, consisting of gifts and 
 legacies which have from time to time been 
 made for the uses for which the society ex- 
 ists. It can raise funds either by volunta- 
 ry subscription, or by the sale or rent of the 
 pews in its house of worship, or by assess- 
 
 * Or manse, as it is more commonly called in 
 Scotlaad. 
 
 227 
 
 ing a tax upon the estates of its members, 
 in which last case the funds raised can be 
 applied only to the current expenses of the 
 society. It enters into a civil contract with 
 the pastor, and becomes bound in law to 
 render him for his services such compensa- 
 tion as is agreed on between him and them. 
 A stranger may not easily understand 
 the difference between the church and the 
 society, and the relations of each to the 
 other, witliout some farther explanation. 
 The church, then, is designed to be a pure- 
 ly spiritual body. The society is a secu- 
 lar body. The church consists only of 
 such as profess to have some experience 
 of spiritual religion. The society consists 
 of all who are willing to unite in the sup- 
 port of public worship — it being understood 
 only, that no person can thrust himself 
 into its ranks, and obtain a voice in the ad- 
 ministration of its affairs, without the ex- 
 press or implied consent of those who are 
 already members. The church watches 
 over the deportment of its members, they 
 being all bound to help each other in the 
 duties of the Christian life ; and on proper 
 occasions it censures or absolves from cen- 
 sure those under its care. The society has 
 nothing to do with church censures. To 
 the church belong the ordinances of Bap- 
 tism and the Lord's Supper. The society 
 has no concern with the administration of 
 either ordinance. The church has no prop- 
 erty except its records, and its sacrament- 
 al vessels, and the eleemosynary contri- 
 butions received and dispensed by its dea- 
 cons. The society is a body incorporated 
 by law for the purpose of holding- and man- 
 aging any property necessary for the sup- 
 port of public worship, or designated by 
 donors for that use. The church has its 
 pastor and deacons, and sometimes its com- 
 mittees, for the management of particular 
 departments of the church business. The 
 society has its clerk, its treasurer, and its 
 prudential committee, elected every year ; 
 and the pastor of the church is also the 
 minister and religious teacher of the so- 
 ciety ; and every family of the congre- 
 gation is considered as belonging to his 
 charge. 
 
 The great advantage of this part of the 
 system is, that it gives to every member 
 of the congregation an interest in its pros- 
 perity, and a voice in the management of 
 its affairs, while at the same time it gives 
 to the church every desirable facility for 
 keeping itself pure in doctrine and in prac- 
 tice. There is nothing to secularize the 
 church ; no temptation to admit irreligious 
 or unconverted men as members for the 
 sake of causing them to take an interest 
 in the support of public worship; and no 
 temptation inducing such men to seek ad- 
 mission to the church. The pastor and 
 the place of worship are as much theirs as 
 if they were communicants. 
 
228 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 The pastor, it has been already remark- 
 ed, is not only the president or bishop of 
 the church, but also the religious teacher 
 and minister of the society. Of course he 
 is elected by a concurrent vote of the two 
 bodies. In this the church generally takes 
 the lead. The candidate is to some extent 
 known to the people, for he has already 
 preached to them on probation. His fitness 
 for tlie place has been the subject of col- 
 loquial discussion in families and among 
 neighbours. The church meets, under the 
 presidency of a neighbouring minister, or 
 perhaps of one of its own deacons, and 
 decides, sometimes by ballot, and some- 
 times by the lifting up of hands {x^iporovla), 
 to call him to the pastoral office, if the so- 
 ciety shall concur. The society, in like 
 manner, meet, and by a vote express their 
 agreement with the church in calling this 
 candidate to take the pastoral charge of 
 the church and society. After this the 
 society determines by vote what salary 
 shall be offered to the candidate on the 
 condition of his accepting the call, and to 
 propose any other stipulations as part of 
 the contract between the people and their 
 pastor. Committees are appointed by the 
 church and by the society to confer with 
 the pastor elect, and to report his answer ; 
 and then, if his answer is favourable, to 
 make arrangements for his public induc- 
 tion into office. Sometimes the society 
 leads in the call of a pastor, and the church 
 concurs. If either of these two bodies 
 does not concur with the other — which 
 very rarely happens — the election fails, of 
 course, and they wait till another candi- 
 date shall unite them. 
 
 7. The pastors of neighbouring churches 
 form themselves into bodies for mutual 
 advice and aid in the work of the ministry. 
 This body is called an association. It has 
 its stated meetings at the house of each 
 member in rotation. At every meeting 
 each member is called upon to report the 
 state of his own flock, and to propose any 
 question on which he may desire counsel 
 from his brethren. In these meetings 
 every question which relates to the work 
 of the ministry, or the interest of the 
 churches, is freely discussed. The asso- 
 ciations of each state meet annually by 
 their delegates in a General Association. 
 
 But the most important part of the duties 
 of the association is to examine those who 
 desire to be introduced to the work of the 
 ministry. This is on the principle that, 
 as lawyers are to determine who shall be 
 admitted to practice at the bar, and as phy- 
 sicians determine who shall be received 
 into the ranks of their profession, so min- 
 isters are the fittest judges of the qualifi- 
 cations of candiilatcs lor the ministry. 
 The candidate, therefore, who has passed 
 through the usual course of studies, liberal* 
 
 * By the word " liberal," as applied lo education, 
 
 and theological, cannot begin to preach — 
 will not be recognised by any church as a 
 candidate — till he has received from some 
 association a certificate of approbation, 
 recommending him to the churches, which 
 is his license to preach the Gospel on trial. 
 Such a certificate is not granted without 
 his having passed a close examination, 
 particularly in respect to his piety, his 
 soundness in the faith, and his acquaintance 
 with the system of Christian doctrines. 
 
 8. The fathers of the New-England 
 churches seem to have acknowledged no 
 minister of the Gospel other than the pas- 
 tor or teacher of some particular church. 
 In their zeal against a hierarchy, they found 
 no place for any minister of Christ not 
 elected by some organized assembly of 
 believers to the work of ruling and teach- 
 ing in that congregation. The evangelist 
 was thought by them to be, like the apostle, 
 only for the primitive age of Christianity. 
 Accordingly, the pastor, when dismissed 
 from his pastoral charge, was no longer a 
 minister of Christ, or competent to per- 
 form anywhere any function of the minis- 
 try. In connexion with this view, it was 
 also held that the power of ordination, as 
 well as of election to office, resides exclu- 
 sively in the church, and that if the church 
 has no elders in office, this power of ordina- 
 tion may be exercised either by a commit- 
 tee of the brethren, or by some neighbour- 
 ing elders, appointed to that function by the 
 church, and acting in its name. But these 
 views were very early superseded. The 
 distinction is now recognised between a 
 minister of the Gospel having a pastoral 
 charge, and a minister who sustains no 
 office in any church. The man ordained 
 to the pastoral office is, of course, ordained 
 to the work of the ministry ; and if cir- 
 cumstances occur which make it expedi- 
 ent for him to lay down his office of pastor, 
 he does not, of course, lay down the work 
 of the ministry to which he was set apart 
 at his ordination. Sometimes a man, 
 having no call from any church to take the 
 office of a pastor, is set apart to the work 
 of the ministry, that he may be a mission- 
 ary to the heathen, or that he may labour 
 among the destitute at home, or that he 
 may perform some other evangelical la- 
 bour for the churches at large. Such or- 
 dinations are rare, except in the case of 
 foreign missionaries, or of missionaries to 
 some new region of the country where 
 churches are not yet organized. 
 
 Ministers, therefore, whether pastors or 
 evangelists, are now ordained only by the 
 laying on of the iiands of those who are 
 before them in the ministry ; for though it 
 belongs to the church to make a pastor, it 
 belongs to ministers to make a minister. 
 
 is meant that which is obtained in making the curric- 
 ulum of a college. It is synonymous with " clas 
 sical." 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 REGULAR BAPTIST CHURCHES. 
 
 229 
 
 9. The reader has already learned that 
 the American Congregational churches 
 disavow the name Independent. From the 
 beginning they have held and practised the 
 communion of churches. Continually, and 
 by various acts of affection and intercourse, 
 they recognise each other as churches of 
 Christ, as bound to render to each other, 
 on all proper occasions, an account of their 
 doings. They receive each other's mem- 
 bers to occasional communion in ordinan- \ 
 ces. Members of one church, removing ' 
 their residence to another church, take 
 from the one a letter of dismission and 
 recommendation, and w^ithout that are not 
 received to membership in the other. The 
 principle that, in matters which concern 
 not one church alone, but all the churches 
 of the vicinity, no one church ought to act 
 alone, is continually regarded in practice. 
 The ordination or installation of a pastor, 
 and in like manner his dismission from his 
 office even by the mutual consent of him 
 and his flock, never takes place without 
 the intervention of a council of pastors and 
 delegates from neighbouring churches. 
 When any act of a church is grevious to a 
 portion of its members — when any conten- 
 tion or difficulty has arisen within a church 
 ■whicli cannot otherwise be adjusted — 
 when a member excommunicated deems 
 himself unjustly treated, a council of the 
 neighbouring churches is called to examine 
 the case, and to give advice ; and the ad- 
 vice thus given is rarely, if ever, disregard- 
 ed. If a church is deemed guilty of any 
 gross dereliction of the faith, or of Chris- 
 tian discipline, any neighbouring church 
 may expostulate with it as one brother ex- 
 postulates with another, and when expos- 
 tulation proves insufficient, a council of 
 the neighbouring churches is called to ex- 
 amine the matter ; and from the church 
 which obstinately refuses to listen to the 
 advice given by such a council, the neigh- 
 bouring churches withdraw their commu- 
 nion. 
 
 In Connecticut the communion of the 
 churches has been practised for about 130 
 years in " consociations," or voluntary 
 confederations of from six to twenty con- 
 tiguous churches, binding themselves to 
 call upon each other in all cases of diffi- 
 culty which require a council. Elsewhere 
 councils of churches, though ordinarily 
 selected from the immediate vicinity, are 
 selected at the discretion of the church by 
 which the council is convened. 
 
 Under this ecclesiastical system the 
 churches of New-England have, it is be- 
 lieved by many, enjoyed for more than two 
 centuries a more continued purity of doc- 
 trine, and fidelity of discipline, and a more 
 constant prosperity of spiritual religion, 
 than has been enjoyed by any equal body 
 of churches, for so long a time, since the 
 days of the Apostles. No religious com- 
 
 munion in America has done more for re- 
 ligion and morals among its own people, 
 more for the advancement of learning and 
 general education, or more for the diffiisiou 
 of the Gospel at home and abroad. None 
 has been more characterized by that large 
 and manly spirit which values the common 
 Christianity of all who " hold the Head," 
 more than the peculiar forms and institu- 
 tions of its own sect. 
 
 The highest ecclesiastical bodies by 
 which the Congregational churches in the 
 United States are, in a sense, united or as- 
 sociated, are, the General Associations of 
 Connecticut, Massachusetts, New-Hamp- 
 shire, and New- York ; the General Con- 
 vention of Vermont, the General Conso- 
 ciation of Rhode Island, and the General 
 Conference of Maine. These bodies meet 
 annually, and they maintain the " bond of 
 fellowship" by sending delegates to each 
 other. It must not be understood that all 
 the evangelical Congregational churches in 
 the states just named are " associated," 
 that is, connected with the inferior asso- 
 ciations, and through them with the " gen- 
 eral association," " general convention," 
 " general consociation," or " general con- 
 ference" of the state in which they are 
 situated. But the number not thus united 
 with their sister churches is not great. 
 The Congregational churches in Ohio, 
 Michigan, Illinois, and the Territories of 
 Wisconsin and Iowa are not yet sufficient- 
 ly numerous to render the organization of 
 general associations convenient, or else 
 other causes have prevented this measure 
 from being adopted. 
 
 The Congregationalists in New-England 
 have eight colleges, five theological semi- 
 naries and faculties, and about 300 stu- 
 dents in theology. In the other states 
 where they exist, they give their aid to the 
 Presbyterian literary and theological in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE REGULAR BAPTIST CHURCHES. 
 
 Next to the Episcopalians and the Con- 
 gregationalists, the Baptists are the oldest 
 of the various branches of the Christian 
 Church in the United States. And if we 
 were to include under this name all who 
 hold that immersion is the true and only 
 Scriptural mode of baptism, without refer- 
 ence to the orthodoxy of their faith, we 
 should probably find that they are also the 
 largest denomination in this country. But 
 if we separate from them a portion at 
 least of those minor bodies which, though 
 agreemg with them on that point, differ 
 from them on important, and, in some 
 cases, fundamental doctrines, we shall find 
 that they are not equal in number to the 
 Methodists. 
 
230 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VL 
 
 In their church government the Baptists 
 of all denominations are Independents, 
 that is, each church is wholly independent, 
 as respects its interior government, even 
 of those other churches with which it may- 
 be associated in ecclesiastical union. Each 
 separate church possesses and exercises 
 the right of licensing or granting permis- 
 sion to preach the Gospel, and of ordaining 
 elders or presbyters clothed with all the 
 functions of the ministerial office. This 
 is the old ground at first maintained by the 
 Independents. The Congregationalists, 
 spoken of in the last chapter, seem to be 
 Independents in theory, but in spirit and 
 practice they are very nearly Presbyteri- 
 ans, and have often been called Congrega- 
 tional Presbyterians. 
 
 Delegates from different Baptist church- 
 es hold public meetings for purposes of 
 mutual counsel and improvement, but not 
 for the general government of the whole 
 body, all right of interference in the con- 
 cerns of individual churches being dis- 
 claimed by these ecclesiastical assemblies. 
 A very large majority of our evangehcal 
 Baptist churches are associated by their 
 pastors in District Associations and State 
 Conventions, which meet every year for 
 promoting missions, education, and other 
 benevolent objects. A general convention, 
 called the Baptist General Convention of 
 the United States, meets likewise every 
 three years, the last always appointing the 
 place of meeting for the next after. The 
 General Convention is restricted by its 
 constitution to the promotion of foreign 
 missions. It held its first meeting in 1814. 
 But within the last ten years a Home Mis- 
 sionary Society, a General Tract Society, 
 a Bible Society, and several societies for 
 the education of poor and pious youths 
 having talents adapted for the ministry, 
 have sprung up in the Baptist body, and 
 already exert a wide and happy influence. 
 
 The Baptists, like the Congregational- 
 ists, make it a fundamental principle to 
 adopt the Bible as their only confession of 
 faitii. Yet most, if not all, of the evan- 
 gelical churches that bear the name, find 
 it convenient in practice to have a creed 
 or summary of doctrine, and these creeds, 
 although lliey may vary in expression, all 
 agree in the main, and, with few excep- 
 tions, among the Regular and Associated 
 Baptists are decidedly Calvinistic. 
 
 A few years ago, the Baptist Convention 
 of tlie State of New-Hampshire adopted a 
 Declaraiion of Faith, consisting of sixteen 
 articles, and a form of church covenant, 
 which they reconunended to the Baptist 
 churches of that state, and which are sup- 
 posed to express, with little variation, the 
 general sentiments of the whole body of 
 orthodox Baptists in the United States. 
 The subjects of these artich^s arc : The 
 Scriptures ; the true God ; the fall of man ; 
 
 the way of salvation ; justification ; the 
 freeness of salvation ; grace in regenera- 
 tion ; God's purpose of grace ; perseve- 
 rance of saints ; harmony of the law and 
 Gospel ; a Gospel church ; Baptism and 
 the Lord's Supper ; the Christian Sabbath ; 
 civil government ; the righteous and the 
 wicked ; the world to come. 
 
 On all these subjects, excepting Baptism, 
 these articles express the doctrines held 
 by the Calvinistic churches of all denomi- 
 nations. The Bible is pronounced to have 
 been " written by men divinely inspired" — 
 " has God for its Author, salvation for its 
 end, and truth, without any mixture of er- 
 ror, for its matter" — '• is the true centre of 
 Christian union, and the supreme standard 
 by which all human conduct, creeds, and 
 opinions should be tried." The " true God," 
 it is aflHrmed, is "revealed under the per- 
 sonal and relative distinctions of the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; equal in 
 every divine perfection, and executing dis- 
 tinct and harmonious offices in the great 
 work of redemption." " The solvation of 
 sinners" is taught to be " whouy of grace, 
 through the mediatorial offices of the Son 
 of God, who took upon Him our nature, 
 yet without sin ; honoured the law by his 
 personal obedience, and made atonement 
 for our sins by his death ; being risen from 
 the dead, he is now enthroned in heaven ; 
 and uniting in his wonderful person the 
 tenderest sympathies with divine perfec- 
 tions, is every way qualified to be a suit- 
 able, a compassionate, and an all-sufficient 
 Saviour." " Justification," it is affirmed, 
 " consists in the pardon of sin and the 
 promise of eternal life," and "is bestowed 
 not in consideration of any works of righ- 
 teousness which we have done, but solely 
 of His (Christ's) own redemption and righ- 
 teousness." 
 
 On the FREENESS OF SALVATION it is taught 
 " that the blessings of salvation are made 
 free to all by the Gospel ; that it is the im- 
 mediate duty of all to accept them by a 
 cordial and obedient faith ; and that nothing 
 prevents the salvation of the greatest sin- 
 ner on earth, except his own voluntary re- 
 fusal to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 which refusal will subject him to an ag- 
 gravated condemnation." " Regeneration 
 consists in giving a holy disposition to the 
 mind, and is effected in a manner above 
 our comprehension by the Holy Spirit, so 
 as to secure our voluntary obedience to 
 the Gospel ; and its proper evidence is 
 found in the holy fruit which we bring 
 forth to the glory of (iod." 
 
 On the subject of God's purpose of grace 
 it is stated, " That election is the gracious 
 purpose of God, according to which He 
 regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sinners" 
 — is " consistent with the free agency of 
 man" — " comprehends all the means in 
 connexion with the end" — "is a most 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 REGULAR BAPTIST CHURCHES. 
 
 231 
 
 gracious display of God's sovereign good- 
 ness" — " utterly excludes boasting, and pro- 
 motes humility, prayer, praise, trust in 
 God" — " encourages the use of means in 
 the highest degree" — " is ascertained in its 
 effects in all who believe" — " is the found- 
 ation of Christian assurance" — and that 
 " to ascertain it with regard to ourselves, 
 demands and deserves our utmost dili- 
 gence." 
 
 On the subject of the perseverance of 
 THE SAINTS, it is affirmed, " That such only 
 are real believers as endure unto the end ; 
 that their persevering attrachment to Christ 
 is the grand mark which distinguishes 
 them from superficial professors ; that a 
 special providence watches over their wel- 
 fare ; and they are kept by the power of 
 God through faith unto salvation." 
 
 According to this Confession of Faith, 
 ^' a visible Church of Christ is a congrega- 
 tion of baptized believers, associated by 
 covenant in the faith and fellowship of the 
 Gospel, observing the ordinances of Christ ; 
 governed by his laws ; and exercising the 
 gifts, rights, and privileges invested in 
 them by His Word ; that its only proper 
 officers are bishops or pastors, and dea- 
 cons, whose qualifications, claims, and du- 
 ties are defined in the Epistles of Timothy 
 and Titus." And " Christian Baptism is the 
 immersion of a believer in water, in the 
 name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost ; to show forth a solemn and beau- 
 tiful emblem of our faith in a crucified, 
 buried, and risen Saviour, with its purifying 
 .power," and " is a prerequisite to the 
 privileges of a church relation." 
 
 The " Christian Sabbath is the first day 
 of the week," and " is to be kept sacred to 
 religious purposes ;" " civil government is 
 of divine appointment, for the interests and 
 good order of society ; and that magis- 
 trates are to be prayed for, conscientiously 
 honoured and obeyed, except in things 
 opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who is the only Lord of the con- 
 science, and Prince of the kings of the 
 earth." 
 
 And finally, on the subject of the world 
 TO COME, it is taught, " That the end of this 
 world is approaching ; that at the last day 
 Christ will descend from heaven, and raise 
 the dead from the grave to final retribu- 
 tion ; that a solemn separation will then 
 take place ; that the wicked will be ad- 
 judged to endless punishment, and the 
 righteous to endless joy ; and that this 
 judgment will fix forever the final state 
 of men in heaven or hell on principles of 
 righteousness." 
 
 The covenant which follows this decla- 
 ration of faith expresses in a few brief 
 articles the determination of those who 
 enter it : " to walk -in brotherly love ;" " to 
 exercise a mutual care, as members one 
 of another, to promote the growth of the 
 
 whole body in Christian knowledge, holi- 
 ness, and comfort ;" " to uphold the public 
 worship of God, and the ordinances of his 
 house ;" " not to omit closet and family 
 religion," nor the " training up of children 
 and those under their care ;" to " walk cir- 
 cumspectly in the world," and be as the 
 " light of the world, and the salt of the 
 earth ;" and, finally, to " exhort" and " ad- 
 monish one another." 
 
 Such, in substance, is the " Declaration 
 of Faith and Covenant," adopted, as I have 
 said, by the Baptist Convention of New- 
 Hampshire a few years ago, and no doubt 
 substantially exhibiting the doctrines held 
 by the great body of the Regular and As- 
 sociated Baptists throughout the United 
 States. It will be perceived that it is mod- 
 erately Calvinistic, and, indeed, to one or 
 other shade of Calvinism all the Regular 
 Baptists in America adhere. Part of their 
 body, particularly in the Southern and 
 Southwestern States, are regarded as Cal- 
 vinists of the highest school. Their doc- 
 trinal views probably coincide with those 
 of Dr. Gill more than those of any other 
 writer. But a far greater number of their 
 ministers follow in the main the views of 
 Andrew Fuller ; views which, take them all 
 in all, form one of the best systems of the- 
 ology to be found in the English language. 
 
 The Baptist churches have increased in 
 the United States with great rapidity, par- 
 ticularly within the last fifty or sixty years. 
 For although they commenced their ex- 
 istence in the days of Roger Wilhams,* 
 formerly mentioned,! who, having chan- 
 ged his sentiments on the subject of Bap- 
 tism a few years after his arrival in Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, was the first Baptist preach- 
 er, and founded the first Baptist church in 
 America, at Providence, in 1639 ; it was 
 long before this denomination made much 
 progress beyond Rhode Island. This arose, 
 it would appear, from their being violent- 
 ly opposed in most of the other colonies, 
 both in the North and in the South. In 
 Massachusetts they were at first "fined," 
 " whipped," and " imprisoned." And though 
 they afterward obtained liberty of worship 
 there, they had but eighteen churches at 
 the commencement of the Revolutionary 
 war. In Virginia, where they also met 
 with much opposition and bitter persecu- 
 tion,J they had scarcely, at that epoch, ob- 
 tained any footing at all. In fact, with the 
 exception of Rhode Island, Pen nsylvania, 
 
 * The reader must not infer, from what is stated 
 above, that Roger WiUiams is to be considered as the 
 author or founder of the Baptist Churches in Amer- 
 ica. His influence was mainly confined to Rhode 
 Island. The greater part of the Baptist churches 
 with us owe their origm to the labours of Baptist 
 ministers who came such directly from England. 
 
 t Book, ii., chap. iv. 
 
 t It happened often in that colony that their preach- 
 ers were cast into prison for preaching the Gospel. 
 And often they were to be seen addressing from the 
 jail windows the people assembled outside I 
 
232 
 
 RELIGION IN AMEKICA. 
 
 [Book VL- 
 
 and Delaware, they almost no where en- 
 joyed perfect freedom from molestation 
 until the country had achieved its inde- 
 pendence by a struggle in which the Bap- 
 tists, to say the least, in proportion to their 
 numbers, took as prominent a part as any 
 other religious body in the land. 
 
 But slow as was their progress before the 
 Revolution, it has been much otherwise 
 since. This will be seen from the follow- 
 ing statement taken from the very com- 
 plete " View of the Baptist Interest in the 
 United States," prepared by the Rev. Ru- 
 fus Babcock, D.D., of Poughkeepsie, New- 
 York, and published in the American Quar- 
 terly Register, in the years 1840 and 1841. 
 The number of Baptist ministers, church- 
 es, and members, at five different epochs, 
 are stated there as follows : 
 
 
 Churches. 
 
 Ministers. 
 
 Members. 
 
 In 1784 . 
 
 . 471 
 
 424 
 
 35,101 
 
 1790-92 
 
 . 891 
 
 1150 
 
 65,345 
 
 1810-12 
 
 . 2164 
 
 1605 
 
 172,972 
 
 1832 . 
 
 . 5320 
 
 3618 
 
 384,920 
 
 1840 . 
 
 . 7766 
 
 5204 
 
 570,758 
 
 Dr. Babcock estimates the superannua- 
 ted ministers and others who, from vari- 
 ous causes, are not actively engaged in 
 the ministry, at about a seventh of the 
 number in the above table. Deducting 
 these, and another seventh for the licen- 
 tiates, who also are included, we shall 
 have 3717 ordained ministers actually em- 
 ployed in 1840; which is, upon an aver- 
 age, less than one minister for two church- 
 es. Including the licentiates, wlio almost 
 all preach more or less regularly, and 
 many of them in vacant churches, the 
 number of preachers for that year was 
 4460. 
 
 In the " Almanac and Baptist Register" 
 for 1844, the number of the Regular Bap- 
 tist churches in 1843 is stated to have been 
 8482, the ordained and licensed ministers 
 5650, and the communicants or members 
 637,477. It is believed, however, that had 
 the returns been complete, the last-men- 
 tioned number would have been at least 
 700,000. According to Dr. Babcock's mode 
 of estimating them, the ordained and active 
 ministers were, in that year, 4036. 
 
 Dr. Babcock makes a curious estimate 
 of tlie probable proportion of the inhabi- 
 tants in each state, supposed to be direct- 
 ly under the influence of Baptist preach- 
 ing. Without going unnecessarily into 
 his details, we find, as the result of his re- 
 searches, that in 1840 these amounted to 
 a fifth of the population in Massachusetts, 
 and to a fourth in Virginia, being the two 
 provinces in which the Baptists were most 
 persecuted ; whereas in Hliode Island, 
 which was their asylum, tlie proportion 
 rises to two fifths, or nearly a half. 
 
 In this cnuineratiou Dr. Babcock in- 
 cludes some of the smaller Baptist sects, 
 such as those of the Sic Pnnajdcs, who 
 hold as their creed the si.\ principles men- 
 
 tioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews (chap. 
 vi.,ver. 1, 2). These, in 1841, had sixteen 
 churches, ten ministers, and 2017 mem- 
 bers. But the shades of difference in doc- 
 trine are not of much consequence, so far 
 as regards the vital interests of the truth. 
 
 Above 3,500,000 of souls, being between 
 a fifth and a sixth of the entire population 
 of the United States, and embracing a re- 
 spectable share of the wealth, talent, learn- 
 ing, and influence of the country, are sup- 
 posed to be connected with the Regular 
 Baptists. A large and important part of 
 their churches lies in the Southern States, 
 and includes many slaves and slave-own- 
 ers. With the exception of the Methodists, 
 they form by far the most numerous and 
 influential body of Christians in that sec- 
 tion of the country. 
 
 A strong prejudice against learning in 
 the ministry unhappily prevailed at one 
 time in this body, particularly in the South- 
 ern States, and this we might ascribe to sev- 
 eral causes. In the religious denomination, 
 which in Virginia, and the other Southern 
 colonies, they considered their greatest en- 
 emy, learning was too often associated 
 with want of piety, and sometimes with 
 open irreligion. The effects of this preju- 
 dice have been very injurious, and are felt 
 to this day in the Baptist churches through- 
 out the Southern and Southwestern, and to 
 a considerable extent even in the Middle 
 States. But a brighter day has dawned. 
 Great efforts have been made by zealous 
 and devoted men among them to establish 
 colleges and theological seminaries, with 
 what success we have stated elsewhere. 
 I know not how many young men are pre- 
 paring for the ministry in theological and 
 other institutions, but ten years ago they 
 were estimated at 300 in New-England, 
 and about twice that number in other parts 
 of the United States. 
 
 We have already spoken of the efforts 
 of the Baptists in the Bible, Tract, Sunday- 
 school, and Home Missionary causes, and 
 shall have yet to speak of what they are 
 doing in the department of Foreign Mis- 
 sions. 
 
 We shall conclude by remarking that, 
 although not a third, perhaps, of the minis- 
 ters of this denomination of Christians 
 have been educated at colleges and theo- 
 logical seminaries, it comprehends, never- 
 theless, a body of men who, in point of 
 talent, learning, and eloquence, as well as 
 devoted piety, have no superiors in the 
 country. And even among those who can 
 make no pretensions to profound learning, 
 not a few are men of respectable general 
 attainments, and much efficiency in their 
 Master's work. 
 
 Notices will be given of the smaller Bap- 
 tist denonu'nalions in-their proi)er place, 
 and they will afterward be grouped to- 
 gfther, when we come to arrange in fam- 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 235 
 
 ilies the various religious bodies constitu- 
 ting the great " household of faith" in the 
 United States. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 In speaking of the Congregational church- 
 es, we entered into a full analysis of their 
 organization, because they comprise most 
 of the great features of all the churches 
 founded on what are called Independent 
 principles, forming the basis of the church- 
 es of several other denominations, partic- 
 ularly the Baptists. For a like reason, in 
 speaking of the Presbyterian Church, we 
 shall go into considerable detail in speak- 
 ing of its principles and church organiza- 
 tion, so as to save repetition when we 
 come to notice other churches having the 
 same principles and essentially the same 
 organization. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church is so called 
 because it is governed by presbyters, and 
 not by prelates. The name, therefore, ap- 
 plies to any church organized and govern- 
 ed on that principle. Usage, however, 
 has confined it in America to one of sev- 
 eral churches, who agree in believing that 
 the government of the Church belongs to 
 its elders or presbyters. The Dutch Re- 
 formed Church, the German Reformed, 
 the Scotch Secession churches, are as truly 
 Presbyterian as that denomination to which 
 the name is now, among us, almost exclu- 
 sively applied. 
 
 Presbyterians believe that the Apostles, 
 in organizing the Church, were accustom- 
 ed, in every city or place where a congre- 
 gation was gathered, to appoint a number 
 of officers for the instruction and spiritual 
 government of the people, and for the care 
 of the sick and poor. The former class of 
 these officers were called presbyters, the 
 latter deacons. Of these presbyters, some 
 laboured in word and doctrine, others in 
 the oversight and discipline of the flock, 
 according to their gifts, or to their desig- 
 nation when ordained. As the terms bish- 
 op and presbyter were indiscriminately 
 used to designate the spiritual instructers 
 and governors of the congregation, in eve- 
 ry church there came to be three classes 
 of officers, which are denominated the 
 bishops or pastors, or teaching presbyters, 
 the ruling presbyters, and the deacons. 
 
 The Presbyterian churches with us are 
 organized on this plan. Each congrega- 
 tion has its bishop or pastor, its ruling el- 
 ders, and its deacons, except in cases 
 where the duties of the last-mentioned 
 class are assumed by the elders. The 
 duty of the pastor is to preach the word, 
 to administer the sacraments, to superin- 
 tend the religious instruction of the young, 
 
 and to have the general oversight of his 
 flock as to their spiritual concerns. He is 
 always chosen by the people over whom 
 he is to exercise his office. It will appear, 
 however, from the following account of 
 the method pursued in the selection and 
 installation of a pastor, that the choice of 
 the people is subject to several important 
 limitations. When a congregation is va- 
 cant, the people assemble, after due no- 
 tice, to choose a pastor. This meeting 
 must be presided over by an ordained min- 
 ister invited for that purpose, who must 
 endorse the minutes of their proceedings, 
 and certify their regularity. If a majority 
 of the qualified members of the congrega- 
 tion, t. e., of those who contribute to the 
 support of the minister, agree upon a can- 
 didate, a call is made out in the following 
 terms, viz. : 
 
 " The congregation of A. B. being, ort 
 sufficient grounds, well satisfied of the 
 ministerial qualifications of you, C. D.,and 
 having hopes, from our past experience of 
 your labours, that your ministrations in the 
 Gospel will be profitable to our spiritual 
 interests, do earnestly call and desire you 
 to undertake the pastoral office in the said, 
 congregation ; promising you, in the dis- 
 cliarge of your duty, all proper supprt, en- 
 couragement, and obedience in the Lord. 
 And that you may be free from worldly 
 cares and avocation^, we hereby promise 
 and oblige ourselves to pay to you the sum 
 of in regular quarterly payments, du- 
 ring the time of your being and continuing 
 the pastor of this church. In testimony 
 whereof we have respectively subscribed 
 our names." 
 
 This call is taken to the Presbytery un- 
 der whose care the congregation is placed, 
 and the Presbytery decide whether it shall 
 be presented to the person to whom it is 
 addressed. If, in their judgment, there 
 exists any sufficient reason lor withhold- 
 ing it, it is returned to the people, who 
 must then proceed to a new election. If 
 the person called belongs to the same Pres- 
 bytery to which the congregation is at- 
 tached, or is a licentiate under their cai'e, 
 they put the call into his hands and wait 
 for his answer to it. But if he belongs to 
 a difterent Presbytery, they give the con- 
 gregation leave to prosecute it before that 
 body, who have the right to decide wheth- 
 er it shall be presented to the candidate or 
 not. 
 
 It thus appears that no man can be- 
 come the pastor of a congregation under 
 the care of a Presbytery whom they do 
 not deem to be a sound and competent 
 minister of the Gospel. And in order to 
 enable them to judge intelligently on this 
 point, before proceeding to his ordmatiou 
 they examine him " as to his acquaintance 
 with experimental religion, as to his knowl- 
 edge of philosophy, theology, ecclesiasti- 
 
£34 
 
 RELIGiON IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 cal history, the Greek and Hebrew lan- 
 guages, and such other branches of learn- 
 ing as to the Presbytery may appear requi- 
 site, and as to his knowledge of the con- 
 stitution, the rules, and discipline of the 
 church." Should the candidate be found 
 deficient in any of these particulars, it is 
 the right and duty of the Presbytery to re- 
 ject him. But if they are satisfied with 
 his ministerial qualifications, they appoint 
 a time for his ordination in the presence 
 of the people. When the time appointed 
 has arrived, and the Presbytery convened, a 
 member appointed for the purpose preach- 
 es a sermon suitable for the occasion, and 
 then proposes to the candidate the follow- 
 ing questions, viz. : 
 
 " Do you believe the Scriptures of the 
 Old and New Testaments to be the Word 
 of God, the only infallible rule of faith and 
 practice ] 
 
 " Do you sincerely receive and adopt the 
 Confession of Faith of this Church as con- 
 taining the system of doctrine taught in 
 the Holy Scriptures! 
 
 " Do you approve of the government 
 cmd discipline of the Presbyterian Church 
 in these United States ] 
 
 " Do you promise subjection to your 
 brethren in the Lord] 
 
 " Have you been induced, as far as you 
 know your own heart, to seek the office of 
 the holy ministry from love to God, and a 
 sincere desire to promote his glory in the 
 Gospel of his Son I 
 
 " Do you promise to be zealous and 
 faithful in maintaining the truths of the 
 ■Gospel, and the purity and peace of the 
 Church, whatever persecution or opposi- 
 tion may arise unto you on that account? 
 
 " Do you engage to be faithful and dili- 
 gent in the exercise of all private and per- 
 sonal duties wliich become you as a Chris- 
 tian and as a minister of the Gospel, as 
 ■well as in all relative duties, and the pub- 
 lic duties of your office ; endeavouring to 
 adorn the profession of the Gospel by your 
 conversation, and walking with exemplary 
 piety before the tlock over which God has 
 jnade you overseer 1 
 
 " Are you now willing to take the 
 •charge of this congregation, agreeably to 
 your declaration at accepting their call ? 
 And do you promise to discharge the du- 
 ties of a pastor to them as God shall give 
 you strength]" 
 
 The presiding minister Chen puts tlie 
 following questions to the congregation : 
 
 " Do you, the people of this congrega- 
 tion, continue to profess your readiness to 
 
 receive , whom you have called to 
 
 be your minister ! 
 
 " Do you promise to receive the word 
 of truth from his mouth with meekness 
 and love, and to submit to him in the due 
 -.xercise of disciphue] 
 
 " Do you promise to encourage him in 
 
 his arduous labours, and to assist his en- 
 deavours for your instruction and spiritual 
 edification] 
 
 "And do you engage to continue to 
 him, while he is your pastor, that compe- 
 tent worldly maintenance which you have 
 promised, and whatever else you may see 
 needful for the honour of religion and his 
 comfort among you]" 
 
 These questions being answered in the 
 affirmative, the Presbytery proceed to or- 
 dain the candidate with prayer and the 
 laying on of hands. 
 
 The elders are regarded as the repre- 
 sentatives of the people, and are chosen 
 by them for the discipline of the church 
 in connexion with the pastor. They must 
 be male members of the church in full 
 communion, and, when elected, are requi- 
 red to profess their faith in the Scriptures 
 as the only infallible rule of faith and 
 practice, their adoption of the Westmin- 
 ster Confession as containing the system 
 of doctrine, and their approbation of the 
 government and discipline of the Presby- 
 terian Church ; and the members of the 
 church are called upon publicly to ac- 
 knowledge and receive them as ruling 
 elders, and to promise to yield them all 
 that honour, encouragement, and obedience 
 in the Lord, to which their office, accord- 
 ing to the Word of God and the constitu- 
 tion of the church, entitles them. The 
 pastor and elders constitute what is called 
 the Session, which is the governing body 
 in each congregation. They are authorized 
 to inquire into the knowledge and Chris- 
 tian conduct of the members of the church ; 
 to admit to the sacraments those whom, 
 upon examination, they find to possess the 
 requisite knowledge and piety ; to call be- 
 fore them offenders, being members of 
 their own church ; to decide cases of dis- 
 cipline ; and to suspend or excommunicate 
 those who are judged deserving of such 
 censure. It is their duty, also, to keep a 
 register of marriages, of baptisms, of those 
 admitted to the Lord's Supper, and of the 
 death or removal of church members. 
 
 All the proceedings of the Session are 
 subject to the review of the Presbytery, 
 and may be brought before that body in 
 several different ways. The Session is 
 required to keep a record of their official 
 acts, and this record is laid before the 
 Presbytery, for examination, twice every 
 year. Should anything appear on the rec- 
 ord which, in the judgment of the Presby- 
 tery, is irregular, inexpedient, or unjust, 
 they have authority to see the matter rec- 
 tified. Or if any one feels himself ag- 
 grieved l)y a decision of the vSession, he 
 lias the right of appeal to the Presbytery, 
 where the case may be reviewed. Or if 
 any member or members of the inferior 
 court, or any one affected by their decis- 
 ion, consider their action irregular or un- 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 235 
 
 just, he or they have the right of com- 
 plaint, which subjects the whole matter to 
 a revision in the higher judicatory. 
 
 The deacons are not members of the 
 Session, and, consequently, have no part 
 in the government of the church. It is 
 their duty to take charge of the poor, to 
 receive and appropriate the moneys col- 
 lected for the support or relief of the sick 
 or needy. 
 
 A Presbyterian church, or congregation, 
 has thus a complete organization within 
 itself, but it is not an independent body. 
 It is part of an extended whole, living un- 
 der the same ecclesiastical constitution, 
 and, therefore, subject to the inspection 
 and control of the Presbytery, whose busi- 
 ness it is to see that the standards of doc- 
 trine and rules of discipline are adhered 
 to by all the separate churches under its 
 care. 
 
 This superior body, the Presbytery, con- 
 sists of all the pastors, or ordained minis- 
 ters, and one elder from each Session, 
 within certain geographical limits. There 
 must be at least three ministers to consti- 
 tute a Presbytery, but the maximum is not 
 fixed. Hence our Presbyteries vary from 
 three to sixty or eighty members. It is 
 the bond of union between the ministers 
 and churches within it limits. Among its 
 most important duties is the examination 
 a:nd ordination of candidates for the holy 
 ministry. Every such candidate is requi- 
 red to place himself under the care of that 
 Presbytery within whose bounds he ordi- 
 narily resides. He must produce ' satis- 
 factory testimonials of his good moral 
 character, and of his being in full commu- 
 nion with the church. It is made the duty 
 of the Presbytery to examine him as to 
 liis experimental knowledge of religion, 
 and as to his motives in seeking the sacred 
 office. And it is recommended that the 
 candidate be required to produce a diplo- 
 ma of the degree of bachelor or master of 
 arts, from some college or university, or 
 at least authentic testimonials of his hav- 
 ing gone through a regular course of aca- 
 demic instruction. The Presbytery itself, 
 however, is required to examine him as to 
 his knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew languages, and on the subjects 
 embraced in the usual course of study pur- 
 sued in our colleges. He must also pre- 
 sent a Latin exercise on some point in the- 
 ology ; a critical exposition of a passage 
 of Scripture, as a test of his ability to ex- 
 pound the original text ; a lecture or homi- 
 letic exposition of some portion of the 
 Word of God ; and a popular sermon. If 
 these exercises and examinations are pass- 
 ed to the satisfaction of the Presbytery, 
 the candidate is required to answer affirm- 
 atively the following questions, viz. : 
 
 " Do you believe the Scriptures of the 
 XDld and New Testaments to be the Word 
 
 of God, the only infallible rule of faith and 
 practice T 
 
 " Do you sincerely receive and adopt 
 the Confession of Faith of this Church, as 
 containing the system of doctrine taught 
 in the Holy Scriptures 1 
 
 " Do you promise to study the peace, 
 purity, and unity of the Church 1 
 
 " Do you promise to submit yourself, in 
 the Lord, to the government of this Pres- 
 bytery, or of any other Presbytery in the 
 bounds of which you may be called 1" 
 
 The Presbytery then proceed to his li- 
 censure in the following words, viz. : " In 
 the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by 
 that authority which he has given to his 
 Church for its edification, we do license 
 you to preach the Gospel wherever God, 
 in his providence, may call you, and for 
 this purpose, may the blessing of God rest 
 upon you, and the Spirit of Christ fill your 
 heart. Amen." 
 
 This licensure does not confer the min- 
 isterial office, or give authority either to 
 administer the sacraments, or to take part 
 in the government of the Church. It is 
 merely a declaration that the recipient, in 
 the judgment of the Presbytery, is qualified 
 to preach the Gospel and to become a pas- 
 tor. It is from this class of probationers 
 that the congregations select and call their 
 ministers ; and when a licentiate receives 
 a call to a particular church, he is renew- 
 edly examined on all the subjects above 
 specified before he is ordained. 
 
 It is by means of these examinations, 
 and by requiring assent to the Confession 
 of Faith, that the Presbyterian Church in 
 America has endeavoured to secure com- 
 petent learning and orthodoxy in its min- 
 istry ; and it is a historical fact, which 
 ought to be gratefully acknowledged, that 
 since the organization of the Church in 
 this country, a century and a half ago, the 
 great body of its ministers have been lib- 
 erally-educated men ; and it is also a fact 
 that no man who has avowedly rejected 
 the Calvinistic system of doctrine, has 
 been allowed to retain his standing as a 
 minister of that Church. Its history con- 
 tains not the record of even one Arminian 
 or Pelagian, much less Socinian, as an ap- 
 proved or recognised minister in its con- 
 nexion. Some few instances have occur- 
 red of the avowal of such sentiments, but 
 they have uniformly been followed by the 
 ejection from the ministry of those who 
 entertained them. And more recently, 
 the promulgation by a part of its ministers 
 of doctrines supposed to be at variance 
 with its standards, though those doctrines 
 were not considered by their advocates as 
 involving a rejection of the Calvinistic 
 system, was one of the principal causes of 
 the separation of the body into two dis- 
 tinct organizations. So also with regard 
 to learning, when a portion of the Church 
 
236 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 in the western, and then more recently-set- 
 tled parts of the country, insisted on intro- 
 ducing into the ministry men who had not 
 received a liberal education, they were re- 
 quired to separate and form a denomina- 
 tion of their own. From their peculiar 
 circumstances, such separations involve no 
 civil penalties or forfeitures. If any set of 
 men think that the interests of religion 
 can he better promoted by an imperfectly 
 educated and more numerous ministry, 
 than by a smaller body of better-educated 
 men, nothing prevents them from acting on 
 their convictions and organizing on their 
 own principles. By so doing, however, 
 they of necessity separate from a church 
 which makes a liberal education a requi- 
 site for admission into the sacred office. 
 In like manner, if any man or set of men 
 renounce the doctrines of the Westminster 
 Confession, they are at perfect liberty to 
 preach what they believe to be true, but 
 they must not expect to remain ministers 
 of a church in which that Confession is 
 the standard of doctrine. External union 
 has, indeed, been sacrificed by acting on 
 this principle, but spiritual fellowship has 
 been rather promoted than violated there- 
 by, as neither party, in such cases, have 
 excommunicated the other. And there is 
 no hardship or injustice in the course above 
 indicated, since the church is in one sense 
 a voluntary society, whose terms of min- 
 isterial communion are known to the 
 world; and those who disapprove of its doc- 
 trines need not, and in general do not, seek 
 admission to its ministry. There are other 
 denominations within whose pale they can 
 minister without objection or difficulty. 
 
 It follows, from what has been said, that 
 it is the duty of the Presbytery to exercise 
 a watch and care over its own members. 
 Every minister, at his" ordination, promises 
 subjection to his brethren in the Lord ; 
 that is, he promises to recognise the au- 
 thority of the Presbytery, and the other 
 ecclesiastical bodies, as exercised agree- 
 ably to the constitution of the Church, and 
 to submit to their decisions. He receives 
 his office from the hands of the Presbytery, 
 and it is in the power of that body, on suf- 
 ficient grounds, and after a fair trial, to 
 suspend or depose him. It is, however, 
 provided that no charge shall be received 
 against a minister of the Gospel, unless on 
 the responsibility of some competent ac- 
 cuser, or on the ground of public scandal. 
 "When a minister is accused, either of er- 
 ror in doctrine or immorality of conduct, 
 he is regularly cited to answer the charge ; 
 he is informed of the witnesses who are to 
 appear against him, and full time is allow- 
 ed for the preparation of his defence. In 
 short, all the formalities which are the 
 safeguards of justice are scrupulously re- 
 garded, so as to secure a fair trial to any 
 accused member. 
 
 The Presbytery, then, is the court of re- 
 view and control over all the Sessions of 
 the several churches within its bounds. It 
 is the supervising body, bound to see that 
 the pastors are faithful in the discharge of 
 their duty ; having also authority to exam- 
 ine, license, and ordain candidates for the 
 ministry; to instal them over the congre- 
 gations to which they may be called ; to 
 exercise discipline over its own members ; 
 and, in general, to order whatever relates 
 to the spiritual welfare of the congrega- 
 tions under its care. 
 
 With the Presbytery the organization of 
 a Presbyterian church is complete. So long 
 as the number of ministers and churches 
 is so small that they can conveniently meet 
 at the same time and place, there is no 
 need of any superior body. The formation 
 of Synods and a General Assembly be- 
 comes necessary only when the Church is 
 too large to be comprised under on« Pres- 
 bytery. It is desirable that the governing 
 body should meet at least twice annually. 
 This cannot be done when the members 
 of that body are very numerous, and scat- 
 tered over a great extent of country. To 
 remedy this inconvenience, instead of one 
 presbytery embracing all the ministers and 
 churches, several are formed, each exer- 
 cising its functions within prescribed lim- 
 its, and all meeting annually as a Synod. 
 A Synod is, therefore, nothing but a larger 
 Presbytery. Agreeably to this system, it 
 must be composed of at least three Pres- 
 byteries. All the ministers within its' 
 bounds, and one elder from each Session, 
 have a right to act as members, from 
 1705 to 1716 there was but one Presbytery. 
 The number of ministers and churches had,, 
 at the latter date, so increased that three 
 Presbyteries were formed, which contin- 
 ued to meet as a Synod until 1787, when 
 convenience suggested the division of the 
 body into four Synods, under a represent- 
 ative assembly, composed of delegates 
 from all the Presbyteries. Under the pres- 
 ent system, the Synod is a body that inter- 
 venes between the Presbytery and Gen- 
 eral Assembly. It has power to receive 
 and determine all appeals regularly brought 
 up from the Presbyteries ; to decide all 
 references made to them ; to review the 
 records of Presbyteries, and to approve or 
 censure tliem ; to redress whatever has 
 been done by the Presbyteries contrary to 
 order; to take effectual care that Pres- 
 byteries observe the constitution of the 
 Church ; to erect new presbyteries, and 
 unite or divide those which were before 
 erected ; and, generally, to take such order 
 with respect to the Presbyteries, Sessions, 
 and people under their care, as may be 
 in conformity with the Word of God and 
 the established rules, and which tend to 
 promote the edification of the Church ; 
 and, finally, to propose to the General As- 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 237 
 
 ^embiy, for its adoption, such measures as 
 may be of common advantage to the whole 
 Church. 
 
 The General Assembly is the highest ju- 
 dicatory of the Presbyterian Church, and 
 the bond of union between its several parts. 
 It is composed of an equal delegation of 
 ministers and elders from each presbytery. 
 Every presbytery sends at least one min- 
 ister and one elder ; if it consists of more 
 than twenty-four members, it sends two 
 ministers and two elders, and so on in like 
 proportion. 
 
 The Assembly has power to determine 
 all appeals and references regularly brought 
 before it from inferior judicatories ; to re- 
 view the records of the several synods ; to 
 give its advice and instructions in all cases 
 submitted to it ; and constitutes the bond 
 of union, peace, correspondezice, and mu- 
 tual confidence among all the churches un- 
 der its care. To it also belongs to decide 
 all controversies respecting doctrines and 
 discipline ; to reprove, warn, or bear tes- 
 timony against error in doctrine or immo- 
 rality in practice ; to erect new synods ; 
 to superintend the whole church; to cor- 
 respond with foreign churches ; to sup- 
 press schismatical contentions and dispu- 
 tations ; and, in general, to recommend and 
 attempt reformation of manners, and the 
 promotion of charity, truth, and holiness 
 through all the churches under its care. 
 
 So long as all the ministers of the church 
 •were united in one synod, that body had a 
 right to make rules which had the force of 
 constitutional regulations obligatory on all 
 the presbyteries. - This was reasonable and 
 safe as long as the whole church met in 
 one body, as its rules were the voluntarily 
 imposed conditions of membership. But 
 since the formation of the General Assem- 
 bly, composed not of all the ministers, but 
 of a comparatively small delegation from 
 each presbytery, this power no longer be- 
 longs to this highest judicatory. The As- 
 sembly cannot alter the constitution of the 
 church. Every proposition, involving such 
 change, nmst first be sent down to the pres- 
 byteries, and receive the sanction of a ma- 
 jority of them, before it becomes obligatory 
 on the churches. 
 
 Having given this brief exhibition of the 
 principles of church government adopted 
 by Presbyterians in the United States, it 
 is necessary to advert to their doctrinal 
 standards. The Confession of Faith and 
 the Larger and Shorter Catechisms prepa- 
 red by the Assembly of Divines at West- 
 minster were, as is well known, adopted 
 by the Church of Scotland, and the same 
 symbols have from the beginning constitu- 
 ted the creed of the Presbyterian Church 
 in this country. The formal adopting act 
 was passed by the Synod in 1729. In that 
 act we find the following language, viz.: 
 " We do agree that all the ministers of this 
 
 synod, or that shall hereafter be admitted 
 into this synod, shall declare their agree- 
 ment in, and approbation of, the Confes- 
 sion of Fatih, with the Larger and Shorter 
 Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at 
 Westminster, as being, in all necessary 
 articles, good forms of sound words and 
 systems of Christian doctrine ; and do also 
 adopt the said Confession and Catechisms 
 as the confession of our faith." On the 
 same page of the records is found the fol- 
 lowing minute, viz.: " All the members of 
 the Synod now present, except one who 
 declared himself not prepared (but who 
 at a subsequent meeting gave in his adhe- 
 sion), after proposing all the scruples that 
 any of them had to make against any of 
 the articles or expressions in the Confes- 
 sion of Faith, and Larger and Shorter Cat- 
 echisms of the Assembly of Divines at 
 Westminster, have unanimously agreed in 
 the solution of those scruples, and in de- 
 claring the said Confessions and Cate- 
 chisms to be the confession of their faith ; 
 except only some clauses in the twenti- 
 eth and twenty-third chapters, concerning 
 which the Synod do unanimously declare 
 that they do not receive those articles in any 
 such sense as to suppose the civil magis- 
 trate hath a controUing power over synods, 
 with respect to the exercise of their min- 
 isterial authority, or power to persecute 
 any for their religion, or in any sense con- 
 trary to the Protestant succession to the 
 throne of Great Britain. The Synod, ob- 
 serving unanimity, peace, and unity in all 
 their consultations and deliberations in the 
 affair of the Confession, did unanimously 
 agree in solemn prayer and praise." 
 
 It appears that some doubt arose wheth- 
 er the expression, " essential and necessa- 
 ry articles" in the above acts, was to be 
 understood of articles essential to the sys- 
 tem of doctrine contained in the Confes- 
 sion of Faith, or of articles essential to 
 Christianity. To remove this ambiguity, 
 the Synod, the following year, unanimously 
 adopted the following minute, viz. : " Where- 
 as some persons have been dissatisfied with 
 the manner of wording our last year's agree- 
 ment about the Confession, supposing some 
 expressions not sufficiently obligatory upon 
 intrants ; overtured that the Synod do now 
 declare that they understand those clauses 
 which respect the admission of intrants, in 
 such a sense as to oblige them to receive 
 and adopt the Confession and Catechisms, 
 at their admission, in the same manner 
 and as fully as the members of the Synod 
 who were then present ;" that is, they were 
 to adopt it without exception, save the 
 clauses relating to the powers of civil 
 magistrates in matters of religion. 
 
 When the General Assembly was formed 
 in 1787, the Confession of Faith and Cat- 
 echisms were revised, and those parts 
 which relate to the power of the magis- 
 
238 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 trates modified, and ever since it has with- 
 out alteration been the standard of doctrine 
 in the Presbyterian Church, and every min- 
 ister, as already stated, is required at his 
 ordination to declare that he " sincerely re- 
 ceives and adopts the Confession of Faith 
 of this Church as containing the system of 
 doctrines taught in the Holy Scriptures." 
 
 We have elsewhere stated how church 
 property is held ; how churches are erect- 
 ed ; how the salaries of ministers are raised ; 
 and how feeble churches are aided by home 
 missionary societies, boards of missions, 
 &c. 
 
 We shall now proceed to give a brief 
 sketch of the history of the Presbyterian 
 Church in the United Slates. The first 
 Presbytery, consisting of seven ministers, 
 and representing about the same number 
 of churches, was organized in Philadel- 
 phia in 1705; at present, the number of 
 ministers exceeds 2600, and that of the 
 churches more than 3500. This extraor- 
 dinary increase can only be explained by 
 a reference to the settlement of the coun- 
 try. The New-England States were set- 
 tled by English Puritans, many of whom, 
 especially those who arrived about the 
 commencement of the civil war, as well 
 as those who came after the Restoration, 
 were Presbyterians ; New- York was set- 
 tled by the Dutch, who were also Presby- 
 terians ; but these classes have retained 
 their own separate ecclesiastical organi- 
 zation, though both have contributed large- 
 ly to the increase of the Presbyterian 
 Church. The Germans, also, who settled 
 in great numbers in Pennsylvania, and in the 
 northern portions of Virginia, have in like 
 manner formed extended churches of their 
 own ; yet they also have, in many cases, 
 contributed to swell the number of Amer- 
 ican Presbyterians. The French emigrants, 
 who came to this country towards the close 
 of the seventeenth century, were almost all 
 Protestants and Presbyterians. These are 
 the collateral sources whence the Presby- 
 terian Church in America derived the ma- 
 terials of its growth. From the beginning 
 of the last century to the Declaration of 
 Independence, there was a constant cur- 
 rent of emigration of Presbyterians from 
 Scotland, and still more from the north of 
 Ireland. These emigrants settled princi- 
 pally in New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, in the 
 central portions of Virginia, and in North 
 and South Carolina. Since the commence- 
 ment of the present century, the same pro- 
 cess has been going on. The central and 
 western portions of the State of New- 
 York, forty years ago, was a wilderness ; 
 it has now a popuhition of more than 
 1,000,000 of peoi)le of European descent. 
 The Western States in the Valley of the 
 Mississippi, then in the almost exclusive 
 possession of the Indians, have now a like 
 population of more than 6,000,000. The 
 
 progress of the Presbyterian Church, there- 
 fore, although rapid, has not been out of 
 proportion to the progress of the country. 
 On the contrary, the widely-extended de- 
 nominations of the Methodists and Baptists 
 are, to a great extent, composed of per- 
 sons whose ancestors belonged to Presby- 
 terian churches. 
 
 It will easily be believed that the Pres- 
 byterian Church, in the midst of a popu- 
 lation which doubles itself every twenty- 
 four years, felt that her first and most 
 urgent duty was to supply this growing 
 population with the preaching of the Gos- 
 pel. It has been a missionary church from 
 the beginning. Its first pastors, though set- 
 tled over particular congregations, spent 
 much of their time in travelling and preach- 
 ing to the destitute ; and as soon as their 
 numbers began to increase, they adopted a 
 regular system of missions. The Synod, at 
 its annual meetings, appointed missionaries* 
 to go to the destitute portions of the coun- 
 try, and sustained them by the contribu- 
 tions of the churches. Soon after the 
 formation of the General Assembly, that 
 body appointed a standing committee of 
 missions, whose duty it was to collect in- 
 formation as to the wants of the church, ta 
 appoint missionaries, to designate their 
 field of labour, to make provisions for their 
 maintenance, and to report annually to the- 
 General Assembly. In 1816, this committee 
 was enlarged, and constituted the Board of 
 Missions, and has ever since been engaged 
 in the benevolent work of sending the Gos- 
 pel to the destitute parts of the church. 
 For some years past the number of mis- 
 sionaries sent out by this Board has ranged 
 from 200 to 300, and its income from 20,000 
 to 35,000 dollars, as has been shown in 
 another part of this work.* 
 
 As many members of the Presbyterian 
 Church prefer voluntary societies to ec- 
 clesiastical boards for conducting mission- 
 ary and other benevolent operations ; and 
 as they wished diflferent evangelical de- 
 nominations to unite in this work ; as, 
 moreover, there was an evident necessity 
 of doing more than had yet been done to 
 meet the constantly increasing demands 
 for missionary labour, they determined to 
 form a society to be called the American 
 Home Missionary Society, already spoken 
 of elsewhere. f This society has received 
 the support of full one half of the Presby- 
 terian Church, of the whole body of the 
 Congregational Churches (one of the most 
 efficient bodies in the country), and, to 
 some extent, of the Dutch Reformed 
 churches. It has, therefore, been exten- 
 sively useful. Its income has varied of 
 late years from 60,000 to 100,000 dollars, . 
 and its missionaries from 400 to more thair. 
 800. 
 
 ! * Book iv., chap, viii, t Iljid., chap. vii. 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 239> 
 
 It is in this way that the Presbyterian 
 Church has endeavoured, in some meas- 
 ure, to keep pace with the demands of the 
 country for ministerial labour. These ex- 
 ertions have not, indeed, been adequate to 
 the necessity, and yet the fact that, fifty 
 years ago, this church had less than 200 
 ministers, and now has nearer 3000 than 
 2000, shows that it has not been entirely 
 wanting in its duty. 
 
 It is obvious that this great demand for 
 ministerial labour must lead the church to 
 look anxiously around for the means of 
 obtaining an adequate supply of educated 
 men. In the first instance, the attention 
 of its members was naturally directed to 
 the mother-country. The necessities of 
 the numerous settlements were frequently 
 urged on the Presbyteries of Scotland and 
 Ireland, and on similar bodies in England. 
 From these sources a large proportion of 
 our early ministers were obtained ; indeed, 
 as far as can be ascertained, all the minis- 
 ters connected with the Presbyterian 
 Church, from 1705 to 1716, with two or 
 three exceptions, were from Great Britain 
 or Ireland. The older provinces of New- 
 England subsequently furnished many able 
 and faithful men, who aided efficiently in 
 building up the Presbyterian Church. But 
 the supply from these sources was precari- 
 ous and inadequate. From an early period, 
 therefore, measures were adopted to secure 
 the education of ministers at home. About 
 the year 1717, the Reverend William Ten- 
 nent, who had been a presbyter of the 
 Episcopal Church in Ireland, opened a 
 classical academy in Pennsylvania, which 
 was familiarly known as the " Log Col- 
 lege," where many of the most distin- 
 guished of the early native ministers re- 
 ceived their education. Similar institu- 
 tions were soon after established in various 
 other places ; and in 1738, the Synod, in 
 order to secure a properly-educated minis- 
 try, passed an act to the following effect, 
 viz : " That all the presbyteries require that 
 every candidate, before being taken on trial, 
 should be furnished with a diploma from 
 some European or New-England college ; 
 or, in case he had not enjoyed the advan- 
 tage of a college education, he should be 
 examined by a committee of the Synod, 
 who should give him a certificate of com- 
 petent scholarship when they found him to 
 merit it." 
 
 In 1739, the Synod determined to take 
 measures to establish a seminary of learn- 
 ing, under its own care ; but the circum- 
 stances of the country, and of the church 
 itself, prevented anything being done until 
 1744. In that year it was agreed, 1. That 
 there should be a school kept open, where 
 all persons who pleased may send their 
 children, and have them taught gratis, in 
 the languages^ philosophy, and divinity. 
 2. In order to carry on this design, that 
 
 every congregation under the care of the. 
 Synod be applied to for yearly contribu- 
 tions. 3. That whatever sum of money- 
 could be spared from what was necessary 
 to support a master and tutor, should be 
 devoted to the purchase of books. This 
 was the origin of what is now the college 
 at Newark, in the State of Delaware. 
 
 At this period of our history there were 
 two synods, the old Synod of Philadelphia, 
 and the Synod of New-York, which was 
 formed in 1745. The former, at this time, 
 directed their efforts to the support of the 
 Newark academy, and of the academy in 
 Philadelphia, out of which has sprung the 
 University of Pennsylvania ; the latter 
 raised and sustained the College of New- 
 Jersey, at Princeton; and after the union 
 of the two synods in 1758, the united body 
 concentrated their efforts in the support of 
 the last-mentioned institution. Though 
 the college at Princeton owes its origin to 
 the Synod of New- York, and sprang from 
 the desire of furnishing a supply of edu- 
 cated men for the ministry of the Presby- 
 terian Church, it has always been open to 
 the youth of all denominations. The num- 
 ber of its alumni is more than 2500, of 
 whom about 500 became preachers of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Since the establishment of the college at 
 Princeton, more than forty similar institu- 
 tions have been formed in different parts 
 of the country, which are more or less 
 intimately connected with the Presbyte- 
 rian Church ; that is, their trustees, offi- 
 cers, and patrons, are either exclusively 
 or principally Presbyterians.* 
 
 For a long time, however, after tlie or- 
 ganization of the Presbyterian Church,, 
 there was no public provision for the the- 
 ological education of candidates for the 
 sacred office. After completing their aca- 
 demical studies, such candidates were ac- 
 customed to place themselves under the 
 direction of some experienced pastor, who 
 superintended their studies, and assisted 
 them in preparing for their examinations 
 before the Presbytery. Sometimes a pas- 
 tor whose taste or acquirements peculiarly 
 fitted him for the task, would, have a class 
 of such pupils constantly under his care. 
 As early, however, as 1760, a proposition 
 was introduced into the Synod for the ap- 
 pointment and support of a regular profes- 
 sor of theology ; and a few years after- 
 ward the trustees of the college of New- 
 Jersey having appointed such a professor, 
 the Synod took measures to aid in sustain- 
 ing him. 
 
 The General Assembly, however, in 181 1, 
 determined to establish a separate institu- 
 tion for the theological education of candi- 
 dates for the ministry ; and in 1812 the in- 
 
 * The whole number under the influence of the 
 Presbyterians and Congregalionalists is forty-one. 
 
240 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VL 
 
 stitution was located at Princeton, New- 
 Jersey, and went into immediate operation. 
 This seminary is under the immediate 
 supervision of a board of directors, who 
 meet semi-annually to examine the stu- 
 dents, and superintend its affairs. This 
 board is appointed by the General Assem- 
 bly, and to the latter body also it belongs 
 to elect the professors, determine their 
 duties and salaries. Having already spo- 
 ken of this seminary, as well as all the 
 others wliich are under the control of the 
 Presbyterians, when giving an account of 
 the theological seminaries in the United 
 States,* we say no more respecting it in 
 this place. 
 
 In a former part of this work, when de- 
 scribhig the development and influence of 
 the voluntary principle (Book iv.), we gave 
 an account of the American Education So- 
 ciety, and the Board of Education of the 
 General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church : institutions which have done so 
 much to increase the number of the minis- 
 ters of the Gospel in this denomination. 
 "We spoke, also, of the Board of Publica- 
 tion, which the Assembly of one of the 
 great divisions of tlie Presbyterian Church 
 has established, and the good which it is 
 doing. We therefore pass over these 
 operations, which have so intimate a con- 
 nexion with the history of this church. 
 We also say nothing at present respecting 
 the foreign missions of this church, inas- 
 much as we shall have occasion to speak 
 of these hereafter. 
 
 It has been our object in this chapter to 
 give our readers, in the first place, a dis- 
 tinct idea of the organization of the Pres- 
 byterian Church ; of the manner in which 
 its several congregations are formed and 
 governed ; what provision is made to se- 
 cure the orthodoxy, learning, and fidelity 
 of their pastors ; and, in the second place, 
 briefly to state the means adopted to extend 
 the church, and, in general, to promote the 
 cause of religion. There is still one gen- 
 eral subject which should not be passed 
 over : it is. What has been the result of 
 this organization, and of these means 1 or. 
 What has been the character of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in the United States ] 
 Has it been a pure, enlightened, laborious, 
 <ind harmonious body"! Materials for an 
 answer to this question may, in a measure, 
 be found in the preceding pages ; we shall 
 therefore say but little in reply to it. 
 
 Purity in a church may be understood 
 cither in reference to orthodoxy, or adhe- 
 rence to the truth of God as revealed in 
 His Word ; or in reference to the manner 
 of life of its ministers or members. In 
 reference to the former of these views, 
 we tliink it may safely be asserted that the 
 Presbyterian Church has, by the grace of 
 
 * Book iv., chapter xviii. 
 
 God, been preserved pure to a very un- 
 common degree. The correctness of this 
 statement is to be found, not so much in 
 the early adoption of the Westminster 
 Confession of Faith, and the requisition of 
 an assent to that Confession on the part 
 of all candidates for ordination, as in the 
 fact that there has never been any open 
 avowal of Pelagian or Arminian doctrines 
 in the bosom of our church. Cases have 
 occurred of ministers being censured, or 
 suspended from office, for teaching such 
 doctrines, but no case has occurred of a 
 Presbyterian minister who avowedly re- 
 jected the Calvinistic system, and yet re- 
 tained his standing in the church as one 
 of its authorized preachers. Of late years, 
 indeed, there has been much discussion on 
 doctrinal subjects, and many sentiments 
 have been advanced, which many excellent 
 men considered as virtually, if not formal- 
 ly implying the rejection of the Calvinistic 
 doctrines of original sin, election, and effi- 
 cacious grace. With regard to these con- 
 troversies, however, there are two re- 
 marks to be made. The first is, that the 
 advocates of these sentiments strenuously 
 denied that they were inconsistent with 
 the doctrines just mentioned ; and the sec- 
 ond is, that the opposition made to the ex- 
 ercise of discipline on account of these 
 sentiments, was the principal cause of the 
 division of the Presbyterian Church into 
 two portions of nearly equal size. It there- 
 fore remains true, as stated in a preceding 
 page, that no Presbyterian minister has 
 avowed himself either a Pelagian or Ar- 
 minian, and yet been allowed to retain his 
 standing as one of the accredited teachers 
 of the church. This, indeed, may be con- 
 sidered by many as great bigotry. But the 
 very thing which its friends glory in is 
 the fact that the Presbyterian Church in 
 America, having a Calvinistic creed, has 
 been faithful in adhering to it. 
 
 As to the other application of the word 
 pure, it may also be safely asserted, that 
 although painful cases of immorality in 
 ministers have occurred, yet we know of 
 no case in which it has been overlooked ; 
 we know no case in which either drunken- 
 ness, licentiousness, or any similar oftence, 
 has been proved against any minister, or 
 been notoriously true with regard to him, 
 without leading to his suspension or depo- 
 sition from office. If such instances have 
 ever occurred, they have been exceedingly 
 rare. We do not mention this as anything 
 peculiar to the Presbyterian Church ; the 
 same remark, as far as we know, might be 
 made, with equal justice, of any of the 
 evangelical denominations in the country. 
 As it regards the private members of the 
 church, since much depends upon the fidel- 
 ity of the several Sessions, we can only 
 say that, according to the rules of disci- 
 pline, no person chargeable with immoral 
 
•Chap. V.] 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 241 
 
 conduct can be properly retained in com- 
 munion with the church ; and that public 
 sentiment is in accordance with these 
 rules. The cases are certainly rare in 
 which any such offence as falsehood, 
 drunkenness, fornication, or adultery are 
 tolerated in any church member. Disci- 
 pline is so far preserved in our churches, 
 that it would be a matter of general re- 
 proach if any congregation allowed the 
 name of any man of known immoral char- 
 acter to remain upon its list of communi- 
 cants. 
 
 In asserting the claim of the Presbyteri- 
 an Church in America to the character of 
 an enlightened body, all that is meant is, 
 that she has successfully endeavoured to 
 maintain as high a standard of literary 
 qualifications in her ministry as other 
 Christian denominations in the United 
 States, or as the circumstances of the 
 country rendered expedient or possible. 
 From the beginning she insisted on the 
 necessity of learning in those who intend- 
 ed to enter the sacred office, and early en- 
 deavoured to establish institutions for 
 their suitable education. Even when the 
 demand for ministers was so great as to 
 present a strong temptation to relax her 
 requisitions, she constantly refused. The 
 proposition was more than once introduced 
 into the old Synod, that in view of the 
 pressing necessity for ministerial labour, 
 the presbyteries might be permitted to li- 
 cense men to preach the Gospel who had 
 not received a liberal education ; but it 
 was uniformly rejected. It has already 
 been stated that the constitution of the 
 church requires that every candidate should 
 pass repeated examinations before he is 
 admitted to ordination ; that he must give 
 satisfactory evidence of possessing a com- 
 petent knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew languages ; of his acquaintance 
 with the subjects usually studied in our 
 colleges ; and he must, after completing 
 his academical studies, spend at least two 
 years in the study of theology under some 
 approved teacher. These requisitions have 
 been enforced with a good degree of fidel- 
 ity. For a long time, a knowledge of He- 
 brew was not generally insisted upon, on 
 account of the difficulty of obtaining com- 
 petent teachers ; but since the estabhsli- 
 ment of theological seminaries, a knowl- 
 edge of that language has become with 
 the Presbyterian ministers (and many oth- 
 ers also) an almost uniform attainment. 
 
 In answer to the question. Whether the 
 Presbyterian Church has been a laborious 
 and active body of men 1 it may be said 
 that, if in this respect she has fallen behind 
 some of her sister churches, she has kept 
 in advance of others. The rapid increase 
 of the church since its organization in 1705 ; 
 the efforts she has made to found acade- 
 mies, colleges, and theological seminaries ; 
 Q 
 
 the labour and money contributed to the 
 support of foreign and domestic missions, 
 show that, although she has come far short 
 of her duty, she has not been entirely un- 
 mindful of her liigh vocation. 
 
 With regard to the last question pro- 
 posed, viz., Whether the Presbyterian 
 Church has been a harmonious body 1 the 
 answer may not appear so favourable. 
 The existence of parties seems to be an 
 unavoidable incident of freedom. In other 
 words, liberty gives occasion for the man- 
 ifestation of that diversity of opinion, feel- 
 ing, and interest, which never fails to ex- 
 ist in all large communities, whether civil 
 or religious. The expression of this di- 
 versity may be prevented by the hand of 
 power, or concealed from the force of coun- 
 teracting motives ; but where no power 
 exists to forbid its manifestation, or where 
 no interests are endangered by its avowal, 
 it will not be slow in making its existence 
 known. In the Romish Church all expres- 
 sion of difference of opinion, on certain 
 subjects, is forbidden ; in all others, where 
 there is liberty, there is conflict. In 
 richly-endowed and established churches 
 there is so much to be sacrificed by the 
 avowal of dissent, that conformity must 
 ever be expected to be more general than 
 sincere. 
 
 Nothing out of the analogy of history, 
 therefore, has happened to the Presbyterian 
 Church in the occasional conflicts through 
 which she has passed. As this church was 
 composed of men sincerely attached to 
 the doctrines of the Reformed Churches, 
 it was not disturbed by any doctrinal con- 
 troversy for more than 100 years after its 
 organization. Before the middle of the 
 last century, there arose a great religious 
 excitement both in Great Britain and in 
 America. In England this excitement 
 was produced principally by the instru- 
 mentality of Wesley ; and in this country 
 by that of Whitefield, Edwards, the Ten- 
 nents, Blairs, and other distinguished 
 preachers of that day. In Scotland, it 
 either increased or occasioned the seces- 
 sions from the national church which still 
 exist in that country. In England it led 
 to the formation of the great and inde- 
 pendent body of the Methodists. In New- 
 England it gave rise to great controversy, 
 and to separations from the established 
 churches ; and in the Presbyterian Church 
 it caused a division of the Synod of Phila- 
 delphia, which was its highest ecclesiasti- 
 cal body, into two independent bodies, 
 which continued separate from each other 
 from 1741 to 1758. To any one who ex- 
 amines this period of its history, it will 
 appear that it was not difference of opinion 
 as to the nature of religion, or as to its 
 doctrines, nor as to church government, 
 nor as to the necessity of learning in the 
 ministry, which led to this separation, but 
 
242 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 the difference of opinion as to the revival 
 then in progress, and to the disorders, 
 mutual criminations, and consequent alien- 
 ation of feeling which are so apt to attend 
 seasons of great and general excitement. 
 The terms of union adopted by the two 
 synods in 1758 expressly recognise the 
 harmony of the two bodies on all the points 
 above specified,* and declare their purpose 
 to bury all remembrance of theirdifferences 
 respecting the revival. 
 
 From the time of the union just men- 
 tioned, in 1758, until within a few years, 
 the Presbyterian Church in America was 
 as harmonious and united a body of min- 
 isters and members as could be found in 
 this or any other country. The causes of 
 the recent unhappy division are numerous, 
 many of them of long standing and gradual 
 operation ; and all of them difficult of ap- 
 preciation by those who are not familiarly 
 acquainted with the history of that church. 
 
 It has already been stated, that before 
 the commencement of the present century, 
 the Presbyterian Church was in a great 
 measure composed of those European 
 Presbyterians and their decendants who 
 were settled in the Middle and Southern 
 States. Since the year 1800, there has 
 been going on a constant and very great 
 emigration from the New-England States 
 to the central and western parts of New- 
 York, and to the Northwestern States of 
 the Union. These emigrants had, in gen- 
 eral, been accustomed to the Congrega- 
 tional form of church government preva- 
 lent in New-England. As they met, how- 
 ever, in their new locations with many 
 Presbyterians, and as their ministers gen- 
 erally preferred the Presbyterian form of 
 government, they united with them in the 
 formation of churches and ecclesiastical 
 judicatories. In 1801, the General As- 
 sembly and the General Association of 
 Connecticut agreed upon what was called 
 " The plan of union between Presbyterians 
 and Congregationalists in the new settle- 
 ments." Under this plan, which purports 
 to be a temporary expedient, a great num- 
 ber of churches and presbyteries, and even 
 several synods, were formed, composed 
 partly of Presbyterians and partly of Con- 
 gregationalists. Though this plan seems 
 to have operated beneficially for a number 
 of years, yet, as it was extended far beyond 
 its original intention, as it gave Congre- 
 gationalists, who had never adopted the 
 standards of doctrine of the Presbyterian 
 Church, and who were avowedly opposed 
 to its form of government, as much inllu- 
 ence and authority in the government of 
 the church as an equal number of Presby- 
 
 "^ There was, indeed, some difference of opinion 
 on the subject of the nature of the evidence of a 
 proper call to tlie ministry vvhicli the presbyteries 
 should require; one party held higher views on this 
 subject than the other. 
 
 terians, it naturally gave rise to dissatis- 
 faction as soon as the facts of the case 
 came to be generally known, and as soon 
 as questions of discipline and policy arose, 
 in the decision of which the influence of 
 these Congregationalists was sensibly felt- 
 In addition to this source of uneasiness, 
 was that which arose out of diversity of 
 opinions in points of doctrine. Certain 
 peculiarities of doctrine had become prev- 
 alent among the Calvinists of New-Eng- 
 land, which naturally spread into those 
 portions of the Presbyterian Church settled 
 by New-England men. These peculiari- 
 ties were not regarded, on either side, as 
 sufficient to justify any interruption of 
 ministerial communion, or to call for the 
 exercise of discipline, but they were suffi- 
 cient to give rise to the formation of two 
 parties, which received the appellations of 
 Old and New School. Within the last ten 
 or twelve years, however, opinions have 
 been advanced by some of the New-Eng- 
 land clergy, which all the Old School, and 
 a large portion of the New School party 
 in the Presbyterian Church, considered as 
 involving a virtual denial of the doctrines 
 of original sin, election, and efficacious 
 grace, and which were regained as incon- 
 sistent with ministerial standing in the 
 body. Several attempts were made to 
 subject the Presbyterian advocates of these 
 opinions to ecclesiastical discipline. These 
 attempts failed, partly on account of de- 
 ficiency of proof, partly from irregularity 
 in the mode of proceeding, and partly 
 from other causes. 
 
 To these sources of uneasiness was ad- 
 ded the diversity of opinion as to the best 
 mode of conducting certain benevolent 
 operations. The Old School, as a party, 
 were in favour of the church, in her eccle- 
 siastical capacity, by means of Boards of 
 her appointment and under her own con- 
 trol, conducting the work of domestic and 
 foreign missions, and the education of can- 
 didates for the ministry. The other party, 
 as generally preferred voluntary societies, 
 disconnected with church courts, and em- 
 bracing different religious denominations, 
 for these purposes. It might seem, at first 
 view, that this was a subject on which the 
 members of the church might differ with- 
 out inconvenience or collision. But it was 
 soon found that these societies or boards 
 must indirectly exert a great, if not a con- 
 trolling influence on the church. The men 
 who could direct the education of candi- 
 dates for the sacred office, and the location 
 of the hundreds of domestic missionaries, 
 must, sooner or later, give character to the 
 church. On this account, this question was 
 regarded as one of great practical impor- 
 tance. 
 
 It was in the midst of the diflerenccs 
 and alienations arising from these various 
 sources, that the General Assembly met 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 
 
 243 
 
 in 1837. Both parties had come to the 
 conclusion that a separation was desirable ; 
 but though they agreed as to the terms of 
 the separation, they could not agree as to 
 the mode in which it should be effected. 
 The General Assembly, therefore, resolved 
 to put an end to the existing difficulties in 
 another way. It first abolished the plan 
 of union, above mentioned, formed in 1801 ; 
 and then passed several acts, the purport 
 and effect of which were to declare that 
 no Congregational church should hereaf- 
 ter be represented in any Presbyterian ju- 
 dicatory ; and that no Presbytery or Syn- 
 od, composed partly of Presbyterians and 
 partly of Congregationalists, should here- 
 after be considered as a constituent por- 
 tion of the Presbyterian Church. These 
 acts were defended on the ground that 
 they were nothing more than the legiti- 
 mate exercise of the executive authority 
 of the General Assembly, requiring that 
 the constitution of the church should be 
 conformed to by all its constituent parts. 
 
 Had the synods and other judicatories 
 affected by these acts seen fit to separate 
 from the Congregationalists, with whom 
 they had been united, and to organize 
 themselves as purely Presbyterian bodies, 
 the General Assembly would have been 
 bound by its own acts to recognise them 
 as constituent parts of the church. But 
 those brethren having assembled in con- 
 vention at Auburn, in the State of New- 
 York, unanimously resolved that they 
 would consider the plan of union as still 
 in force, its abrogation by the General As- 
 sembly to the contrary notwithstanding ; 
 and that they would not separate from 
 their Congregational brethren. Accord- 
 ingly, in 1838, the delegates from the Pres- 
 byteries included in these synods attend- 
 ed the General Assembly, and claimed their 
 seats as members. As this was not im- 
 mediately granted (though it was not re- 
 fused), they rose, nominated a moderator 
 and clerk, and being joined by those mem- 
 bers who sympathized with them, they 
 declared themselves the true General As- 
 sembly, and withdrew from the house. 
 
 A suit was immediately brought by them 
 before the Supreme Court of Pennsylva- 
 nia, to decide which Assembly was to be 
 regarded as the true one, or which had 
 the right to appoint the professors, and 
 administer the funds belonging to the the- 
 ological seminaries under the care of " The 
 General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church in the United States of America." 
 The decision of the judge and jury was in 
 their favour ; but when the cause was ta- 
 ken before the court in bank, that is, be- 
 fore the court with all the judges present, 
 that decision was reversed, and the way 
 left open for the New School Assembly to 
 renew the suit if they should think proper. 
 There the matter now rests, leaving wiiat 
 
 is called the Old School Assembly in pos- 
 session of the succession, and in the man- 
 agement of the seminaries. It may be 
 remarked that this decision has given to 
 that Assembly very little more than what 
 was admitted to be their due by the oppo- 
 site party ; that is, in the terms of separa- 
 tion, agreed upon by the two parties in 
 1837, but which were not acted upon, it was 
 admitted that the seminaries and funds, 
 having, in fact, been founded and chiefly 
 sustained by them, should be under the 
 control of the Old School body ; and these 
 funds constitute almost the whole sum 
 held in trust by the General Assembly. 
 
 For the preceding account I am indebted 
 to a very distinguished and excellent minis- 
 ter in one of the bodies into which the 
 Presbyterian Church was divided in 1838, 
 
 To one who takes no part in the ques- 
 tion, and looks at it dispassionately, certain 
 positions, I conceive, must appear mani- 
 festly just. In the first place, the com- 
 pact between the General Assembly and 
 the General Association of Connecticut in 
 1801, though made with the best inten- 
 tions, was decidedly contrary to the con- 
 stitution of the former body. It was a 
 measure which can only be ascribed to 
 the desire of its authors to accomplish a 
 present apparent good, without taking suf- 
 ficient time or pains to examine all its 
 probable bearings. Its immediate result 
 was the building up of a large number of 
 churches of a mixed character, and with- 
 out that bench of ruling elders which is 
 essential to the interior organization of a 
 Presbyterian church. But granting this, 
 and I do not see how it can well be de- 
 nied, the measures consequent upon the 
 dissolution of this " Plan of Union," by 
 the Assembly of 1837, seem to have been 
 abrupt. Time should have been allowed 
 for the churches affected by it to adopt 
 the Presbyterian polity in its whole ex- 
 tent, if they had a mind to do so, before 
 having recourse to so severe a measure. 
 
 It is obvious, in the second place, that 
 the Presbyterian Church from the first, or 
 nearly so, was composed of diverse ele- 
 ments, which could not be easily assim- 
 ilated. This diversity had been increas- 
 ing every year, especially within the last 
 half century. Look at the difTerent races 
 that from time to time have entered into the 
 composition of the Presbyterian Church. 
 A large proportion of its ministers, on the 
 one hand, are either from Presbyterian 
 churches in Scotland and Ireland, or are 
 descended from Scotch and Irish Presbyte- 
 rians, and these naturally feel much at- 
 tached to the Westminster Confession of 
 Faith, and to the catechisms and form of 
 government with which they have been fa- 
 miliar from their childhood. Another large 
 proportion of its ministers are, on the oth- 
 er liand, from New-England, where they 
 
244 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 received all their early impressions from 
 the Congregational churches ; so that, how- 
 ever much they may have respected the 
 Presbyterian Church on entering it, and 
 however that respect may have increased 
 since, they cannot, from the nature of 
 things, feel as much attachment to all the 
 details of its doctrines and government as 
 others who, if I may so speak, were born 
 Presbyterians. Hence the latter have been 
 more readily disposed to be satisfied with 
 a general conformity with its doctrines and 
 government. This led to a variation, if not 
 in doctrines, at least in statements of doc- 
 trine, perfectly tolerable in Congregation- 
 al churches, where extended creeds are un- 
 known, and to less strictness in ecclesias- 
 tical administration ; both of which were 
 incompatible with the precision of a church 
 whose standards are so full on every point, 
 and with a discipline the rules of which 
 are laid down with so much minuteness. 
 
 In the third place, the doctrinal difler- 
 ence lay more in philosophy than in any- 
 thing else. It originated in the attempt, 
 not at all improper in itself, to reply to 
 the objections which the enemies of Cal- 
 vinism have ever made to its distinctive 
 features, so repugnant to the natural heart. 
 In these explanations of certain points, 
 views were expressed which were deemed 
 to be at variance with the doctrines of 
 man's depravity, of election, efficacious 
 grace, &c., as they had usually been held. 
 Nor do I think it is to be denied that 
 some of these speculations were pushed 
 too far, and expressed in a manner calcu- 
 lated to excite alarm. There was, in 
 some cases, a needless departure from the 
 usual theological phraseology, and this ex- 
 cited concern and suspicion, even when at 
 bottom there was no real diversity of doc- 
 trine. On the other hand, a proper dispo- 
 sition was not always shown to estimate 
 unessential shades of opinion, and even of 
 doctrine, at their just value; and conse- 
 quences, even when denied on one side, 
 were too strenuously alleged on the other. 
 Thus were differences in some cases mag- 
 nified, until what was philosophical in the 
 explanation of a doctrine, and did not 
 change the doctrine itself, was thought sub- 
 versive of it, and fraught, of course, with 
 imminent danger to the cause of truth. 
 
 In the fourth place, as to the mode of 
 conducting the benevolent undertakings of 
 the church, whether by boards appointed 
 by the General Assembly or through vol- 
 untary societies (and this, after all, was 
 the question that helped most to produce 
 the division), it seems clear to me that 
 the brethren and churches that prefeiTed 
 the former of these methods ought at 
 once to have been allowed that preference, 
 and that it was a mistake to shut them up 
 to the support of what they did not think 
 the safest or most scriplur;il modes of pro- 
 
 moting the extension of the Messiah's 
 kingdom ai home and abroad. 
 
 Faults, in short, there were on both sides, 
 and, as happens so often in such cases, 
 there was not a little of man, in a matter in 
 which nothing should have been allowed 
 to influence a single decision but a regard 
 for the glory of God and the interests of 
 his Church. 
 
 But the division has taken place, and 
 whatever of strife or agitation attended it 
 is passing away. A better spirit is un- 
 questionably prevailing, and these two 
 powerful bodies are engaged in the only 
 rivalry worthy of them — that of striving 
 which shall do most for the cause of Christ 
 throughout the world. In this each of 
 them is now free to adopt the method it 
 may think best. 
 
 The Old School, as they are called, have 
 their own boards of missions, domestic 
 and foreign, of education and of publica- 
 tion. The New School combine their ef- 
 forts with the Congregationalists of New- 
 England, and some other and smaller de- 
 nominations, in supporting the American 
 Home Missionary Society, the American 
 Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
 sions, and the American Education Socie- 
 ty. Both zealously support the American 
 Bible, Tract, and Seamen's Societies, and 
 others of a like general kind. 
 
 In fact, the unwieldy bulk to which the 
 Presbyterian Church had grown, as well 
 as the coexistence in it of two great ele- 
 ments, too dissimilar to admit of harmoni- 
 ous action, had long made it evident to 
 many that it must be divided ; and the di- 
 vision that has taken place is about as for- 
 tunate a one as well could have occurred. 
 Although it must be referred, in a consid- 
 erable degree, to sectional, doctrinal, and 
 economical questions, yet none of these 
 have in all cases determined the present 
 position of the parties concerned. Thus, 
 in the New School Church we find Scotch 
 and Irish ministers, and the descendants 
 of emigrants from Scotland and Ireland, 
 while New-England men may be found in 
 the Old. In the former there are men 
 who hold the old views of Calvinistic doc- 
 trine ; in the latter, there are some who 
 hold the New-England modifications of 
 those views. Finally, the New School is 
 not without adherents who prefer ecclesi- 
 astical boards for benevolent operations, 
 while the Old School has some who re- 
 main attached to voluntary societies. The 
 division, however, coincides more, if I may 
 use the expression, with the natural line 
 of demarcation, in the last-named particu- 
 lar, than in the others, and for a reason al- 
 ready mentioned. 
 
 The relative proportions of the two bod- 
 ies will appear from the following state- 
 ment. Jn May last (1843), the Old School 
 had under its care, 
 
Chap. VI] 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 245 
 
 19 Synods,* 
 105 Presbyteries, 
 2,092 Churches, 
 1,434 Ordained Ministers, 
 183 Licentiates, 
 314 Gandidates,+ 
 159,137 Communicants. 
 
 At the same date, according to their 
 minutes, the New School had under their 
 care, 
 
 19 Synods, 
 101 Presbyteries, 
 1,496 Churches, 
 1,263 Ministers, 
 120,645 Communicants. 
 
 The number of licentiates and candi- 
 dates is not given, but probably bears the 
 same proportion to that of the churches 
 and pastors as those of the Old School do 
 to theirs. 
 
 Thus it appears that the two together, 
 and in almost all respects they may be 
 considered as one body, have 
 
 3,584 Churches, 
 2,672 Ordained Ministers, 
 probably 900 Licentiates and Candidates, 
 and 279,782 Communicants. 
 
 Regarding them as one whole, it were 
 difficult to find in any part of Christendom 
 a branch of the kingdom of Christ better 
 educated, or more distinguished for gen- 
 eral learning, zeal, enterprise, liberality, 
 and soundness in all essential doctrine. 
 Their ministers present a body of 2672 
 men, almost without exception liberally 
 educated, who, after all their debates, and 
 final separation into two, are more thor- 
 oughly sound Calvinists in point of doc- 
 trine than any equally numerous ministry 
 to be found in any otlier country. 
 
 The question is often asked, Whether 
 they will ever unite again 1 That is by no 
 means improbable ; but whether they do 
 or not seems to me of little consequence. 
 In their separate state they will accom- 
 plish more than if united. There will soon 
 be the most perfect intercourse between 
 their churches and pastors. The energies 
 of both find free and ample scope, which 
 was never the case before with either, but 
 particularly with the Old School, who nev- 
 er felt at ease, or assured of the future. 
 The New School will probably ally them- 
 selves more closely than ever with the Con- 
 gregationalists, and maintaining a some- 
 what less rigid economy than the Old 
 School, in regard to the organization of 
 churches in regions abounding with New- 
 England Congregational emigrants, they 
 cannot but increase rapidly, the more espe- 
 
 * In the above statistical view the foreign mis- 
 sionaries belonging to this body are included. If we 
 would give the exact number of Synods, Presbyter- 
 ies, &c., of this Church in the United States, we 
 must subtract these. There would then remain 18 
 Synods, 102 Presbyteries, 2088 churches, and 1409 
 mmisters. 
 
 t That is, students of theology who have not yet 
 been licensed to preach. 
 
 cially as New-England will act on the Mid- 
 dle, the Southern, and still more, on the 
 Northwestern States, chiefly through them. 
 In conclusion, let me add, that the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of the New School, in its 
 session in May, 1840, proposed to the pres- 
 byteries under its care certain important 
 changes in its constitution, which have 
 since been adopted. One is, that the Gen- 
 eral Assembly shall be held triennially in- 
 stead of annually. Another is, that all ap- 
 peals from the decisions of a Church Ses- 
 sion shall hot, in the case of lay-members, 
 be carried beyond the Presbytery, or in the 
 case of ministers, beyond the Synod. By 
 these modifications they have made the 
 business of their General Assembly much 
 more simple and easy, and given more 
 time to that body to deliberate on meas- 
 ures for the promotion of the best interests 
 of the Church. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 This large and influential body holds the 
 doctrinal opinions of the Wesleyan Meth- 
 odists of England, and its ecclesiastical 
 economy is, in all important points, iden- 
 tical with theirs. It took its rise in 1766, 
 when a Mr. Philip Embury, who had been 
 a local preacher in some of Mr. Wesley's 
 societies in the north of Ireland, and had 
 come over to America with a few other 
 pious persons of the same connexion, be- 
 gan to hold meetings for exhortation and 
 prayer in his own house at New- York. 
 A considerable society was gradually form- 
 ed in that city, which at that time, it would 
 appear, could reckon on but a small num- 
 ber, comparatively, of living and zealous 
 Christians among its inhabitants. In a few 
 months it was found necessary to fit up a 
 large hired room as a place of worship, 
 and the congregation was farther aug- 
 mented by the preaching of a Captain 
 Webb of the British army, who, having 
 been converted under the preaching of Mr. 
 Wesley in England, and being now sta- 
 tioned at Albany, paid frequent visits to 
 the little flock at New- York. 
 
 It was not long, however, before similar 
 meetings began to be held in several pla- 
 ces on Long Island, in Philadelphia, and 
 at other points. In 1768 a large place of 
 worship was erected in New- York, being 
 the first Methodist church ever built in 
 the United States. Next year, Mr. Wes- 
 ley being requested to send over two of 
 his preachers, Messrs. Richard Boardman 
 and Joseph Pillmore came to New-York, 
 and about the same time, Mr. Robert 
 Strawbridge, another local preacher from 
 Ireland, came over and settled in Frederick 
 county, Maryland, where he held meetings 
 at his own house, and at those of other 
 
246 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 pious persons in the neighbourhood. This 
 extension of the Methodists into the South 
 was farther promoted by a visit from Mr. 
 Pilhiiore into Virginia and North Caro- 
 lina. 
 
 Pressing representations of the need of 
 help having been made to Mr. Wesley, Mr. 
 Francis Asbury and Mr. Richard Wright 
 were sent over from England in 1771, and 
 under the labours, particularly of the for- 
 mer, the work went on increasing, year 
 after year, until the commencement of the 
 Revolution. That event greatly retarded 
 the progress of Methodism in some places, 
 not only by the ever untowardly influence 
 of present war on such undertakings, but 
 also by the suspicions attached by the 
 revolutionists to Mr. Asbury, and several 
 of his fellow-preachers, as being native 
 Englishmen, who had been too short a pe- 
 riod in the country to have its interests 
 truly at heart. 
 
 At length, with peace came independ- 
 ence, and thus, greatly to the encourage- 
 ment of Mr. Asbury and his fellow-labour- 
 ers, a wide and effectual door for the 
 preaching of the Gospel was opened to 
 them. Hitherto this attempt to revive 
 true godliness had been confined entirely 
 to laymen of the Episcopal Church, and 
 with it their efforts are more connected 
 than with any other, inasmuch as none of 
 them had at first any intention of separa- 
 ting from its communion. But worthy 
 ministers of that church being hard to be 
 found in some places, while none were to 
 be had at all in others, both before the 
 Revolution broke out and during its prog- 
 ress, Mr. Wesley was urged to send over 
 ordained ministers, who might administer 
 the ordinances to his followers. To this 
 he was greatly opposed at first, but when 
 the Revolution was over, considering that, 
 from the change of circumstances, he might 
 now lawfully do what he had refused do- 
 ing while the colonies were under the gov- 
 ernment of England, he sent over, as su- 
 perintendent of the Methodist churches in 
 America, the Rev. Dr. Coke, a presbyter 
 of regular standing in the Established 
 Church of England. He was accompa- 
 nied by Mr. Richard Whatcoat and Mr. 
 Thomas Vasey, whom Mr. Wesley, assist- 
 ed by Dr. Coke and the Rev. Mr. Creigh- 
 ton, had ordained presbyters or priests, 
 just before the sailing of the three from 
 Uristol in September, 1784. These breth- 
 ren were the bearers of a letter from Mr. 
 Wesley to the Methodist preachers and 
 societies in America, stating his reasons 
 for considering himself now at liberty to 
 accede to their requests, and informing 
 them that he had appointed Dr. Coke and 
 Mr. Asbury to be joint superintendents of 
 all the societies in that country founded 
 upon his rules, and Messrs. Whatcoat and 
 Vasey to act as elders among them, by 
 
 baptizing and administering the Lord's 
 Supper. 
 
 On the arrival of these delegates, a con- 
 ference of the preachers was immediately 
 convened at Baltimore. It was opened ou 
 the 25th of December, 1784, and was at- 
 tended by sixty out of the eighty preach- 
 ers then in the country. One of its first 
 acts was the unanimous election of Dr. 
 Coke and Mr. Asbury as superintendents, 
 thereby confirming Mr. Wesley's appoint- 
 ment. Dr. Coke and the other two pres- 
 byters then ordained Mr. Asbury, first a 
 deacon, next a presbyter, and, finally, a su- 
 perintendent. Thereupon the two super- 
 intendents, or bishops, as they soon began 
 to be called, and as their successors are 
 styled to this day, ordained twelve of the 
 preachers then present to the office of 
 presbyters or elders. 
 
 Thus was the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church in the United States organized 
 sixty years ago. From that epoch they 
 formed a new and independent religious 
 denomination, which was soon vastly to 
 outnumber that from which they had 
 sprung. At that " their day of small 
 things," their ministers and lay preach- 
 ers, including Dr. Coke and his co-dele- 
 gates from England, amounted to eighty- 
 six, and the members, in all, to 14,986. 
 But small as was this beginning, great and 
 glorious has been their increase since. 
 
 The proceedings of that conference were 
 highly important. Twenty-five articles 
 were adopted as the Confession of Faith 
 for the infant church. We will give first 
 the titles of the whole, and then a few of 
 them at large. The titles are as follows : 
 Of faith in the Holy Trinity ; of the Word, 
 or Son of God, who was made very man ; 
 of the resurrection of Christ ; of the Holy 
 Ghost ; of the sufficiency of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures for salvation ; of the Old Testament ; 
 of original sin; of free-will; of the justifica- 
 tion of man ; of good works ; of works of 
 supererogation ; of sin after justification ; 
 of the Church ; of purgatory ; of speaking 
 in the congregation in such a tongue as the 
 people understand ; of the sacraments ; of 
 Baptism ; of the Lord's Supper ; of both 
 kinds ;* of the one oblation of Christ, fin- 
 ished upon the cross ; of the marriage of 
 ministers ; of the rites and ceremonies of 
 the churches ; of the rulers of the United 
 States of America ; of Christian men's 
 goods ; of a Christian man's oath. 
 
 On almost all these subjects the arti- 
 cles express doctrines held by every en- 
 lightened Protestant. In fact, they are 
 a selection from the Thirty-nine Articles 
 of the Church of England, with some ver- 
 bal changes, and the omission of some 
 words and parts of sentences. The sev- 
 enteenth article of the Church of Eng- 
 
 * Or elements — bread and wine — both to be ad- 
 ministered to the people. 
 
Chap. VI.J 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CPIURCH. 
 
 247 
 
 land (on predestination and election) is, of 
 course, omitted, the doctrine therein taught 
 not being held by the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church in America. Nor do we find that 
 of the certain perseverance of saints, for 
 neither do they hold this. But on all the 
 great doctrines essential to salvation, no- 
 thing can be more clear, or more consist- 
 ent with the Word of God, than the sense 
 of these articles. For instance, on origi- 
 nal sin — what more Scriptural than the 
 seventh article, which says, " Original sin 
 standeth not in following of Adam (as the 
 Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the cor- 
 ruption of the nature of every man ; that 
 is, naturally engendered of the offspring of 
 Adam, whereby man is very far gone from 
 original righteousness, and of his own na- 
 .ture inclined to evil, and that continually." 
 
 On the subject of free-will, it is said, 
 " That the condition of man after the fall 
 of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and 
 prepare himself by his own natural strength 
 and works to faith, and calling upon God ; 
 ■whereupon we have no power to do good 
 works, pleasant and acceptable to God, 
 -without the grace of God by Christ pre- 
 venting us, that we may have a good will, 
 and working with us when we have that 
 good will." 
 
 So in respect to justification by faith, 
 'good works, works of supererogation, the 
 sacraments, and other subjects, the same 
 doctrines are held as by the Reformers of 
 blessed memory. 
 
 Besides these twenty-five articles, the 
 General Conference have adopted a sys- 
 tem of polity* in thirty- five sections, which 
 treat of the entire economy of their church, 
 the manner of life becoming its ministers 
 and private members, the proper style of 
 preaching, &c. In giving directions as to 
 the manner of treating the doctrine of per- 
 fection, the twenty-second section runs as 
 follows : " Let us strongly and explicitly 
 exhort all believers to go on to perfection. 
 That we may all speak the same thing, we 
 ask, once for all, Shall we defend this per- 
 fection, or give it up"? We all agree to 
 defend it, meaning thereby (as we did from 
 the beginning), salvation from all sin by 
 the love of God and man filling the heart. 
 The Papists say, ' This cannot be attained 
 till we have been refined by the fire of 
 purgatory.' Some professors say, ' Nay, 
 it will be attained as soon as the soul and 
 body part.' Others say, ' It may be at- 
 tained before we die ; a moment after is 
 too late.' Is it not so 1 We are all agreed 
 we may be saved from all sin, properly so 
 called, before death, i. e., sinful tempers; 
 but we cannot always speak, or think, or 
 act aright, as dwelling in houses of clay. 
 The substance, then, is settled ; but as to 
 the circumstances, is the change gradual or 
 
 * These rules, originally drawn up by Mr. Wes- 
 ^ley, were considerably modified in America. 
 
 instantaneous ? It is both the one and the 
 other. ' But should we, in preaching, in- 
 sist both on one and the other ]' Certainly 
 we should insist on the gradual change ; 
 and that earnestly and continually. And 
 are there not reasons why we should insist 
 on the instantaneous change 1 If there be 
 such a blessed change before death, should 
 we not encourage all believers to expect 
 it ? And the rather, because constant ex- 
 perience shows, the more earnestly they 
 expect this, the more swiftly and steadily 
 does the gradual work of God go on in 
 their souls ; the more careful are they to 
 grow in grace ; the more zealous of good 
 works ; and the more punctual in their at- 
 tendance on all the ordinances of God 
 (whereas just the contrary effects are ob- 
 served whenever this expectation ceases). 
 They are saved by hope — by this hope 
 of a total change, with a gradually-increas- 
 ing salvation. Destroy this hope, and that 
 salvation stands still, or, rather, decreases 
 daily. Therefore, whoever will advance 
 the gradual change in believers, should 
 strongly insist on the instantaneous." 
 
 For a more thorough acquaintance with 
 the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, I may refer to Mr. Wesley's four 
 volumes of Sermons, and his Notes on the 
 New Testament, where all the peculiar 
 views of that body are fully exhibited, and 
 which may be regarded as its real Confes- 
 sion of Faith. Its Discipline comprehends 
 the " Articles of Religion," the '* General 
 Rules" relating to practice, the " System 
 of Government," and the " Formularies," 
 all of which, except the Articles of Reli- 
 gion, may, under certain circumstances 
 and restrictions, be modified and enlarged 
 from time to time by various enactments 
 of the General Conference. We shall at- 
 tempt a summary of it from the very 
 clear and succinct statements of the Rev. 
 Dr. Bangs, in his " History of the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church in the United 
 States,"* a work to which, in preparing 
 this chapter, we have been greatly indebt- 
 ed on other points. We begin with the 
 " societies" and " classes," which are the 
 primary bodies of believers in this exten- 
 sive, well-adjusted, and most efficient ec- 
 clesiastical system. 
 
 1. In the first place, there is what is 
 called the society, which includes all the 
 members of the church residing in any 
 particular place, or connected with it. 
 
 2. Every society comprises one or more 
 classes, each consisting of from twelve to 
 
 * Vol. i., p. 245-250. This work, in 4 vols., by the 
 Rev. Nathan Bangs, D.D., brings the history of the 
 Methodist Church down to the close of the General 
 Conference held in 1840. It is an invaluable work, 
 written in a truly calm and Christian spirit, and dis- 
 plays a sincere desire to present every subject which 
 it treats in an impartial manner. It contains a com- 
 plete history of the Methodist Church in America 
 from the first. 
 
248 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 twenty or more individuals, who meet once 
 a Aveek for mutual edification. These 
 classes are the real normal schools, if we 
 may so speak, of the Methodist Church. 
 
 3. The minister, under whose pastoral 
 care the classes in a society are placed, 
 appoints a leader to each, whose duty is to 
 see every member of his class once a 
 week, to inquire how their souls prosper, 
 and to receive what they are willing to give 
 for the support of the church and the poor. 
 
 4. Stewards are appointed in each soci- 
 ety by the Quarterly Conference, on the 
 nomination of the ruling preacher. These 
 have charge of all the moneys collected 
 for the support of the ministry, the poor, 
 and for sacramental occasions, and dis- 
 burse it as the Discipline directs. 
 
 5. There are trustees, who have charge of 
 the church property, and hold it in trust for 
 the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 These are elected by the congregation in 
 those states where the laws so provide ; in 
 other places they are appointed as the Dis- 
 cipline directs. 
 
 6. There are, in most societies, exhorters, 
 Avho receive their license from the preach- 
 er in charge ; but this license cannot be 
 renewed except by a vote of the Quarterly 
 Meeting Conference ; they have the privi- 
 lege of holding meetings for exhortation 
 and prayer. 
 
 7. A preacher is one who holds a license 
 to preach, but may not administer the sac- 
 raments. He may be a travelling or a 
 local preacher. The former devotes his 
 whole time to the ministry, and is support- 
 ed by those among whom he labours ; the 
 latter generally supports himself by some 
 secular employment, and preaches on the 
 Sabbath, as well as occasionally at other 
 times, but without temporal emolument. 
 Both receive a license, signed by a presi- 
 ding elder, from a Quarterly Meeting Con- 
 ference, after being recommended each by 
 his respective class, or by a leader's meet- 
 ing. Thus the people, in those nurseries 
 of the Church — the " classes" aitd " lead- 
 ers' meetings" — have the initiative in bring- 
 ing forward those who are to preach the 
 Gospel. After this license from a Quar- 
 terly Meeting Conference, they may be 
 taken into the travelling service by an An- 
 nual Conference ; after two years spent in 
 which, and pursuing at the same time a 
 prescribed course of reading and study, 
 they may be ordained as deacons. Then, 
 after two years' circuit travelling as dea- 
 cons, and pursuing a farther course of 
 reading and study, they may be ordained 
 presbyters or elders. Such is the training 
 for the ministry in the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, and it is much more efficient than 
 persons not well acquainted with it would 
 suppose. 
 
 8. A deacon holds a parchment of ordi- 
 nation from a bishop, and besides his du- 
 
 ties as a preacher, he is authorized to- 
 solemnize marriages, to administer Bap- 
 tism, and to assist the elder or presbyter 
 in the administration of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 9. An elder, in addition to these func- 
 tions, is authorized to administer all the 
 ordinances of God's house. 
 
 10. A presiding elder has the charge of 
 several circuits, collectively called a dis- 
 trict. It is his duty to visit each circuit 
 once a quarter, to preach and administer 
 the ordinances, to convene the travelling 
 and local preachers, exhorters, stewards, 
 and leaders of the circuit for a Quarterly 
 Conference, and in the absence of a bishop, 
 to receive, try, suspend, or expel preach- 
 ers, as the Discipline directs. He is ap- 
 pointed to his charge by the bishop, who 
 may, for the time being, have a special 
 oversight of the Annual Conference in 
 which he is placed. This office arose 
 from the necessity of always having some 
 one to administer the ordinances through- 
 out the circuits, for it often happens that 
 the travelling preachers, from their not 
 having received ordination as elders, can- 
 not administer the Lord's Supper; nor 
 even Baptism, if they are not deacons. 
 
 n. A bishop is elected by the General 
 Conference, to which body he is amenable 
 for his official and moral conduct. It is 
 his duty to travel through the country, to 
 superintend the spiritual and temporal af- 
 fairs of the Church, to preside in the 
 Annual and the General Conference, to 
 ordain such as are elected by an Annual 
 Conference to the office of deacons and 
 elders, and to appoint the preachers to- 
 their stations. As there are several bish- 
 ops, they usually divide the country among 
 them, each having his own field, and all 
 meeting at the General Conference. The 
 episcopacy in this church is, however, an 
 office, not an order. 
 
 12. A leaders'' jneeting is composed of all 
 the class leaders in any one circuit or sta- 
 tion, under the presidency of the preacher 
 placed in charge of that circuit or station. 
 Here the weekly class collections are paid, 
 into the hands of the stewards, and inquiry 
 is made into the state of the classes, delin- 
 quents reported, and inquiries made as to 
 the sick and poor. 
 
 13. A quarterly meeting conference is com- 
 posed of all the travelling and local preach- 
 ers, exhorters, stewards, and leaders be- 
 longing to any particular station or circuit, 
 under the presidency of the circuit elder, or, 
 in his absence, of the preacher who takes 
 charge in his place. Here local preachers 
 are licensed, the licenses of exhorters an- 
 nually renewed, and preachers recommend- 
 ed to an Annual Conference to be received 
 into the travelling ministry ; appeals are 
 likewise lieard from any dissatisfied mem- 
 ber against the decision of a committee of 
 the society to which he belongs. This. 
 
Chap. VI.] 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 249 
 
 body performs, therefore, a most important 
 part in the whole system. 
 
 14. An annual conference is composed of 
 all the travelling preachers, deacons, and 
 elders within a specified district of coun- 
 try. These are the executive and judicial 
 bodies, acting under rules prescribed to 
 them by the General Conference. Here 
 the characters and conduct of all the trav- 
 elling preachers within the bounds of the 
 conference are examined yearly; appli- 
 cants for admission into the travelling min- 
 istry, if accounted worthy, are received, 
 continued on trial, or dropped, as the case 
 may be ; appeals from local preachers, 
 which may be presented, are heard and 
 decided ; and persons fit for ordination, as 
 deacons or elders, are elected. An annual 
 conference possesses original jurisdiction 
 over all its members, and may therefore 
 try, acquit, suspend, expel, or locate any 
 of them, as the Discipline in such cases 
 provides. 
 
 15. The General Conference assembles 
 once in four years, and is composed of a 
 certain number of delegates, elected by 
 the annual conferenoes. It has the pow- 
 er to revise any part of the Discipline not 
 prohibited by restrictive regulations ; to 
 elect the book agents and editors, and the 
 bishops ; to hear and determine appeals of 
 preachers from the decision of annual con- 
 ferences ; to review the acts of those con- 
 ferences generally ; to examine into, the 
 general administration of the bishops for 
 the four preceding years : and to try, cen- 
 sure, acquit, or condemn a bishop if ac- 
 cused. This is the highest judicatory of 
 the church. 
 
 16. A love-feast is a meeting of the mem- 
 bers of a society, held occasionally, in 
 which they partake of a simple repast of 
 bread and water, during an hour, at which 
 such as are disposed relate what God has 
 done for their souls. These meetings 
 were instituted by Mr. Wesley, as a sort 
 of resuscitation of the Xyanai. (Agapae) of 
 the ancient church. Their object is to 
 make the members better acquainted with 
 each other, and promote brotherly love and 
 mutual edification. 
 
 17. The salaries of the ministers are 
 raised by various collections in the socie- 
 ties, and also in public meetings. Provis- 
 ion is made for aged and infirm ministers 
 who have continued to exercise the duties 
 of the ministry until incapable of farther 
 service. Omitting unnecessary details, I 
 need only say that each travelling minister 
 receives at present 100 dollars a year for 
 himself, the same sum for his wife, if he 
 has one, sixteen dollars a year for each 
 child under seven years of age, and twen- 
 ty-four for those above that and under four- 
 teen years. Besides, the stewards of each 
 circuit and station are directed to provide 
 a " parsonage," or house of residence, for 
 
 the family of each married preacher on 
 their circuit or station, and also to grant 
 an allowance for their fuel and table ex- 
 penses, which is estimated by a commit- 
 tee appointed by the Quarterly Meeting 
 Conference. In these respects there is no 
 difference between the preachers, deacons, 
 elders, presiding elders, and bishops — all 
 receive the same salaries ; all have their 
 travelling expenses. 'I'he widows of all 
 the ministers receive 100 dollars each. 
 
 The above is the provision fixed by the 
 General Conference ; but we believe that 
 in many circuits the collections, &c., do 
 not fully meet it. 
 
 Such is an outline of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church in the United States, and it 
 is as minute as a work like this could ad- 
 mit. Since its organization in 1784, though 
 not without its share of difficulties, its ca- 
 reer, upon the whole, has been remarkably 
 prosperous, and God has enabled it to over- 
 come every hinderance with wonderful suc- 
 cess. We have seen the numerical amount 
 of its ministers and members sixty years 
 ago ; in 1843 it was as follows : 
 
 6 Bishops, 32 annual conferences. 
 3,988 Travellijig mmislers, who devote themselves en- 
 tirely to the ministry. 
 7,730 Local preachers, assisting the regular travelling 
 ministers vfith frequent preaching. 
 1,068,525 Communicants. 
 
 And the probable proportion of the com- 
 munity under the influence of this church's 
 ministry, that is, who attend its preaching, 
 as stated by Bishop Soule before the Brit- 
 ish Conference in August,1842, is 5,000,000. 
 Surely we may well exclaim, *' What hath 
 God wrought !" It covers l\\e whole land 
 with its network system of stations and 
 circuits, and carries the Gospel into thou- 
 sands of the most remote as well as the 
 most secluded and thinly-peopled neigh- 
 bourhoods. 
 
 This denomination has made great exer- 
 tions to increase the number of its church 
 edifices within the last few years. But its 
 itinerating ministers preach in thousands 
 of places where no such buildings are yet 
 erected, or at least none belonging to that 
 denomination. In these cases they hold 
 their meetings in schoolhouses, courthou- 
 ses, and private houses. 
 
 No American Christian who takes a com- 
 prehensive view of the progress of religion 
 in his country, and considers how wonder- 
 fully the means and instrumentalities em- 
 ployed are adapted to the extent and the 
 wants of that country, can hesitate for a 
 moment to bless God for having, in his 
 mercy, provided them all. Nor will he fail 
 to recognise in the Methodist economy, as 
 well as in the zeal, the devoted piety, and 
 the efficiency of its ministry, one of the 
 most powerful elements in the religious 
 prosperity of the United States, as well as 
 one of the firmest pillars of their civil and 
 political institutions. 
 
250 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 We have already spoken of the Home 
 Missions, tlie Tract, Book,* and Sunday- 
 school operations of this church. In an- 
 other place we shall have occasion to say 
 Avhat it is doing in the cause of Foreign 
 Missions. 
 
 The Methodist Episcopal Church was 
 long reproached with neglecting to pro- 
 mote learning among its ministers, and it 
 •was charged even with having no wish 
 that its ministry should he learned. There 
 was, apparently, some truth in this ; for, 
 though its influential and enlightened mem- 
 J^ers were never opposed to learning, they 
 had a well-founded dread of a learned but 
 unconverted ministry. Yet they attempted 
 -even, at an early period of their Church's 
 history, to found seminaries for education. 
 Among these there was a college in Mary- 
 land, which flourished from 1787 to 1795, 
 •when the building was burned down. A 
 second was attempted at Baltimore ; but 
 there, too, the college building was burned, 
 and a church that adjoined it shared the 
 .same fate. These calamities, involving a 
 loss of about 90,000 dollars, had a discour- 
 aging eff'ect for a time ; but for some years 
 ^ast the Episcopal Methodists have shown 
 a noble desire to promote the education of 
 young men for the ministry, and other 
 walks of life in which they may advance 
 ihe cause of Christ. In order to this, they 
 have founded no fewer than twenty-one 
 academic institutions, besides eleven col- 
 leges, two of which are called universities, 
 and these fountains of knowledge God is 
 blessing by shedding upon them the influ- 
 ence of his grace. 
 
 No fewer than four religious newspapers 
 are published under the auspices of the 
 General Conference, and four more under 
 those of annual conferences, besides oth- 
 ers that are edited and owned by individu- 
 als of that body. These journals must 
 have a vast circulation in the aggregate. 
 
 Having concluded our notices of the five 
 larger evangelical denominations, we shall 
 now proceed with the smaller in the same 
 order, and thus associate them with the 
 respective families of churches to which 
 they more properly belong. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE MORAVIAN CHURCH. 
 
 The United Brethren, or, as they are 
 more familiarly called, the Moravians, 
 form the only one of the smaller evangel- 
 ical denominations in the United States 
 
 * The " Book Concern" of this church is estab- 
 lished in New- York, and is carried on by agents and 
 editors appointed by the General Conference. It is 
 ■conducted with great energy. 
 
 that is Episcopal, in the usual acceptation 
 of that word. They claim descent, as is 
 well known, from the ancient churches of 
 Moravia and Bulgaria, founded by Metho- 
 dus and Cyrillus, two Greek monks. Not- 
 withstanding repeated persecutions from 
 the Roman Catholics, some remains of 
 these churches survived in Bohemia and 
 Moravia as late as 1722, when a party of 
 them fled for refuge from continued vexa- 
 tion in Moravia to the estates of Nicholas 
 Lewis, Count of Zinzendorf, in Upper Lu- 
 satia, and there they founded Herrnhut. 
 Their protector, some years after that, be- 
 came one of their bishops, and laboured 
 most zealously for more than twenty years 
 in the cause of God, by forming societies 
 of the United Brethren. While on a visit 
 to America, in 1741, he took part in found- 
 ing a mission among the Indians, and 
 greatly contributed to the establishment 
 of several settlements for those of the 
 Brethren who might choose to emigrate 
 thither. Such was the origin of the pleas- 
 ant villages of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and 
 Litiz, in Pennsylvania, and Salem in North 
 Carolina. Moravian- families, meanwhile, 
 settled, and formed societies in Philadel- 
 phia, New- York, and several other places. 
 
 The peculiar economy of the United 
 Brethren is too widely known to require 
 any notice of it here. Their settlements 
 in America are the same abodes of order, 
 provident regard for the morals of the 
 young, and for the comfort of the aged, of 
 cheerful industry, and pleasant social life, 
 enhvened by the sweet strains of music, 
 and, withal, of that deep interest in mis- 
 sions, which characterize their settlements 
 in the Old World. It maybe said, perhaps, 
 that too much worldly prosperity has been 
 to them, as to many other Christians, a 
 hinderance to their piety. 
 
 They maintain flourishing boarding- 
 schools for girls at Bethlehem, Litiz, and 
 Salem, and one for boys at Nazareth, 
 where, also, their young men preparing for 
 the ministry commonly pursue their stud- 
 ies. 
 
 The Moravian missions among the Indi- 
 ans within the boundaries of the United 
 States are mainly supported, as well as di- 
 rected, by their congregations in that coun- 
 try.* Their doctrines coincide, in the 
 main, with those of the Augsburg Confes- 
 sion. The number of their churches and 
 congregations in the United States is twen- 
 ty-three : of their ministers, twenty-seven ; 
 of their communicants, about 3000 ; and the 
 entire population under their instruction is 
 about 12,000 souls. 
 
 * An interesting historical sketch of these missions 
 will be found in Mr. J. C. Latrobe's " Rambles in 
 North America." 
 
Chap. VIIL] 
 
 SMALLER BAPTIST DENOMINATIONS. 
 
 251 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SMALLER BAPTIST DENOMINATIONS. 
 
 There are a few Baptist denominations 
 in the United States not usually included 
 with the Regular Baptists noticed in Chap- 
 ter IV. They are as follows : 
 
 1. The Seventh Day Baptists — who 
 have fifty-nine churches, forty-six ordained 
 ministers, twenty-three licentiates, and 
 6077 members. The population under their 
 instruction and influence is reckoned at 
 about 35,000. They are quite evangelical 
 in the doctrines that relate to the way of 
 salvation, and are in good repute for piety 
 and zeal. They differ from the Regular 
 JBaptists as to the day to be observed as the 
 Christian Sabbath, maintaining, in opposi- 
 tion to these, that the seventh day was not 
 only the Sabbath originally appointed by 
 the Creator, but that that appointment re- 
 mains unrepealed. 
 
 Their churches are widely scattered 
 throughout the States. There are four in 
 New-Jersey,* twenty-nine in New-York, 
 six in Ohio, eight in Rhode Island, and four 
 in Virginia, and eight in other parts of the 
 country. They observe Saturday with 
 great strictness as their Sabbath, have Sun- 
 day-schools, and one religious newspaper. 
 They have recently formed a Tract Soci- 
 ety, a Missionary Society, and a Society 
 for the Conversion of the Jews. They have 
 four Associations, and a General Confer- 
 ence — all meet annually. Altogether they 
 are a very worthy people. 
 
 2. Free-Will Baptists. This body dates 
 in America from 1780, when its first church 
 was formed in New-Hamphsire. In doc- 
 trine they hold a general atonement, and 
 reject election and the other Calvinistic 
 points. On the subject of the Trinity, justi- 
 fication by faith alone, regeneration, and 
 sanctification, they are, with some excep- 
 tions, sound. 
 
 Starting with the wrong principle that, 
 dispensing with written creeds, covenants, 
 rules of discipline, or articles of organiza- 
 tion, they would make the Bible serve for 
 all these, they were soon in great danger 
 from Arians and Socinians creeping in 
 among them. But of late years they have 
 separated from the Christ-ians (a heretical 
 sect we have yet to notice, and likewise 
 opposed to creeds), and are, consequently, 
 
 * In New-Jersey, and I doubt not in other States 
 also, there are special laws in their favour. This dis- 
 position on the part of the civil power in the United 
 States not to coerce the consciences of any religious 
 community, however small, stnkmgly contrasts with 
 the legislation of France in a like case. In the win- 
 ter of 1840-1, when the factory-children's-labour-bill 
 was before the Chamber of Deputies, it was asked 
 whether there ought not to be a clause for the pro- 
 tection of Jewish children in the observance of their 
 Sabbath. " No," said the committee upon the bill, 
 ■" they are too few to make that necessary." To this 
 M. Fould. the banker, himself a Jew, assented, say- 
 ing that the Jews were only 300,000 in the kingdom ! 
 
 endeavouring to regain a sound orthodox 
 position. Some of them have come to see 
 that creeds are unavoidable, and had better 
 be definitely expressed in writing than mere- 
 ly understood. They have accordingly in- 
 troduced creeds, and, in some instances, 
 even written articles in the form of a con- 
 stitution. This augurs well. 
 
 Their church government, like that of 
 all the Regular Baptists, is vested prima- 
 rily in the churches, or assemblages of be- 
 lievers convened for worship. These send 
 delegates to quarterly meetings, the quar- 
 terly meetings to the yearly meetings, and 
 the.se, again, to the general conference. 
 The office-bearers in their churches are el- 
 ders and deacons. The former are ordain- 
 ed jointly by the church to which they be- 
 long, and by the quarterly meeting acting 
 by a council. Each quarterly and yearly 
 meeting has an elders' conference, which, 
 with the general conference, regulates the 
 affairs of the ministry as far as the Pres- 
 bytery is concerned. Thus they depart 
 from the principle of a pure Independency. 
 Within the last ten years they have entered 
 on the work of sending the Gospel to the 
 heathen, and there can be no better sign 
 than this. They have also a Home Mis- 
 sionary Society, a Tract Society, and an 
 Education Society. Many of their church- 
 es have Sunday-schools and various char- 
 itable institutions. A religious paper, also, 
 is published under their auspices at Dover, 
 New-Hampshire. 
 
 Until a few years ago, these Arminian 
 Baptists took but little interest in the edu- 
 cation of young men for the ministry ; but 
 they now have six academies. 
 
 They have this year (1844) 1165 church- 
 es and 771 ordained ministers, 250 licen- 
 tiates and 61,372 communicants.* 
 
 3. Disciples of Christ, or Reformers, 
 as they call themselves, or Campbellites, 
 as they are most commonly called by oth- 
 ers. It is with much hesitation that, by 
 placing these in this Book, I rank them 
 among evangelical Christians. I do so be- 
 cause their creed, taken as it stands in writ- 
 ten terms, is not heterodox. Not only do 
 they not deny, but in words their creed 
 affirms the doctrine of the Trinity, of sal- 
 vation by the merits of Christ, and the ne- 
 cessity of the regenerating and sanctifying 
 influences of the Holy Spirit. Yet I un- 
 derstand that there is much about their 
 preaching that seems to indicate that all 
 that they consider necessary to salvation 
 is little if any thing more than a specula- 
 tive, philosophical faith, in connexion with 
 immersion as the only proper mode of bap- 
 tism ; so that there is little, after all, of that 
 "repentance towards God," and "faith 
 towards our Lord Jesus Christ," which 
 are the indispensable terms of the Gospel. 
 
 * The Free-Will Baptist Register for 1844. 
 
252 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 The founder of this sect is a Mr. Alex- 
 ander Campbell, a Scotchman, who, togeth- 
 er with his father, left the Presbyterian 
 Church in 1812, and became Baptists. 
 Soon after this change he began to broach 
 doctrines that can hardly be called new, for 
 the Christ-ians, now, though not always, a 
 heretical sect, had advanced them before 
 his time. His views seem to be substanti- 
 ally as follows : " All sects and parties of 
 the Christian world have departed, in great- 
 er or less degrees, from the simplicity of 
 faith and manners of the first Christians." 
 "This defection" Mr. Campbell and his 
 followers " attribute to the great varieties 
 of speculation, and metaphysical dogma- 
 tism of countless creeds, formularies, litur- 
 gies, and books of discipline, adopted and 
 inculcated as bonds of union and platforms 
 of communion in all the parties which 
 have sprung from the Lutheran Reforma- 
 tion." All this has led, as they suppose, 
 to the displacing of the style of the hving 
 oracles, and the affixing to the sacred dic- 
 tion ideas wholly unknown to the Apostles. 
 
 And what does Mr. Campbell propose to 
 do "! Simply " to ascertain from the Holy 
 Scriptures, according to commonly-receiv- 
 ed and well-established rules of interpreta- 
 tion, the ideas attached to the leading 
 terms and sentences found in the Holy 
 Scriptures, and then use the words of the 
 Holy Spirit in the apostolic acceptation of 
 them !" But let us hear him farther : " By 
 thus expressing the ideas communicated 
 by the Holy Spirit, in the terms and phrases 
 learned from the Apostles, and by avoiding 
 the artificial and technical language of 
 scholastic theology, they propose to restore 
 a pure speech to the household of faith." 
 And in this way they expect to put an end 
 to all divisions and disputes, and promote 
 the sanctification of the faithful. And all 
 this is proposed by those who reject all 
 creeds for churches ; excepting, indeed, 
 that which consists in making the Bible 
 speak theirs ! However plausible it may 
 be to talk in this way, all church his- 
 tory has shown that there is no more cer- 
 tain way of introducing all manner of her- 
 esy than by dispensing with all written 
 creeds and formularies of doctrine, and al- 
 lowing all who profess to believe in the Bi- 
 ble, though attaching any meaning to it 
 they please, to become members of the 
 church. For a while, possibly, this scheme 
 may seem to work well ; but, before half 
 a century has passed, all manner of error 
 will be found to have entered and nestled 
 in the house of God. 
 
 " Every one who believes what the Evan- 
 gelists and Apostles have testified concern- 
 ing Jesus of Nazareth, and who is willing 
 to obey him, is a proper subject for immer- 
 sion." And this is the sum and substance 
 of what Mr. Campbell says respecting the 
 way in which a sinner is to attain salva- 
 
 tion. This is all well enough i{ faith be 
 truly explained, and the sinner really does 
 come to Christ with that godly sorrow for 
 sin from which saving faith is never dis- 
 severed. But if a mere general belief in 
 what the Evangelists and Apostles have 
 said, together with immersion, be all that 
 is required, it is not difficult to see that 
 churches may soon be gathered in which 
 there will be but- little true religion. 
 
 It is on this account that evangelical 
 Christians in America, Baptists as well as 
 Paedobaptists, have many fears about Mr. 
 Campbell and his followers. It is believed, 
 however, that, as yet, there are not a few 
 sincerely pious people among his congre- 
 gations, who have been led away by his 
 plausible representations respecting the 
 evil of creeds. Time can only show the 
 issue. Two or three religious papers are 
 published by ministers of this denomina- 
 tion, and are almost entirely devoted to 
 the propagation of the peculiar tenets of 
 the sect. The churches in its connexion 
 are constituted purely on Independent prin- 
 ciples. Its statistics are not well ascer- 
 tained. Mr. Campbell says that it now 
 embraces from 150,000 to 200,000 persons. 
 As for the churches and ministers, I have 
 never seen their number stated. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SMALLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. - 
 CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIANS. 
 
 -THE 
 
 The origin of the Cumberland Presbyte- 
 rians was as follows : In the extensive 
 and, in some respects, wonderful revival 
 of religion that took place in Kentucky 
 during the years 1801-1803, the call for 
 Presbyterian ministers was far beyond 
 what could be satisfied, and in this exigen- 
 cy it was proposed by some of the minis- 
 ters that pious laymen of promising abili- 
 ties, and who seemed to have a talent for 
 public speaking, should be encouraged to 
 make the best preparations in their power 
 for the ministry, and thereafter be licensed 
 to preach. 
 
 This suggestion was carried into effect. 
 Several such persons were licensed by the 
 Presbytery of Transylvania ; and a new 
 presbytery, which had been formed in the 
 southern part of the State in 1803, and was 
 called the Cumberland Presbytery, admit- 
 ted and ordained those licentiates, and 
 took on trial others of similar characters 
 and attainments. 
 
 These proceedings were considered dis- 
 orderly by the Synod of Kentucky, and a 
 commission was therefore appointed to 
 examine them, and to inquire what were 
 the doctrines held by persons thus admit- 
 ted into the ministry, in a way so foreign 
 
Chap. X.] 
 
 SMALLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. 
 
 253 
 
 to the rules and practice of the Presbyte- 
 rian Church. The upshot was, that the 
 course pursued by the Cumberland Pres- 
 bytery was condemned, and this sentence 
 having been confirmed by the General As- 
 sembly of the whole Presbyterian Church, 
 before which it had been brought by ap- 
 peal, the censured Presbytery withdrew 
 from that body, and constituted itself an 
 independent church in 1810, which has 
 ever since been called the Cumberland 
 Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Its doctrines occupy a sort of middle 
 ground between Calvinism and Arminian- 
 ism. It holds that the atonement was 
 made for all mankind ; it rejects the doc- 
 trine of eternal reprobation ; holds a mod- 
 ified view of election ; and maintains the 
 perseverance of the saints ; but on the 
 other points is essentially Calvinistic. 
 
 In its ecclesiastical polity it is Presby- 
 terian ; the Session, Presbytery, Synod, 
 and General Assembly are all constituted 
 in the manner described at length in our 
 notice of the Presbyterian Church. It dif- 
 fers, however, in one point, from all other 
 Presbyterian churches, by having adopted 
 the itinerating system of the Methodists. 
 By that system of circuits and stations, 
 its ministers have been able to reach al- 
 most all parts of the Valley of the Missis- 
 sippi, that being the great scene of their 
 labours. But their church is not confined 
 to the Western States and Territories of 
 the American Union— it reaches into Tex- 
 as, where it has a number of churches. 
 The General Assembly has under its su- 
 perintendence twelve synods, forty-five 
 presbyteries, about 550 churches, and 
 the same number of ministers, and about 
 70,000 communicants. Several religious 
 newspapers are published under its auspi- 
 ces. For the education of its youth, it has 
 one flourishing college at Princeton, in 
 Kentucky, and has lately opened another 
 in the State of Ohio. Among its preach- 
 ers there are several men of highly re- 
 spectable talents and acquirements. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SMALLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES : REFORM- 
 ED DUTCH CHURCH. 
 
 We have elsewhere stated that the coun- 
 try embracing what are now the States of 
 New- York, New-Jersey, Delaware, and 
 Pennsylvania, was at one time claimed by 
 the Dutch in right of discovery. A trading 
 post was established by them in 1614, at 
 the spot now occupied by the city of New- 
 York, but it was not until 1624 that any 
 families from Holland settled there. A 
 few years after, the Rev. Everardus Bo- 
 gardus was sent over to preach to the 
 colonists, and was the first Dutch pastor 
 
 that settled in America.* He was suc- 
 ceeded by John and Samuel Megapolensis, 
 the latter of whom was one of the com- 
 missioners appointed by General Stuyve- 
 sant to settle the terms on which the colony 
 was surrendered to the English in 1664. 
 
 The colony having been planted and 
 maintained by the Dutch West India Com- 
 pany, to it the colonists applied from time 
 to time for ministers, as new churches 
 were formed or the older ones became 
 vacant ; and the seat of the company being 
 at Amsterdam, the directors naturally ap- 
 plied to the Classis of that city to choose 
 and ordain the persons that were to be 
 sent out. Hence that Classis and the 
 Synod of North Holland, with which it 
 was connected, came, by the tacit consent 
 of the other classes and synods of the 
 Dutch National Church, as well as by the 
 submission of the churches in the colonies, 
 to have an influence over the latter, which, 
 in the course of time, proved a source of 
 no little trouble to the parties concerned. f 
 To such an extent was it carried that the 
 colonial churches were not thought entitled 
 to take a single step towards the regula- 
 tion of their own affairs. 
 
 How far the West India Company aided 
 the congregations that were gradually 
 formed in its American colonies is not 
 now known, but it is supposed to have 
 done something for their support. J Some 
 of its governors were decided friends and 
 members of the church, and certain it is 
 that those congregations in New Nether- 
 lands were considered as branches of the 
 Established Church of Holland. 
 
 The English took possession of the col- 
 ony in 1664, and guarantied to the inhabi- 
 tants all their religious rights. Nothing 
 of any consequence to the churches took 
 place for about thirty years, for there being 
 but few English in the colony, they were 
 attended by nearly the whole population. 
 But in 1693, on Colonel Samuel Fletcher 
 becoming governor, he succeeded, as we 
 have elsewhere noticed, by artifice and 
 perseverance, in having the Episcopal 
 Church established in the city of New- 
 York and four of the principal counties of 
 the province ; so that from that time all 
 classes were taxed for the support of 
 
 * This excellent man left the colony to return to 
 Holland in 1647, and is supposed to have been lost 
 at sea in the same vessel with Governor Kieft. 
 
 t The Classis of Amsterdam and the Synod of 
 North Holland retain to this day the charge of the 
 churches in the colonies in the East Indies, and other 
 parts of the world, belonging to the kingdom of the 
 Netherlands. 
 
 t It would seem that it was a considerable time 
 before any church edifice of respectable appearance 
 was erected in New Amsterdam, as New- York was 
 then called ; for De Vries, in the account of his voy- 
 age to New Netherlands, relates that he remarked to 
 Governor Kieft in 1641, "that it was a shame that 
 the English should pass there, and see only a mean 
 barn in wliich we performed our worslup." 
 
254 
 
 Episcopacy, though its partisans formed 
 but a small minority of the colonists. 
 
 But the inconvenience of having no ec- 
 clesiastical authority in America higher 
 than a Consistory could not fail to be felt 
 by the Reformed Dutch Church, and ac- 
 cordingly, in 1738, some of its ministers 
 proposed having an association of the 
 clergy, called a ccetus, but which was to 
 have no power either to ordain pastors or 
 to determine ecclesiastical disputes. In- 
 nocent as well as inadequate as was this 
 measure, the concurrence of the Classis of 
 Amsterdam could not be obtained till 1746 
 or 1747. But it was soon found that no- 
 thing short of having a regular classis of 
 their own could meet the wants of the 
 churches. Not only was there the heavy 
 expense and delay attending getting minis- 
 ters from Holland, or sending young men 
 thither to be educated, but, worse than all, 
 the churches had no power of choosing 
 ministers likely to suit them. Urged by 
 such considerations, the coetus resolved in 
 1754 to propose a change of its constitution 
 to that of a regular classis, and a plan to that 
 effect was transmitted to the congregations 
 for their approval. But the project was 
 opposed by a powerful party, mainly form- 
 ed of those who had been sent over from 
 Holland, and called the Conferentie. Amid 
 the distraction and confusion caused by 
 this opposition of parties, religion made 
 little progress, and many influential fami- 
 lies left the Dutch Church, and joined the 
 Episcopal. 
 
 All difficulties were at length adjusted 
 through the prudent mediation of the late 
 Rev. John H. Livingston, D.D.,* then a 
 young man. Having gone to Holland for 
 the prosecution of his studies, in 1766, the 
 Synod of Holland and Classis of Amster- 
 dam were led by his representations to de- 
 vise a plan, which, after Mr. Livingston's 
 return to America in 1770, was submitted 
 to a meeting held in New- York in October, 
 1771, and attended by nearly all the minis- 
 ters, and by lay delegates from nearly all 
 the congregations. After a full discussion, 
 having been unanimously adopted, it was 
 carried into effect the following year. The 
 whole Church Avas divided into five classes, 
 three in the Province of New-.Tersey, and 
 two in that of New- York ; and a delega- 
 tion of two ministers and two elders from 
 each classis constituted the General Synod, 
 which was to meet once a year. 
 
 * Few men have ever lived in America who have 
 been more u.seful or respected than Dr. John H. Liv- 
 ingston. For many years he was a pastor in New- 
 York city ; but the latter part of his Ufe was spent in 
 New-Brunswick, ni the State of New-.Iersey, where 
 he was professor of theology in the seminary of the 
 Reformed Dutch Church, lie died in the year 1825, 
 revered by all of every denomination who knew him. 
 He has left an abiding impression of his character 
 upon the church of which he was so distinguished 
 an ornament. 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VL 
 
 The prosperity of the Dutch Church, 
 particularly in the city of New-York, was 
 retarded by' another cause, namely, the 
 long-continued opposition to preaching ia 
 English. The Dutch tongue having been 
 gradually disappearing ever since the con- 
 quest of the colony in 1664, many of the 
 youth had grown up almost in utter igno- 
 rance of it, and had gone off to the Epis- 
 copal and Presbyterian churches, especial- 
 ly the former, for the latter had as yet but 
 a merely tolerated and feeble existence. 
 At length the Rev. Dr. Laidlie, a Scotch 
 minister, was invited from Holland, and 
 commenced preaching in English in 1764, 
 from which time Dutch fell still more rap- 
 idly into disuse. The last Dutch sermon, 
 was preached in the collegiate churches in 
 the city of New- York in 1804, though in 
 some of the churches in the country it was 
 used some years longer. But it is now 
 quite abandoned in the pulpit throughout 
 the United States. 
 
 The Revolutionary war, also, proved dis- 
 astrous to the Dutch Church, particularly 
 in the city of New- York. One of the 
 church-edifices there was used as a hospi- 
 tal, another as a cavalry riding-school,, 
 during the occupation of the place by a 
 British force from 1776 to 1783. But with 
 the return of peace, prosperity returned to 
 this as well as other evangelical commu- 
 nions, and it has been steadily advancing 
 ever since. In all the States it had only 
 eighty-two congregations and thirty minis- 
 ters in 1784 ; but the former have now 
 risen to 267, and the latter to 259. The 
 communicants are 29,322.* 
 
 A college was founded by the Reformed 
 Dutch at New-Brunswick, in New-Jersey, 
 in 1770, which, after various vicissitudes, 
 has now been open for many years, and is 
 firmly established and flourishing. It is 
 called Rutger's College. Connected with 
 it there is a theological seminary, with 
 three able professors, and between thirty 
 and forty students. 
 
 The Dutch Church is doing much for 
 Sunday-schools, home missions, and the 
 education of young men for the ministry. 
 It has a society, also, for foreign missions, 
 auxiliary to the American Board of Com- 
 missioners for Foreign Missions, and now 
 maintaining some six or eight missionaries 
 with their wives at two or three stations 
 in Borneo. 
 
 The church is at present organized in a 
 general synod, two particular synods, and 
 nineteen classes. Its standards are those 
 of the Reformed Church of Holland, viz., 
 the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Cat- 
 echism, the Canons of the Synod of Dort, 
 &c. Its doctrines are in all respects purely 
 Calvinistic. From the first it has been 
 
 * Tlie number of families reported as belonging to 
 this denomination in 1843 was 21,569 ; and the num- 
 ber of individuals under its instruction was 96,302. 
 
Chap. XL] 
 
 SMALLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. 
 
 255 
 
 favoured with an able, learned, and godly 
 ministry. In its earlier days the labours 
 of such men as the Rev. Theodorus J. 
 Frelinghuysen, Drs. Laidlie and Westerlo, 
 and others of like character, were greatly 
 blessed. In our own times many of its 
 ministers stand in the first rank among our 
 distinguished American divines, and many 
 of its congregations have enjoyed very 
 precious religious revivals. P^'or the edifi- 
 cation of the people, one of the most in- 
 structive and best-conducted religious pa- 
 pers, called the Christian Intelligencer, is 
 published weekly in the city of New- York. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 8MALLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES : THE AS- 
 SOCIATE CHURCH THE ASSOCIATE REFORMED 
 
 CHURCH AND THE REFORMED PRESBYTERI- 
 AN CHURCH. 
 
 These are often called the " Scottish 
 Secession churches." They were origi- 
 nally established by immigrants from Scot- 
 land and Ireland, and are mainly composed, 
 to this day, of Scotch and Irish immigrants 
 and their descendants. The first and last 
 of the three were, in their origin, branches 
 of similar churches in Scotland, and out of 
 an unsuccessful attempt made in America 
 to unite them sprang the second. 
 
 In the year 1733, as is well known, the 
 Rev. Messrs. Ebenezer Erskine, Alexan- 
 der Moncrieff, William Wilson, and James 
 Fisher, by a protest addressed to the Com- 
 mission of the General Assembly of the 
 Church of Scotland, seceded from the pre- 
 vailing party in the judicatories of that 
 church. The ground of this separation 
 was not a disagreement with the doctrines, 
 order, or discipline of that church, but dis- 
 satisfaction with what the dissenters con- 
 sidered to be an inadequate maintenance 
 of those doctrines, and enforcing of that 
 order and discipline. These seceders, join- 
 ed afterward by many others, organized 
 the Associate* Presbytery, and soon became 
 a numerous and important branch of the 
 kingdom of Christ in Scotland. 
 
 Seventeen years after this secession a 
 number of persons, chiefly Scotch immi- 
 grants, sent a petition from Pennsylvania 
 to the Associate (Antiburgherf) Synod in 
 Scotland, praying that ministers might be 
 sent from that body to break unto them 
 the bread of life. Two ministers were ac- 
 cordingly sent over in 1753 or 1754, with 
 power to form churches, ordain elders, 
 and constitute a presbytery. The labours 
 
 * They took this name from the circumstance of 
 their congregations not lying near each other, and 
 therefore forming an association of churches rather 
 than a territorial presbytery. 
 
 t The Secession became divided into Burghers 
 and Antiburghers, by a controversy on the lawful- 
 ness of what was called the Burgess oath. 
 
 of these brethren were crowned with suc- 
 cess ; several congregations were soon or- 
 ganized, and a presbytery formed in the 
 eastern part of Pennsylvania ; and as oth- 
 er ministers were sent over from Scotland 
 from time to time, there were about eight 
 or ten in all before the breaking out of the 
 Revolution. But in 1782, the presbytery 
 was reduced to the original number of two 
 ministers, in consequence of one or two 
 being deposed, and others joining several 
 ministers of the Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church, or Covenanters, in forming the 
 Associate Reformed Church. 
 
 Notwithstanding these untoward circum- 
 stances, the two ministers, with the congre- 
 gations adhering to them, persevered, and 
 their numbers being speedily recruited from 
 Scotland, such, at last, was their success 
 in training young men among themselves, 
 that in 1801 they had four presbyteries, 
 which that year, by a delegation from theiy 
 ranks, formed the Associate Synod of 
 North America, a body which meets an- 
 nually. The presbyteries have now been 
 quadrupled, I believe, and extend over the 
 Middle, Southern, and Western States. Ac- 
 cording to the most recent statement which 
 I have seen, this denomination has more 
 than one hundred ministers, upward of 
 two hundred churches, most of which are 
 small, and about 15,000 communicants. For 
 a long time the energies of this churchy 
 like those of many others, were directed to 
 the building up of churches in the West 
 and South. Of late years it has turned its 
 attention to the foreign field, and has sent 
 two missionaries to the island of Trinidad. 
 
 They have a theological school, with two 
 able professors and some 20 or 25 students, 
 in connexion with Jefterson College, situa- 
 ted at Canonsburg, in the western part of 
 Pennsylvania, eighteen miles from Pitts- 
 burgh. For their organ they pubhsh a val- 
 uable monthly journal called the " Reli- 
 gious Monitor." The doctrines of the As- 
 sociate Church are thoroughly Calvinistic ; 
 its poUty completely Presbyterian. It has 
 enjoyed the labours of many able ministers. 
 
 This small denomination, like some oth- 
 ers, have been at strife among themselves, 
 which has led to a separation. The lar- 
 ger party ejected the smaller. The eject- 
 ed ministers are fifteen in number, and the 
 members of their churches are estimated 
 at about two thousand. It is not known 
 that there exists any difference in their 
 doctrinal views, and the smaller party have 
 retained their original organization; so that 
 there are now two Associate Synods of 
 North America, as well as two General 
 Assemblies of the Presbyterian ChiU'ch in 
 the United States of America. 
 
 Associate Reformed Church. — This body, 
 as we have seen, owes its existence to an 
 attempt made in 1782 to unite in one body 
 the few Associate and Reformed Presbyte- 
 
256 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 rian churches then to be found in the Uni- 
 ted States. But as the success of the at- 
 tempt was only partial, the coalition being 
 refused by certain members of both church- 
 es, both survive to this day, and thus a proj- 
 ect for merging two denominations in one, 
 resulted in the creation of a third. 
 
 The Associate Reformed Church has 
 rapidly increased. Starting with a small 
 number of ministers and churches in 1782, 
 it has now no fewer than 20 presbyteries 
 and 4 synods ; the one in the State of New- 
 York is the largest. It has a theological 
 seminary at Newburgh in the same state, 
 ■with three professors, and some fifteen or 
 twenty students. The Western Synod has 
 a seminary at AUeghany-town, near Pitts- 
 burgh, with one professor and about twenty 
 students. 
 
 The doctrines of this church are Cal- 
 vinistic, and its polity Presbyterian; points 
 on which it hardly at all differs from the As- 
 sociate and Reformed Presbyterian synods. 
 All three maintain a state of strict isola- 
 tion from other communions, and in their 
 church psalmody confine themselves ex- 
 clusively to Rouse's version of the Psalms 
 of the Bible. They also strenuously con- 
 tinue the custom of having fast and thanks- 
 giving days to precede and follow the ad- 
 ministration of the sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper ; and in the administration of that 
 ordinance, the communicants sit around a 
 table. 
 
 The churches of the Associate Reformed 
 are more than 300, their ministers 165, and 
 their communicants 26,000. About twenty 
 years ago, part of this communion joined 
 the Presbyterian Church, but the greater 
 part preferred maintaining their independ- 
 ent position. They have a considerable 
 number of able ministers. The late Dr. 
 John M. Mason was for the greater part of 
 his life one of their most distinguished 
 members, but he joined, a few years before 
 his death, the Presbyterian Church. The 
 Christian Magazine, a monthly periodical, 
 is published under the auspices of the As- 
 sociate Reformed. 
 
 Each synod has a Domestic Missionary 
 Society, the object of which is to aid small 
 congregations and plant new ones in des- 
 titute places, especially in the Western 
 frontier states. 
 
 In regard to foreign missions, the Asso- 
 ciate Reformed Church acts in concert 
 ■with the Presbyterian Board of the Gener- 
 al Assembly, and contributes to the sup- 
 port of the missionaries sent out by that 
 Board. The monthly concert of prayer is 
 observed in their churches generally, and 
 collections taken at each meeting to aid 
 the cause of missions. 
 
 Reformed Pkesbvterian Church. — Re- 
 formed Presbyterians (or, as they are 
 sometimes called, Covenanters) are the 
 descendants of the persecuted Presbyteri- 
 
 ans in Scotland who refused to accede to 
 the Erastian settlement of religion at the 
 Revolution of 1688, and still maintain a 
 practical dissent from both Church and 
 State on account of existing evils. 
 
 They are distinguished from other Pres- 
 byterians chiefly by their rigid adherence 
 to the whole doctrines of the Westminster 
 Confession of Faith, Catechisms, Larger 
 and Shorter ; to the Scotch Covenants — 
 maintaining that the obligations of the " Na- 
 tional Covenant" and " Solemn League" 
 extend to all represented in the taking of 
 them, though removed to this or any other 
 part of the world, in so far as these cove- 
 nants bind to duties not peculiar to the 
 Church in the British Isles, but are of uni- 
 versal application. They also contend 
 that nations enjoying the light of Divine 
 revelation are bound to frame their gov- 
 ernment according to it ; and where the 
 Bible is known they refuse to swear alle- 
 giance to any system of civil government 
 which does not acknowledge the Lord Je- 
 sus Christ as King, and recognise the Bi- 
 ble as the supreme law^ of the land. 
 
 As early as 1752 some Reformed Pres- 
 byterian congregations had been formed in 
 North America ; but, owing to the defec- 
 tion of some of the ministers, the distance 
 of the congregations from each other, and 
 the troubles connected with the Revolu- 
 tion, the church did not assume a regular 
 organization until, in 1798, the Reformed 
 Presbytery of the United States of North 
 America was constituted, in the city of 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 It may be supposed that the descendants 
 of the followers of " Cargill, Renwick, and 
 Cameron," who had suffered so much in 
 the cause of civil and religious liberty, and 
 who had voluntarily resigned the privilege 
 of citizenship in the land of their nativity, 
 rather than acknowledge the corrupt sys- 
 tem established at the Revolution to be 
 God's ordinance of civil government, would 
 examine carefully the Constitution of their 
 adopted country. They did so, and found 
 (as they believed) evils so great incorpo- 
 rated in that instrument as rendered it 
 necessary for them to refuse allegiance to 
 the whole system. " In this remarkable 
 instrument," say they, " there is contained 
 no acknowledgment of the being or au- 
 thority of God. There is no acknowledg- 
 ment of the Christian religion, or profess- 
 ed submission to the kingdom of Messiah. 
 It gives support to the enemies of the Re- 
 deemer, and admits to its honours and 
 emoluments Jews, Mohammedans, Deists, 
 and Atheists. It establishes that system of 
 robbery by which men are held in slavery, 
 despoiled of liberty, property, and pro- 
 tection. It violates the principles of rep- 
 resentation, by bestowing upon the domes- 
 tic tyrant, who holds hundreds of his fel- 
 low-creatures in bondage, an influence in 
 
Chap. XII.] 
 
 LUTHERAN CHURCH. 
 
 25" 
 
 making laws for freemen proportioned to 
 the number of his own slaves. This Con- 
 stitution is, notwithstanding its numerous 
 •excellences, in many instances inconsist- 
 ent, oppressive, and impious."* Their op- 
 position to the Constitution, however, has 
 been the opposition of reason and piety. 
 The weapons of their warfare are argu- 
 ments and prayers. They consider them- 
 selves bound to live peaceably with men, 
 to advance the good of society, conform 
 to its order in everything consistent with 
 righteousness, and submit to every burden 
 ' which God, in his providence, calls them to 
 bear. During the late war with Great 
 Britain, no portion of the citizens were 
 more forward in defence of the country 
 than Reformed Presbyterians. 
 
 In 1807 they published a doctrinal Tes- 
 timony, containing a brief statement of the 
 principles which they hold, and a testimo- 
 ny against opposing errors, with special 
 reference to the evils existing in the na- 
 tional Constitution, and the constitutions 
 of the churches around them. They con- 
 tinued united in the maintenance of this 
 testimony, neither holding communion 
 •with other churches, nor offices in the 
 State, nor voting at elections for civil of- 
 ficers, nor admitting any slaveholder to 
 their communion till about 1830, when, 
 their number being considerably increased, 
 several ministers began to entertain opin- 
 ions different from those which were for- 
 merly held by the body on several points 
 relating to doctrine, order, and discipline. 
 These men were led to modify their views 
 on the subject of acknowledging the gov- 
 ernment of the country, and avowing alle- 
 giance to it. This introduced what has 
 'been called the New Light controversy, 
 which has since agitated all departments 
 of the Presbyterian family, and resulted 
 in a division of the Synod, and the organi- 
 zation of a rival synod in the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church, which still maintains 
 a separate existence. At present, howev- 
 er, they are endeavouring to form a union 
 with the Associate Presbyterian Church, 
 and their efforts promise success, as the 
 articles of union are nearly concluded. 
 
 This controversy greatly distressed the 
 .church, and so weakened the old Synod 
 that she has not been able to establish any 
 foreign mission. The members of the 
 church generally retained their attach- 
 ment to the subordinate standards, and, in 
 ■ consequence, many congregations were 
 left without pastors. The Theological 
 Seminary for a time suspended its opera- 
 tions, so that labourers for a foreign field 
 could not be obtained ; but home missions, 
 especially in the West, have been prose- 
 cuted with considerable zeal. A more 
 prosperous season has returned. The 
 
 * Historical Testimony, page 152. 
 R 
 
 Theological Seminary in Alleghany Town, 
 Pennsylvania, has been revived. It has 
 two professors. Rev. James R. Willson, 
 D.D., and Rev. Thomas Sproull ; four- 
 teen students were in attendance last ses- 
 sion ; a considerable library for the Semi- 
 nary has been collected, and the Synod pro- 
 poses to establish a mission in 1844, in the 
 VVest Indies, making St. Thomas the cen- 
 tre of operation. There are thirty-three 
 ministers, five licentiates, fifty organized 
 congregations, with numerous small so- 
 cieties, and nearly 6000 communicants. 
 With this Synod the Reformed Presbyte- 
 rian Synods in Scotland and Ireland main- 
 tain fraternal intercourse. 
 
 On the other hand, the New Synod has 
 now twenty-four ordained ministers, five 
 licentiates, eight students in theology, for- 
 ty-four organized churches, and 4500 com- 
 municants. It has five presbyteries, and 
 sustains, in connexion with the Board of 
 Foreign Missions of the Old School Gen- 
 eral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 
 two missionaries in India. Besides sup- 
 porting these two missionaries, the Board 
 of Missions of this Synod sustains a school 
 containing twenty-eight children, in con- 
 nexion with their Indian mission. They 
 have been active, also, in prosecuting the 
 work of domestic missions, and, thus, of 
 building up churches in the West and other 
 parts of the country. The receipts of their 
 Board of Missions average about $2800 
 annually. 
 
 The entire body of the Reformed Pres- 
 byterians in the United States embraces, 
 therefore, fifty-seven ordained ministers, 
 ten licentiates, about twenty students of 
 theology, ninety- four organized congrega- 
 tions, and 10,500 communicants. 
 
 This small body has not been deficient 
 in men distinguished for ministerial gifts 
 and extensive learning. The late Alex- 
 ander M'Leod, D.D., ranked in his day with 
 Mason, Grifl[in, Dwight, and other giants 
 of the land. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SMALLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES : THE LU- 
 THERAN CHURCH. 
 
 The first Lutherans that emigrated to 
 America came from Holland, and settled 
 at New- York about the year 1626, that is, 
 two years after the regular settlement of 
 New Netherlands by the Dutch. But they 
 were few in number, and as long as the 
 Dutch held the country, they worshipped 
 in private houses only. But on the col- 
 ony being transferred to the English, in 
 1664, they obtained leave to open a place 
 of public worship, and had for their first 
 minister Jacob Fabricius, who arrived in 
 1669. 
 
258 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI, 
 
 Next among the Lutherans came the 
 Swedish colony that settled on the Dela- 
 ware in 1636. It flourished for a while, 
 but receiving no new-comers from Swe- 
 den, the colonists gradually fell into the 
 use of the English tongue, and as there 
 were no Lutheran clergymen who could 
 preach in English, on losing their Swedish 
 pastors they went to the English Episco- 
 pal Church for religious teachers, and be- 
 came ultimately merged in that denomi- 
 nation. Nevertheless, by their charter 
 they are still styled Swedish Lutheran 
 churches.* 
 
 The third Lutheran emigration to the 
 United States was that of the Germans. 
 The first settlements were in Pennsylva- 
 nia, soon after the grant of that province 
 to William Penn, in 1680, whence they 
 spread, by degrees, not only through Penn- 
 sylvania, but also into Maryland, Virginia, 
 the interior of New- York, and, since the 
 Revolution, over the Western States. Em- 
 igration from Germany may be said to have 
 fairly commenced on a large scale in 1710. 
 Its primary cause lay in the persecution 
 of the Protestants in the Palatinate. It 
 has continued from that time to this day, 
 adding tens of thousands almost every 
 year to the population of the country. The 
 western, northern, and southern parts of 
 Germany, and the German parts of Swit- 
 zerland, together with Alsace, iu France, 
 have, from first to last, sent immense mul- 
 titudes to America in quest of homes. 
 
 The first emigrants brought no pastors 
 with them, but they had pious schoolmas- 
 ters who held meetings on the Sabbath, 
 and read the Scriptures, Arndt's True 
 Christianity, and other religious books. 
 The Swedish ministers, too, of those early 
 times visited the small scattered groups of 
 faithful souls, and administered to them 
 the ordinances of religion. 
 
 Among the first German ministers in 
 America were the Rev. Messrs. Bolzius 
 and Gronau, who laboured in a colony 
 from Saltzburg, in the south of Germany. 
 These emigrants had been driven from 
 their native country by persecution, and 
 had settled in Georgia. Other emigrants 
 from Germany settled about the same time 
 in the Carolinas, where a considerable 
 number of Lutheran churches are to be 
 found at this day. In 1742, the Rev. Hen- 
 ry Melchior Muhlenberg, an eminently 
 learned, zealous, and successful minister, 
 arrived, and, during a course of fifty years, 
 was the honoured instrument of greatly 
 promoting religion among the German pop- 
 ulation. He was one of the founders, in 
 fact, of the Lutheran Church in America, 
 which, by repeated arrivals of other dis- 
 tinguished men from Germany, had be- 
 come widely exte nded before the com- 
 
 ♦ " Annals of the Swedes on the Delaware," by 
 the Rev. J. G. Clay, p. 3, 4, 161, &c. 
 
 mencement of the Revolutionary war. But . 
 it, as well as other churches, suffered much 
 from that war. Many of the German col- 
 onists took up arms in defence of their'' 
 adopted country. The early wars with 
 the Indians, also, proved very prejudicial 
 to the Lutheran churches on the frontiers. 
 The rapid progress made by this Church 
 since the Revolution, and particularly since 
 the constitution of its General Synod in 
 1820, may be seen from the following suc- 
 cinct summary, taken from the Lutheran 
 Almanac for 1843, and fully to be relied on. 
 
 The number of Ministers and Licentiates is 423 
 
 Congregations 1,371 
 
 Communicants 146,303 
 
 Besides one General Synod, there are 
 nineteen District Synods, twelve of which 
 are united with the General Synod. There 
 are four theological seminaries, one col- 
 lege, and four classical schools, one or- 
 phan house, an education society, a for- 
 eign missionary society, and a book es- 
 tabli.shment. During the year 1841, the 
 Lutheran ministry received an accession 
 of fifty-eight new members ; 9022 new 
 members were added to the churches by 
 confirmation, and 9000 by emigration : — 
 17,776 children and adults were baptized.. 
 Three new synods were formed in 1841, 
 seventy-six new churches built, and eigh- 
 ty-eight new congregations organized. 
 
 These results do, indeed, call for heart- 
 felt thanks to the Giver of all good. I 
 know not a single circumstance more 
 promising in regard to true religion ia 
 America, than its rapid progress among 
 the vast German population of the United 
 States, as exhibited in the Lutheran and 
 German Reformed Churches. Wonderful, 
 indeed, has been the change during the 
 last twenty years. 
 
 The establishment of Pennsylvania Col- 
 lege, at Gettysburg, under the auspices of 
 the General Synod, has been a great bless- 
 ing. This college, which has been liber- 
 ally assisted by the Legislature of Penn- 
 sylvania, and receives $1000 a year from 
 that state, has a president, five able pro- 
 fessors, and about 150 students. The Gen- 
 eral Synod's theological seminary, which, 
 also, is placed at Gettysburg, has three 
 distinguished professors, and usually from 
 twenty-five to thirty students. It began 
 in 1826, with one professor, the Rev. Sam- 
 uel S. Schmucker, D.D., to whom, under 
 God, it mainly owes its existence; since 
 which time it has educated upward of 
 150 young men for the ministry. The in- 
 stitution is most pleasantly situated, and 
 has a well-selected library, great part of 
 which, together with a considerable amount 
 of funds for the founding of the seminary, 
 was obtained in Germany through the ef- 
 forts of the Rev. Benjamin Kurtz, D.D. 
 The Lutherans have three other theological 
 schools, one at Hartwick, in New-York, 
 
ckx-p: XII.] 
 
 LUTHERAN CHURCH. 
 
 another at Lexington, in South Carolina, 
 and a third at Columbus, Ohio. Sixty-one 
 young men were prosecuting their studies 
 at these in 1841, and 115 more were en- 
 gaged in preparatory studies at academies 
 and colleges. These simple facts exhibit 
 an extraordinary change in the state of this 
 church from what it was twenty-five years 
 ago. 
 
 Among its distinguished men we may 
 mention the Rev. Messrs. Bolzius, Gronau, 
 H. M. Muhlenburg, Kunze, Schmidt, Kurtz, 
 another Muhlenburg, Helmuth, Melshei- 
 mer, Lochman, Schaeffer, Shober, Geissen- 
 hainer, Schmucker (father of the profes- 
 sor), all men of great influence in their 
 day. Several of its living ministers, also, 
 are men of acknowledged talents, learn- 
 ing, piety, and usefulness. Many of the 
 earlier ministers were educated at Franke's 
 Institute at Halle, which, indeed, may be 
 regarded as the mother of the Lutheran 
 Church throughout a large part of the Uni- 
 ted States.* 
 
 The same doctrines are held as in the 
 evangelical Lutheran churches in the vari- 
 ous countries of Europe, with some differ- 
 ences which we shall presently notice. 
 They comprehend the following points : 
 " The Trinity of persons in one Godhead ;" 
 " the proper and eternal divinity of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ;" "the universal de 
 pravity of our race ;" " the vicarious na- 
 ture and unlimited extent of the atone- 
 ment ;" " that men are justified gratuitous- 
 ly, for Christ's sake, through faith ;" " the 
 vv^ord and sacraments means of grace ;" 
 " a future judgment, and the award of eter- 
 nal life and happiness to the righteous, and 
 eternal misery to the wicked." On the sub- 
 ject of election, predestination, &c., they 
 are well known to be rather Arminian than 
 Calvinistic. 
 
 The Lutheran Church in America has a 
 short but excellent liturgy, while her min- 
 isters are at the same time allowed a dis- 
 cretionary power with regard to ks use. 
 It observes a few of the chief festivals, 
 such as Christmas, Good Friday, Easter 
 Sunday, Ascension Day, and Whitsunday. 
 Like the Episcopal and the German Re- 
 formed churches, it administers the rite of 
 confirmation to baptized persons after their 
 arriving at years of discretion, and going 
 through a course of catechetical and bibli- 
 cal instruction. 
 
 It deserves notice that the Lutheran 
 Church in the United States, as those 
 who are intimately acquainted with it will 
 acknowledge, difi'ers from what it once 
 was, and from some of its sister churches 
 in Europe, in regard to a few such points 
 
 * Nor have the churches in America ceased to 
 feel a warm interest in the Alma Mater of so many 
 of their pastors. When she suffered so much from 
 the French in 1814, collections were promptly made 
 l)y them, and forwarded to the amount of $2334. 
 
 as the following : First, it entirely rejects the 
 authority of the fathers in ecclesiastical contro- 
 versy. The Reformers relied too much 
 upon them. Secondly, it no longer re- 
 quires assent to the doctrine of the real or 
 bodily presence of the Saviour in the Eucha- 
 rist. In other words, it has renounced the 
 doctrine of consubstantiation, and holds 
 that of our Lord's spiritual presence, as 
 understood by other evangelical Protest- 
 ants. Again, it has rejected the remnant of 
 private confession which it at first retained. 
 Fourth, it has abolished the remains of Pa- 
 pal superstition in the abjuration of evil 
 spirits at baptism. Fifth, it has made a 
 more systematic adjustment of its doc- 
 trines. Sixth, it has adopted a more reg- 
 ular and a stricter system of church disci- 
 pline. This, as respects individual church- 
 es, is essentially Presbyterian. The Syn- 
 ods, in their organization and powers, re- 
 semble Presbyteries, but with fewer for- 
 malities, and their de<^isions are couched 
 more in the form of recommendations ; 
 while the General Synod is altogether ad- 
 visory, and resembles the General Asso- 
 ciations of the Congregational churches 
 of New-England. Conferences of sever- 
 al neighbouring ministers, and protracted 
 meetings, are held, with preaching, for the 
 benefit of their congregations. And, lastly, 
 its ministers are no longer bound to all the 
 minute points of an extended human creed. 
 All that is required of them is a belief in 
 the Bible, and in the Augsburg Confession 
 as a substantially correct expression of 
 Bible doctrines. The American Lutheran 
 Church thinks that a written creed should 
 be short, comprehending, like that of the 
 apostles, which was for a long time the 
 only creed in the primitive churches, the 
 doctrines necessary to salvation. So much 
 for its doctrines, order, and discipline.* 
 
 I have only to add, that this church 
 takes a deep and increasing interest every 
 year in the religious and benevolent un- 
 dertakings of our times. Sunday-schools 
 and Bible-classes are very generally to 
 be found in her congregations. She has 
 had an Education Society, with numerous 
 branches, since 1835, which has assisted 
 above 100 young men in preparing for the 
 ministry. We shall speak hereafter of her 
 Foreign Missionary Society, founded in 
 1837. Finally, two valuable religious pa- 
 pers, one in English, and the other in Ger- 
 man, extensively diffuse among the peo- 
 ple intelligence relating to the progress of 
 the Redeemer's kingdom on the earth. 
 
 * In making this statement, I have been greatly 
 indebted to Professor Schmucker's *' Portraiture of 
 Lutheranism," and his " Retrospect of Lutheranism 
 in the United States," both published at the request 
 of the General Synod of the Church. 
 
260 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SMALLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES : THE GER- 
 MAN REFORMED CHURCH. 
 
 This offshoot from the Church, bearing 
 the same name in Germany, is, Uke it, 
 Presbyterian in its government, and Cal- 
 vinistic in its doctrinal standards. 
 
 The " Reformed" being mingled with 
 the Lutherans in the early German emi- 
 grations, societies of the former soon ap- 
 peared, particularly in Pennsylvania, and 
 spread, ere long, to the south and west of 
 that province. These, though long exist- 
 ing apart, were at last united in 1746, by 
 the Rev. Mr. Schlatter, who, having been 
 sent from Europe for the purpose, suc- 
 ceeded in giving a better organization as 
 well as more union to their churches. 
 Th6ir increase since has given them an 
 important place among American Presby- 
 terians. 
 
 It is a singular fact, that the first mission- 
 aries to the German Reformed in Ameri- 
 ca were sent out by the Classis of Am- 
 sterdam and the Synod of North Holland, 
 through which channel their churches con- 
 tinued to receive their ministerial supplies, 
 and to which they were kept, down to the 
 year 1792, in the same subordination as 
 the Dutch churches in America used to 
 be. Mr. Schlatter, the pioneer in this 
 good cause, was soon followed by other 
 men sent over by the said classis and 
 synod.* 
 
 The dependance of the Reformed Ger- 
 man Church in the United States on the 
 Dutch Church in Europe was brought to 
 a close in 1792, in consequence of the dif- 
 ficulty of maintaining the previous rela- 
 tions of America with Holland after the 
 conquest of the latter by the French. An 
 independent constitution was according- 
 ly adopted, constituting a Synod, consist- 
 ing of clerical and lay delegates ; but it 
 was not until 1819 that the synod was di- 
 vided into classes or presbyteries, and 
 based upon a representation of the classes 
 by clerical and lay delegates. The church 
 being now left to its own resources, the 
 training of young men for the ministry 
 was for many years intrusted to such pa.s- 
 tors as were willing to receive students 
 of theology into their famihes ; still the 
 want of proper institutions for that pur- 
 pose was deeply felt. At length, in 1824, 
 the synod resolved that they would have 
 a theological seminary, and this resolution 
 took effect the following year, by the open- 
 ing of an institution at Carlisle, a pleasant 
 town in Central Pennsylvania. Dr. Mayer 
 was appointed the first professor, and con- 
 tinued in the discharge of that office until 
 1839, when his resignation was tendered 
 
 * Among these were Weiber, Steiner, Otterbein, 
 Hendel, Helfenstein, Helfrich, Gebbard, Dallicker, 
 Bluuier, Faber, Becker, and Herman. 
 
 and accepted. During this period the sem- 
 inary was removed from Carlisle to York, 
 and from that to Mercersburg in the same 
 state, about fifty miles from Carlisle, and 
 there it is now permanently established. 
 Marshall College was opened in connex- 
 ion with it in 1837, and the Rev. Dr. Ranch, 
 who had been president of the preparatory 
 department of the seminary at York, was 
 chosen president. Under that distinguish- 
 ed scholar and excellent minister it soon 
 enjoyed an enviable reputation ; but in the 
 spring of 1840 the church was called to 
 lament his premature decease. The pres- 
 ent theological professor. Dr. Nevin, is a 
 man of distinguished abilities and deep pi- 
 ety. There are about twenty-five students 
 of theology, and the academical classes 
 have an attendance of from eighty to 100 
 youths. 
 
 The German Reformed Church seems 
 to have experienced a crisis in 1841, that 
 year having been appointed to be celebra- 
 ted as a centenary jubilee for all its con- 
 gregations. A century having elapsed 
 since its first organization in America, 
 such an acknowledgment of God's mer- 
 cies was deemed eminently becoming; and 
 that the occasion might be turned to the 
 best account, it was resolved that an ef- 
 fort should be made to raise sufficient funds 
 for the endowment of the seminary and 
 college at Mercersburg. The result must 
 have fully realized the expectations of 
 the church's most sanguine friends, for at 
 a late meeting of its synod upward of 
 80,000 dollars were ascertained to have 
 been subscribed, and to a large amount 
 actually collected, while the contributions 
 of more than half of the congregations had 
 yet to be reported. Assurances have since 
 been received that more than 100,000 dol- 
 lars, the amount originally specified, will 
 be obtained. 
 
 The field which this church has to oc- 
 cupy is very extensive. Besides the large 
 German population in the Atlantic States, 
 the Great West — the Valley of the Mis- 
 sissippi — over which German immigrants 
 are now settling in vast numbers, cries 
 to this and to the Lutheran Church for 
 help ; and it is hoped that in a few years a 
 host of labourers from both will be raised 
 up for the harvest, which is ripe for the 
 sickle. 
 
 The German Reformed Synod has now 
 in its connexion about 180 ministers, dis- 
 tributed thus : 112 in Pennsylvania; thir- 
 ty-seven in Ohio ; three in Indiana and 
 Illinois ; ten in Maryland ; ten in Virginia 
 and North Carolina ; and three in New- 
 York. It is supposed to have about 600 
 congregations, and from 75,000 to 100,000 
 communicants. It may be said with truth 
 that its congregations are rapidly increas- 
 ing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and 
 from present indications, we hail the period 
 
Chap. XIV.] 
 
 SMALLER GERMAN SECTS. 
 
 261 
 
 as not far distant when, instead of being 
 reckoned, as they have long been, among 
 the least of the tribes of Israel, they will 
 be found occupying a place in the very 
 van of the sacramental host of the Lord. 
 In home missionary, educational, and for- 
 eign missionary efforts, they are taking a 
 deeper and deeper interest every year, 
 uniting with the Congregational and New 
 School Presbyterian churches in support- 
 ing the American Home Missionary Soci- 
 ety, the American Education Society, and 
 the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SMALLER GERMAN SECTS. 
 
 There are some smaller bodies of Ger- 
 man Christians in the United States, which 
 may be classed, though not, perhaps, in 
 all cases without qualification, among the 
 evangelical denominations. The Moravi- 
 ans might have been placed here, but we 
 have ^ut them in a separate chapter, part- 
 ly because they are Episcopal, partly be- 
 cause they are no longer purely German 
 either in blood or language. 
 
 First, then, there is a body called the 
 '• United Brethren in Christ." This is a 
 Methodist sect, which began to rise as 
 early as 1770, and gradually attained an 
 organization in the year 1800. The found- 
 ers of it were the Rev. Messrs. Otterbein, 
 Boehm, Geeting, and other German min- 
 isters, who had once belonged to the Ger- 
 man Reformed, the Mennonists, and the 
 Lutherans. Their first Annual Conference 
 was held in the year 1800. From that 
 epoch this denomination has continued to 
 increase among the Germans and German 
 descendants in Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
 Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and other portions 
 of the Union, until they have at present 
 one General Conference (which meets once 
 in four years), nine Annual Conferences, 
 four bishops, six hundred ministers, of 
 whom 250 are itinerant, and 350 are lo- 
 cal preachers. The number of places, 
 churches, schoolhouses, private houses, 
 etc., where they preach, is supposed to ex- 
 ceed two thousand. Many of their congre- 
 gations are small. The number of their 
 members or communicants is reported to 
 be more than 50,000. 
 
 This body, which is in all essential 
 points the same, as it regards doctrines 
 and modes of worship, as the Episcopal 
 Methodist Church, has been becoming 
 more thoroughly organized from the first. 
 Within a few years successful efforts have 
 been made to introduce discipline and or- 
 der into their churches, and to require from 
 the preachers regular and accurate reports 
 of the number of communicants, etc. This 
 
 attained a good degree of organization and 
 efficiency. 
 
 2. The "Evangelical Association." This 
 denomination, also a sect of German Me- 
 thodists, was founded in the year 1800. 
 The founder was the Rev. Jacob Albright. 
 His associates were the Rev. John Walker, 
 George Miller, and others. With regard 
 to doctrine and church government, there 
 is some similarity with the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church. This Association has at 
 present two bishops and four annual con- 
 ferences, viz., those of East and West 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois. It also 
 has churches and stations in Maryland, 
 Virginia, New- York, Indiana, Missouri, and 
 the Territory of Iowa. The annual con- 
 ferences embrace districts, circuits, sta- 
 tions, and missions. There is a General 
 Conference, which meets once in four 
 years. This body has at present about 
 112 travelhng, and nearly 200 local minis- 
 ters. The number of places of public wor- 
 ship, including churches, schoolhouses, 
 and private houses, is about 900 ; and the 
 number of communicants is about 14,000. 
 
 3. The Winebrennarians, a sect of Ger- 
 man Baptists, so called from their founder 
 being a Mr. Winebrenner, a pious and 
 zealous German, who lives at Harrisburg, 
 Pennsylvania, where his followers are 
 chiefly found. They form several congre- 
 gations, and are said to be quite evangeli- 
 cal in their doctrines, and, as a body, irre- 
 proachable in their lives. Their minis- 
 ters, though not well informed, have the 
 reputation of being devoted, laborious, and 
 useful men. Winebrenner seems to have 
 commenced his labours among the Ger- 
 mans very much in the spirit and with the 
 aim of Hans Houga in Norway. 
 
 4. The Mennonists have some churches, 
 but the most of their little congregations 
 meet in private houses ; they probably 
 have about 50 or 60 preachers, and perhaps 
 some 200 small congregations.* They 
 are an amiable, and, in the main, evangeh- 
 cal people, yet rendered somewhat luke- 
 warm, it is to be feared, by their worldly 
 prosperity. They are, for the most part, de- 
 scended from Mennonist immigrants from 
 Holland and Germany. Their confession 
 of faith, as stated by one of their minis- 
 ters, Mr. Gan, of Ryswick, in Holland, ap- 
 pears to be moderate orthodoxy.f They 
 reject infant baptism, but though their 
 founder, Simon Menno, maintained that 
 baptism should be by immersion, they do 
 not deem it indispensable. On the contra- 
 
 * The Mennonists meet for their worship in pri- 
 vate houses oftener than in church edifices. Their 
 congregations are very small, and for a long time 
 scarcely existed out of Pennsylvania. 
 
 t I fear that their orthodoxy is less unequivocal 
 and general than it was sixty or eighty years ago. 
 They are opposed to the use of the words Person 
 
 i^^u^ . „ii J u ^u ^ .1 ■ ' , ^ , — 3nd TmiiVi/, when speaking of the Father, Son, and 
 
 looks well, and shows that this body has ' Holy Ghost. *' e 
 
262 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 ry, they sprinkle, or, rather, pour water 
 upon the head of the candidate, after which 
 follow the imposition of hands and prayer. 
 They have no order of preachers, but eve- 
 ry one in their assembly has the liberty to 
 speak, to expound the Scriptures, to sing, 
 and to pray. 
 
 The Mennonists of Holland, as is well 
 known, claim to be descended in the main 
 from those Waldenses who, towards the 
 close of the twelfth century, emigrated in 
 great numbers to that country. If this be 
 so, then the Mennonists in America have 
 in their veins the blood of those wonder- 
 ful survivers of long ages of persecution 
 and oppression. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SMALLER METHODIST DENOMINATIONS. 
 
 Secessions of greater or less magnitude 
 have detached themselves from time to 
 time, and glided off like avalanches from 
 the Mount Zion of the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church, not, however, so as to dimin- 
 ish its grandeur, or change its physiogno- 
 my ; but most of them sooner or later 
 melted away to nothing. 
 
 The first that occurred was that of the 
 Rev. William Hammet, of Charleston, 
 South Carolina, in 1785. His followers 
 took the name of Primitive Methodists. 
 The second was that of the Rev. James 
 O'Kelly, in Virginia, about 1792. His fol- 
 lowers called themselves Republican Meth- 
 odists. This was by far the more serious 
 of the two, but both soon and forever dis- 
 appeared from the scene. 
 
 In the year 1816, about 1000 of the peo- 
 ple of colour in the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church at Philadelphia, headed by a Mr. 
 Richard Allen, seceded from the main 
 body. Allen was a man of considerable 
 talent, who, from having been once a slave 
 in one of the Southern States, besides pro- 
 curing his freedom, had acquired a hand- 
 some property, and becoming a preacher 
 in the Methodist connexion, rose to be or- 
 dained an elder. After his secession he 
 was ordained a bishop at the first General 
 Conference of his followers, by prayer and 
 the imposition of hands by five local el- 
 ders, of whom one was a presbyter in the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. What the 
 number of ministers in this small com- 
 munion may be I know not. Since the 
 death of Alien, instead of a bishop it has 
 two superintendents. 
 
 Another secession of coloured members 
 took place at New-York in 1819, and it has 
 now several congregations of people of 
 colour in New-Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode 
 Island, and Massachusetts. Three years 
 ago they had twenty-one circuits, thirty- 
 two preachers, and 2608 communicants. 
 They are beUeved to have adhered to the 
 
 doctrines and polity of the body from 
 which they seceded, their dissatisfaction ' 
 with which arose from their preachers not 
 being admitted into the itineracy, and, 
 consequently, having no share in the gov- 
 ernment of the church, nor a right to re- 
 ceive salaries, being only local preachers. 
 
 There were one or two other secessions 
 a little later, one of which was headed by 
 the Rev. Mr. Stillwell, in the city of New- 
 York, by which the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church lost a few of its congregations, but 
 they were not of such consequence as to 
 call for special notice. But it .sustained 
 a far more serious loss in 1828, when a 
 considerable number of preachers, chiefly 
 local, and of lay members, withdrew from 
 it at Baltimore, and in other parts of the 
 country. As this secession has resulted 
 in the formation of a new communion, 
 which promises to be permanent, it calls 
 for farther notice. 
 
 In what was said of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, the reader will have re- 
 marked that its constitution lodges the su- 
 preme power, legislative, judicial, and ex- 
 ecutive, in the itinerating ministers. They 
 alone compose the Yearly and General 
 Conferences. But, to two classes of the 
 members, this has been felt to be oppres- 
 sive. First, to the local preachers, who, 
 although they may be ordained ministers, 
 can have no voice in the government of 
 the church. Nay, ministers who may have 
 been for years in the itinerating service, 
 the moment that, from sickness, duty to 
 their families, insufficient support, or any 
 other cause, they leave that service, have 
 no longer any voice in the aflfairs of that 
 church. Next, there were laymen who 
 thought that the laity ought to be repre- 
 sented in the church courts ; that is, 
 should be admitted to the Annual and Gen- 
 eral Conferences. 
 
 This dissatisfaction began to assume a 
 more decided character about the year 
 1820. A journal having been established 
 for the purpose of advocating what were 
 called " equal rights," this led to the send- 
 ing up of numerous petitions to the Gen- 
 eral Conference held in 1824. These be- 
 ing unfavourably received, much excite- 
 ment and discussion followed. The party 
 that wanted reform urged their demands 
 with more eagerness, and, consequently, 
 some suspensions from church privileges 
 took place in Baltimore and elsewhere. 
 Such was tlie state of matters when the 
 General Conference met in 1828 ; failing 
 in obtaining redress from which, they who 
 thought tliemselves aggrieved seceded, and 
 formed a new body, under the title of the 
 Protestant Methodist Church in the 
 United States. In taking this step they 
 have made no change in their doctrines, 
 nor any imiovations in church polity, be- 
 yond what they had unsuccessfully peti- 
 
Chap. XVI] 
 
 FRIENDS, OR QUAKERS. 
 
 263 
 
 tioned for — the admission of lay represent- 
 atives and of the local preachers to the 
 government of the church. They have 
 also ceased to have bishops, all ordination 
 among them being now confined to the im- 
 position of hands by presbyters. Their 
 General Conference meets once in four 
 years, like that from which they seceded. 
 
 This body has one general and twenty- 
 two yearly conferences, 1200 travelling 
 and local preachers, 60,000 communicants, 
 and 500 places of worship. Its General 
 Conference has instituted a Board of Do- 
 mestic and Foreign Missions, as also a 
 Book Concern, which has its headquar- 
 ters in Baltimore. There are four reli- 
 gious newspapers, also, published under its 
 auspices. Its churches are to be found in 
 all parts of the country, but particularly 
 in the Middle, Northern, and Western 
 States. 
 
 Calvinistic Methodists — a small Welsh 
 communion, consisting of twenty churches 
 and as many pastors. They are an evan- 
 gelical and zealous body, and as it is only 
 a few years since the greater part of them 
 came to America, they still use the Welsh 
 language in their public worship and in 
 their families. Though found in several 
 states, they are most numerous, I believe, 
 in New-York.* 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE FRIENDS, OB QUAKERS. 
 
 This religious community first appeared 
 in England towards the middle of the sev- 
 enteenth century, and had an early share 
 in the colonization of the United States. 
 We have seen that its reputed founder and 
 
 * The number of national churches among the 
 Welsh emigrants and their descendants m the Uni- 
 ted States is far greater than is commonly supposed. 
 From a statement which has been kindly furnished 
 me while this work has been going through the press, 
 by the Rev. Jonathan J. Jones, pastor of a Welsh 
 Presbyterian church in the city of New-York, I 
 learn that there are, besides the Calvinistic Metho- 
 dist churches mentioned above, no less than 38 Con- 
 gregational churches, 12 Baptist, 2 Presbyterian, 3 
 Episcopal, and 3 Wesleyan Methodist. The statis- 
 tics of twenty of these churches show about 2640 
 communicants, 8050 members of congregations, and 
 from 630 to 1030 dollars contributed annually to 
 spread the knowledge of the Gospel. With the ex- 
 ception of the Calvinistic Methodists and the Pres- 
 byterians, the Welsh churches are included in the 
 estimate which is made of the denominations whose 
 name they bear. For instance, the Welsh Baptists 
 come in under the head of the Regular Baptists ; the 
 Welsh Congregationalists are included in the state- 
 ment which 1 have made respecting the Congrega- 
 tional body. Of the names of forty-one of the pas- 
 tors of the churches mentioned in the statement 
 furnished by Mr. Jones, seven are Jones, seven are 
 Williams, three are Powells, three are Evans; and 
 among the others we find those of Griffiths, Roberts, 
 Lewis, Morris, Edwards, Richards, Powell, Davis, 
 Morgan, Owen, Philips, Jenkins, and others which 
 are purely Welsh. 
 
 first preacher, George Fox, visited several 
 of the Southern provinces, and announced 
 his message, as he himself relates, to a 
 " willing people." But the proselytes to 
 his peaceful doctrines, especially if they 
 attempted to propagate them, encountered 
 violent persecution almost everywhere, and 
 although they were from the first protected 
 in Rhode Island, and did at length obtain 
 toleration in the South, they never made 
 much progress until, through the influence 
 and exertions of William Penn, they ob- 
 tained an asylum, first in New-Jersey, and 
 afterward in Pennsylvania, towards the 
 close of that century. 
 
 They are now supposed to have about 
 500 congregations in the United States, and 
 are chiefly settled in the southeastern part 
 of Pennsylvania, in New-Jersey, New- 
 York, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Virgin- 
 ia, though some may be found in all the 
 States. In Philadelphia alone they have 
 six or eight large congregations or " meet- 
 ings." 
 
 It is far from easy to make out what 
 were the doctrines really held by George 
 Fox, and some of the other early Friends, 
 or Quakers, as they are more commonly 
 called. They spoke so much about the 
 " light within," and the '' Christ in the 
 heart," and so little about the proper di- 
 vinity of Jesus Christ, the inspiration and 
 divine authority of the Scriptures, &c., 
 that good men of that day much doubted 
 how far they held the saving truths of the 
 Gospel. But the subsequent writings of 
 Penn, Barclay, and others, to whom may 
 be added many excellent authors of the 
 present day, make it certain that a decided 
 majority of well-informed Friends have 
 been sound in " the faith that saves." 
 
 But within the last fifteen years a deplo- 
 rable schism has taken place. Doctrines 
 of the most dangerous character, imbody- 
 ing, in fact, a kind of fanatical deism, hav- 
 ing been widely disseminated by the preach- 
 ing and writings of the late Elias Hicks, of 
 Long Island, New- York, who was one of 
 their ministers, they separated into two 
 quite distinct bodies, each maintaining that 
 it held the doctrines of the original Qua- 
 kers.* One party is called the Orthodox, 
 the other the Hicksites, from the name of 
 their leader, or, rather, founder. Their rel- 
 ative numbers are not exactly known, but 
 the Orthodox are supposed to be fully three 
 
 * The highest law court in New-Jersey decided a 
 few years ago, in a suit respecting property held by 
 one of the "Quarterly Meetings" in that state, that the 
 so-called Orthodox Quakers are the true successors 
 of the founders of the denomination ; in other words, 
 hold the true doctrines of the people called Friends. 
 This decision was formed after a long and very 
 thorough investigation of the subject, conducted by 
 a master in chancery, who was employed during 
 several months in taking the testimony of distin- 
 guished Friends as to what were the doctrines of the 
 society. 
 
264 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book. VI. 
 
 fifths of the whole, or to have 300 congre- 
 gations. 
 
 The peculiarities of the Friends, in re- 
 spect to plainness of dress, refusing to un- 
 cover the head as a mark of respect to 
 their fellow-men, whatever be their station, 
 rank, or office, the use of the singular thou 
 and thee instead of the plural you in all ca- 
 ses where custom has sanctioned the su- 
 perseding of the former by the latter, their 
 refusing to take an oath, and to bear arms, 
 are too well known to require remark. 
 
 They have no " hireling ministry," and 
 think it wrong to educate men for that of- 
 fice, maintaining that those only should be 
 suffered to preach who are moved from time 
 to time by the Spirit to deliver a message 
 from God. All remain perfectly silent at 
 their meetings, unless some one feels thus 
 moved to speak for the edification of those 
 present, or to pray. In almost every con- 
 gregation there are members who, from 
 being often moved to speak, are called 
 " preachers," and they may be of either 
 sex. Some, too, think that the Spirit 
 moves them to travel about for the purpose 
 of visiting and preaching. But these, be- 
 fore receiving authority to proceed on such 
 missions, must first be approved by the 
 Monthly and Quarterly Meetings to which 
 they belong. Though they have no sala- 
 ries, provision is made, when required, for 
 the support of them and their families by 
 presents from richer Friends. The super- 
 vision of the churches is vested in the 
 monthly meetings, composed of all the 
 congregations within a convenient distance 
 from each other ; the Quarterly Meetings, 
 which comprise all within a larger circle ; 
 and the Yearly Meetings, including all with- 
 in one or more of the States, and of which, 
 we believe, there are eight. 
 
 The Friends have a Tract Society, a 
 Bible Society, and some Sunday-schools. 
 They have made some attempts, also, but 
 
 I 
 
 to no great extent, to bring the Indian tribes 
 to the knowledge of the Gospel. 
 
 The characteristic traits of this peace- 
 loving people are the same in the United 
 States as in England and elsewhere — fru- 
 gality, simplicity of manners, strictness of 
 morals, care for the poor of their society, 
 and abhorrence of oppression in every 
 form. This may be emphatically said of 
 the Orthodox. Of the Hicksites, who, in 
 my opinion, have departed fundamentally 
 from the Gospel, it is to be feared that a far 
 less favourable account will yet have to be 
 given. The substantial orthodoxy of Will- 
 iam Penn, and many others of the same 
 school, has produced good fruits, whieh 
 never can be looked for from the delusions 
 of Elias Hicks. 
 
 So far from rapidly increasing in Amer- 
 ica, I rather think that the Friends are 
 stationary, if not positively declining, in 
 point of numbers. The too frequent neg- 
 lect of the religious education of their 
 children, together with the rejection of the 
 outward administration of Baptism and the 
 Lord's Supper, must ever prevent them, in 
 my opinion, from enjoying great or con- 
 tinued prosperity as a church. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE SU.MMARY. 
 
 We have now completed our notices of 
 the various evangelical churches or denom- 
 inations in the United States ; and to assist 
 the reader in taking a general view of the 
 whole, we shall place them before his eye 
 at once in a tabular form. In doing this, 
 we shall first arrange them in the order in 
 which we have already passed them under 
 our review, that of their successive ap- 
 pearance in America. We shall then re- 
 arrange them under various heads, such as 
 Episcopal, Congregational, &c. 
 
 Ministers. 
 
 1,176 
 27 
 
 EPISCOP.tL. ■ ChiirchM. 
 
 Protestant Episcopalians 1,200 
 
 Moravians 23 
 
 Total 17223 
 
 II. Congregational. 
 
 Orthodo.t Churches ...... 1,500 
 
 III. Baptist. 
 
 Regular Baptists 8,482 
 
 Free-Will Baptists 1,165 
 
 Seventh Day Baptists 59 
 
 Disciples of Christ, or Campbellites 
 Winebrennarians 
 
 Total 9,706 
 
 IV. Presbyterian. 
 
 Regular Presbyterians— Old and New Schools . 3,584 
 
 Cumberland Presbyterians 550 
 
 Dutch Reformed Church 267 
 
 Associate Synod 200 
 
 Associate Reformed 300 
 
 Reformed Presbyterians 94 
 
 Lutherans 1,371 
 
 German Reformed GOO 
 
 Total C,9G0 4,406 
 
 Communicants. 
 
 100,000 
 3,000 
 
 Population. 
 
 800,000 
 12,000 
 
 1,203 
 
 103,000 
 
 812,000 
 
 1,350 
 
 180,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 4,036* 
 
 637,477 ^ 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 771 
 46 
 
 61,372 
 6,077 
 
 
 704,926 
 
 4,853 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 2,672 
 
 279,782 ^ 
 
 
 550 
 
 75,000 
 
 
 259 
 
 29,322 
 
 
 100 
 
 15,000 
 
 1.. 
 
 165 
 
 26,000 
 
 ' 4,500,000 
 
 57 
 
 10,500 
 
 
 423 
 
 146,,303 
 
 
 180 
 
 100,000 ) 
 
 
 C81 ,897 4,500,000 
 
 * See remarks in chapter iv. of this book for the grounds on which the ordained ministers in the Reguhir Baptist com- 
 munion are estimated at 41)36. 
 
Chap. XVII.] 
 
 V. Methodist. 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 Protestant Methodists 
 Welsh Calvinistic Methodists 
 United Brethren in Christ . 
 
 Evangelical Association 
 
 THE SUMMARY. 
 
 Churches or 
 
 01 her places 
 of worship. 
 
 265 
 
 25,109* 
 
 2,000 
 
 20 
 
 , 2,000 
 
 900 
 
 Total 30,029 
 
 Preachers. 
 
 3,988 T. M.t 
 7,730 L. M.t 
 , 500 T. M. 
 < 700 L. M. 
 20 
 250 T. M. 
 350 L. M. 
 112 T. M. 
 200 L. M. 
 
 4,870 T. M. 
 8,980 L. M. 
 
 mmanicants. 
 ,0ti8,525 
 
 Populalioir, 
 4,500,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 2,500 
 
 12,500 
 
 50,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 14,000 
 
 40,000 
 
 1,195,025 5,052,500 
 
 Mennonists 
 Orthodox Quakers 
 
 200 
 300 
 
 By uniting the Congregationalists with 
 the Presbyterians, which, as they are in all 
 important respects the same, is perfectly 
 proper, we reduce the evangelical denomi- 
 nations in the United States to four great 
 families, and, thus arranged, they present 
 the following summary : 
 
 Churches. Ministers. 
 
 Episcopalians.. 1,223 1,203 
 
 Presbyterians . . 8,466 5,756 
 
 Baptists 9,706 4,853 
 
 Methodists 30.029 4,870* 
 
 Total .... 49,424 
 
 Commun. 
 103,000 
 861,897 
 704,926 
 1,195,025 
 
 Population. 
 812,000 
 5,500,000 
 4,000,000 
 5,052,500 
 
 16,682 2,864,848 15,364,000 
 
 This synopsis suggests a few observa- 
 tions. 
 
 1. We have left out the Campbellites, 
 both because we have no correct informa- 
 tion as to their statistics, and because 
 though some of them are, no doubt, sound 
 on all essential points, yet, not knowing 
 how many, we cannot place them with en- 
 tire confidence among the evangelical de- 
 nominations. Neither have we included 
 the Mennonists, the German United Breth- 
 ren, the Winebvennarians, the Orthodox 
 Friends, nor some of the smaller seces- 
 sions from the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 Had all these been included, the number 
 of churches, ministers, and members, to- 
 gether with the amount of the general 
 population under the moral influence of 
 the churches included in this category, 
 would have been much greater. 
 
 3. It is impossible to state the number 
 of churches or congregations, properly so 
 called. Those of the Episcopalians, Pres- 
 byterians, and Baptists, taken together, 
 amount to 19,395. But those belonging to 
 the different Methodist communions it is 
 impossible to ascertain, no return of them 
 having been made. There can be no doubt 
 that, of the places of worship which I have 
 given on President Durbin's authority, 
 more than 10,000 are churches properly so 
 called. This, then, would make the entire 
 number of the churches of the evangelical 
 denominations, without counting the Camp- 
 bellites, Mennonists, «fcc., exceed 29,000 ; 
 and supposing these to contain upon an 
 average 500 people each, they would ac- 
 commodate more than 14,500,000 of the 
 18,500,000 of inhabitants. But if we take 
 in all the places, whether churches or not, 
 
 * Travelling ministers. 
 
 at which the Gospel is preached, in most 
 cases once a week at least, and in others^ 
 once a fortnight, seldom less often, these 
 will be found to amount to 49,424. And 
 even to these there ought to be added a 
 part, at least, of the Campbellite, Mennon- 
 ist, and Winebrennarian places of wor.ship, 
 and those of some of the smaller Methodist 
 sects, before we can arrive at a full enu- 
 meration of all the churches and other 
 places in which salvation by a crucified 
 Saviour is proclaimed to sinners. 
 
 3. The summary gives 16,682 as th^; 
 number of ministers who devote thenir 
 selves entirely to the work. Adding the 
 8980 Methodist local preachers, we have 
 25,662 as the number of actual preachers 
 of the Gospel. Even this is exclusive of 
 those of the omitted denominations, and of 
 the licentiates in the Baptist and Presby- 
 terian churches, who cannot well be esti- 
 mated at less than 1300, and who may 
 fairly be set against the deduction to be 
 made on account of ordained ministers 
 employed as professors and missionaries. 
 But taking the above 16,682 as the number, 
 all things considered, of ministers that are 
 evangelical on all the saving doctrines of 
 the Gospel, and divide the population of 
 the United States, which, in the beginning 
 of the year 1844, was about 18,500,000, by 
 this number, the result will be one such 
 minister for less than 1110 souls. Now, 
 although figures cannot express moral in- 
 fluences, such calculations are neverthe- 
 less not without their use. A country 
 which has an evangelical preacher on an 
 average for every 1110 souls, may be 
 considered as pretty well supplied, if they 
 be well distributed and faithful. A perfect 
 distribution is, indeed, altogether impos- 
 sible with a population rapidly diffusing it- 
 self over immense, half-cultivated regions, 
 yet much is done to obviate the disadvan- 
 tages of such a state of things. The aid 
 
 * I am indebted for the above estimate of the 
 probable number of places, including churches, 
 schoolhouses, and private houses, in which the 
 Methodist itinerant and local ministers preach, to my 
 friend President Durbin. It has been made with 
 much care, and, I doubt not, is considerably withia 
 the truth. President Durbin has a wide and accu- 
 rate acquaintance with the country, as well as with 
 the entire economy of the church to which he belongs. 
 
 t Travelling ministers. J Local ministers. , 
 
266 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 rendered by the Methodist local preachers 
 must be regarded as an important auxiliary 
 to the more regular ministry. The gen- 
 eral faithfulness of this ministry has al- 
 ready been fully discussed. 
 
 4. The members in full communion with 
 the churches enumerated exceed 2,864,848 
 in number. Now, although it be very cer- 
 tain that all these do not live up to their 
 profession, yet as they belong for the most 
 part to churches that endeavour to main- 
 tain discipline, we may fairly presume that 
 they comprehend at least as large a pro- 
 portion of consistent Christians as any 
 equal number of professors in other parts 
 of Christendom. 
 
 5. The last column of the summary as- 
 sumes 15,364,000 of the whole population 
 as more or less under the influence of the 
 evangelical denominations. Accuracy in 
 such a calculation is hardly to be expect- 
 ed, but I have taken the best data I could 
 find, and doubt not that the estimate I have 
 made is not much wide of the truth. In- 
 cluding all the denominations that claim to 
 be evangelical, this estimate would exceed 
 15,500,000. 
 
 CHAPTER XVm. 
 
 NUMBER OF EVANGELICAL SECTS. 
 
 Much has been said in Europe about the 
 multiplicity of sects in the United States, 
 and many seem of opinion that the reli- 
 gious liberty enjoyed there has led to the al- 
 most indefinite creation of different reli- 
 gious conmtiunions. This requires a little 
 examination. 
 
 No doubt absolute religious liberty will 
 ever be attended with a considerable sub- 
 division of the religious world into sects. 
 Men will ever differ in their views respect- 
 ing doctrine and church order, and it is to 
 be expected that such differences will re- 
 sult in the formation of distinct ecclesias- 
 tical communions. In the absence of re- 
 ligious liberty matters may be much other- 
 wise, but how far for the better a little con- 
 sideration will show. People in that case 
 may be constrained to acquiesce, ostensi- 
 bly at least, in one certain ecclesiastical 
 organization, and in certain modes of faith 
 and worship sanctioned and established by 
 law. But such acquiescence, it is well 
 known, instead of being real and cordial, is 
 often merely external and constrained ; 
 and if so, its worthlessness is certain and 
 palpable. 
 
 But as respects the evangelical commu- 
 nions in the United States, it must have 
 struck the reader that this multiplicity has 
 mainly arisen, not so much from the abuse 
 of religious liberty by the indulgence of a 
 capricious and sectarian spirit, as from the 
 various quarters from which the country 
 .has been colonized. Coming in large num- 
 
 I bers, and sometimes in compact bodies, 
 from different parts of the Old World, no- 
 I thing was more natural than the desire of 
 establishing for themselves and their pos- 
 terity the same religious formularies and 
 modes of worship, church government, and 
 discipline which they had cherished in the 
 lands that had given them birth, and perse- 
 cution for their adherence to which had led, 
 in many instances, to their having emigra- 
 ted. Hence we find, in the United States, 
 counterparts not only to the Episcopalian, 
 Congregational, Baptist, and Methodist 
 churches of England, and to the Presbyte- 
 rian churches of Scotland, Ireland, and 
 Wales, but likewise to the Dutch and Ger- 
 man Reformed churches, the German Lu- 
 theran Church, the Moravians, Mennonists, 
 &c. Indeed, there is scarcely an evangeli- 
 cal commimion in America which is not the 
 mere extension by immigration of a simi- 
 lar body in Europe. The exceptions hard- 
 ly can be reckoned such, for they consist for 
 the most part of separations from the lar- 
 ger bodies, not because of differences with 
 regard to essential doctrines and forms of 
 church government, but on points of such 
 inferior consequence that they can scarce- 
 ly be regarded as new sects at all. 
 
 In fact, if we take all the evangelical 
 communions that have fallen under review, 
 and contemplate the confessedly funda- 
 mental doctrines maintained by each, it is 
 surprising to observe how nearly they are 
 agreed. It may, we believe, be demon- 
 strated that among the evangelical com- 
 munions in the United States, numerous 
 as they are, there is as much real harmony 
 of doctrine, if not of church economy, as 
 could be found in the evangelical churches 
 of the first three centuries. 
 
 Indeed, as we before remarked, by group- 
 ing the former in families, according to 
 their great distinctive features, we at once 
 reduce them to four, or at most five. Thus 
 the Presbyterians, commonly so called, of 
 the Old and New Schools, the Congrega- 
 tionalists, the Dutch and German Reform- 
 ed, the Scotch Secession churches,* and, 
 we may add, the Lutherans and Cumber- 
 land Presbyterians, form but one great 
 Presbyterian family, composed of elder and 
 younger members, all of them essentially 
 Presbyterian in church polity, and very 
 nearly coinciding, at bottom, in their doc- 
 trinal views. Between several of these 
 communions there subsists a most intimate 
 fraternal intercourse, and the ministers of 
 one find no difficulty in entering the service 
 of another without being re-ordained. 
 
 Again, between the different evangelical 
 Baptist sects there is no really essential or 
 
 * An effort is now making, which promises to he 
 .successful, to unite all the Scottish Secession church- 
 es in one body. This coalescence of churches hold- 
 ing similar doctrines and maintaining similar orga- 
 nizations may be expected to occur often. 
 
Chap. XIX.] 
 
 ALLEGED WANT OF HARMONY. 
 
 267 
 
 important difference ; and the same may 
 be said of the Methodists. Indeed, the 
 evangelical Christians of the United States 
 exhibit a most remarkable coincidence of 
 views on all important points. On all doc- 
 trines necessary to salvation — the sum of 
 which is " repentance towards God," and 
 "faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ" — 
 there is really no diversity of opinion at all. 
 Of this I may now give a most decisive 
 proof. 
 
 I have already spoken of the American 
 Sunday-school Union. Among the lay- 
 men who compose its Board of Directors, 
 are to be found members of all the main 
 branches of the evangelical Protestant 
 Church — Episcopalians, Congregational- 
 ists. Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, 
 Dutch and German Reformed, Methodists, 
 Quakers, and Moravians. It publishes a 
 great many books for Sunday-school libra- 
 ries every year, none, of course, being ad- 
 mitted the contents of which are likely to 
 give offence to any member of the Board, 
 or repugnant to the peculiarities of any of 
 the religious bodies represented at it. In 
 the summer of 1841 the Rev. Dr. Hodge, a 
 professor in the Princeton theological sem- 
 inary, was requested by its committee of 
 publications to write a book exhibiting the 
 great doctrines of the Gospel as held by all 
 evangelical Christians. This he did to the 
 entire satisfaction, not only of the Board, 
 but I believe I may say of all evangelical 
 Christians throughout the land that have 
 read his work. It is appropriately entitled 
 " The Way of Life ;" the subjects are the 
 Scriptures ; sin ; justification ; faith ; repent- 
 ance ; profession of religion ; and holy liv- 
 ing ; under which several heads the funda- 
 mental doctrines of the Gospel are present- 
 ed in an able and yet most simple and famil- 
 iar manner. It is a work, in short, which 
 none can read without surprise and delight 
 at observing the vast extent and fulness of 
 the system of Truth, in which all evangel- 
 ical communions are agreed. 
 
 These communions, as they exist in the 
 United States, ought to be viewed as 
 branches of one great body, even the entire 
 visible Church of Christ in this land. 
 "Whatever may have been the circumstan- 
 ces out of which they arose, they are but 
 constituent parts of one great whole — di- 
 visions of one vast army — though each 
 brigade, and even each regiment, may have 
 its own banner, and its own part of the field 
 to occupy. And although to the inexperi- 
 enced eye such an army as it moves on- 
 ward against the enemy may have a con- 
 fused appearance, the different divisions of 
 infantry bemg arranged separately, the ar- 
 tillery interspersed, and the cavalry some- 
 times in the front, sometimes in the rear, 
 and sometimes between the columns, yet 
 all are in their proper places ; and to the 
 .mind of him who assigns them their places, 
 
 and directs their movements, all is syste- 
 matic order where the uninitiated sees no- 
 thing but confusion. Momentary collis- 
 ions, it is true, may sometimes happen — 
 there may be jostling and irritation occa- 
 sionally — yet they all fulfil their appointed 
 parts and discharge their appropriate du- 
 ties. So is it with the " sacramental host 
 of God's elect." 
 
 No doubt this multiplication of sects is 
 attended with serious evils, especially in the 
 new and thinly-peopled settlements. It oft- 
 en renders the churches small and feeble. 
 But this is an evil that diminishes with the 
 increase of the population. With a zealous 
 and capable ministry the truth gains ground, 
 the people are gathered into churches, con- 
 gregations increase in numbers and consist- 
 ency, and though weak ones are occasion- 
 ally dissolved, the persons who composed 
 them either going into other evangelical 
 churches, or emigrating to other parts of 
 the country, such as maintain their ground 
 become only the stronger ; and it often hap- 
 pens, particularly in the rural districts, that 
 the number of sects diminishes while the 
 population increases. 
 
 Great, however, as may be the disadvan- 
 tages resulting from this multiplicity of 
 different communions, were they all re- 
 duced to one or two, we apprehend still 
 worse evils would follow. Diversity on 
 non-essential points among the churches 
 and ministers of a neighbourhood often 
 gives opportunity to those who reside in it 
 to attend the services and ministrations 
 which each finds most edifying, instead of 
 being reduced to the sad alternative of 
 either joining in forms of worship which 
 they conscientiously disapprove, and of 
 listening to a minister whom they find un- 
 edifying, or of abstaining from public wor- 
 ship altogether. Rather than this, it is sure- 
 ly far better to bear the expense of having 
 two or three churches in a community, for 
 which, looking only at the mere amount 
 of population, one might suffice. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ALLEGED WANT OF HARMONY AMONG THE EVAN- 
 GELICAL CHRISTIANS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 It has been often and widely stated in 
 Europe, on the authority of a certain class 
 of visitants from the Old World who have 
 published their Travels, Tours, &c., that 
 there is much unseemly strife among our 
 various religious denominations. Here, I 
 hesitate not to say, there has been much 
 gross misrepresentation. No doubt our 
 evangelical churches feel the. influence of 
 mutual emulation. Placed on the same 
 great field, coining into contact with each 
 other at many points, and all deeply and 
 conscientiously attached to their peculiar 
 
268 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 doctrines and ecclesiastical economy, they 
 must naturally exercise, on the one hand, 
 the utmost watchfulness with respect to 
 each other, and, on the other, employ all 
 the legitimate means in their power to aug- 
 ment their own numbers. The result of 
 such mutual provocation to good works is 
 eminently happy. There may, indeed, be 
 temporary cases of disagreeable collision 
 and unbrotherly jealousy, but ordinarily 
 these are of short duration. The best of 
 men are, after all, but men. Hence even 
 a devoted Gospel minister, after having 
 long had some particular neighbourhood all 
 to himself, may dread the opening of a new 
 place of worship of a different communion 
 in the vicinity of his own, lest some of his 
 hearers should thereby be drawn away; 
 and such an apprehension may, for a time, 
 excite some not very kind feelings in his 
 breast. But universal experience shows 
 that such feelings are usually groundless, 
 and soon cease to be indulged by any but 
 the most narrow-minded persons. 
 
 Sometimes, too, a zealous, and in most 
 cases vain and ignorant preacher, will show 
 himself in a neighbourhood where the 
 churches all belong to communions differ- 
 ent from his, and there, in his self-suffi- 
 ciency, begin to denounce and attempt to 
 proselytize. Such men, however, soon 
 create disgust rather than any other feel- 
 ing ; for with us most of those who join 
 this or that church, do so after examination 
 of its doctrines, government, and discipline, 
 and when once satisfied on these points, 
 above all, after finding its services edify- 
 ing, they are not disposed to allow them- 
 selves to be disturbed by every bigoted and 
 noisy brawler that may seek to gain them 
 over to his creed and church, which, after 
 all, may not essentially differ from their 
 own. 
 
 Notwithstanding such cases, I hesitate 
 not to affirm that, taking the evangelical 
 churches in the mass, their intercourse, in 
 all parts of the country, manifests a remark- 
 able degree of mutual respect and frater- 
 nal affection. While earnest in maintain- 
 ing, alike from the pulpit and the press, 
 their own views of Truth and church or- 
 der, there is rarely anything like denunci- 
 ation and unchurching other orthodox com- 
 munions, but every readiness, on the con- 
 trary, to offer help when needed. Thus, 
 among all but the Episcopalians, whose 
 peculiar views of ordination stand in the 
 way, there is a frequent exchanging of 
 pulpits. I have known the pulpit of^an ex- 
 cellent Baptist minister in Philadelphia, 
 when he was laid aside by ill health, to be 
 supplied during two years by other minis- 
 ters, and by those of Paedobaptist churches 
 for much of that time. During more than 
 seven years the author of this work was 
 engaged in benevolent efforts in America, 
 which led him repeatedly to visit every 
 
 State in the American Confederacy, and 
 while on this mission he preached in the 
 pulpits of no less than ten evangelical com- 
 munions, including all the leading ones. 
 
 This brotherly feeling widely prevails 
 among the laity also. In all parts of the 
 country they scruple not, when there is no 
 service in their own places of worship, to 
 attend others, though of another commu- 
 nion; and, indeed, in our cities and large 
 towns, not a few Christians regularly at- 
 tend the lectures of pastors not of their own 
 communion, when these fall on different 
 evenings from those of their own pastors. 
 Not only so, but as there is no bar to in- 
 tercommunion, except in the case of the 
 Baptists, whose views respecting baptism 
 in all but a few instances prevent it, and 
 in that of the small Scottish Covenanting^ 
 churches, the members of one evangelical 
 communion often join with those of anoth- 
 er in receiving the Lord's Supper in the 
 same church. In this respect, a very cath- 
 olic spirit happily prevails. The answer of 
 the Kev. Mr. Johnes, pastor of the Pres- 
 byterian church in Morristown, New-Jer- 
 sey, to General Washington, who, on one 
 occasion during the war of the Revolution, 
 desired to receive the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper with Mr Johnes's congrega- 
 tion, but stated that he was an Episco- 
 palian, is just what a thousand ministers 
 of the Gospel would make in like circum- 
 stances : " Sir, it is not a Presbyterian or 
 an Episcopalian table, but the Lord's table, 
 and you as well as every other Christian 
 are welcome to it." 
 
 Numerous occasions, moreover, bring all 
 evangehcal Christians together. The Bi- 
 ble, Temperance, Colonization, Sunday- 
 school, and Tract Societies, not to men- 
 tion such as are formed from time to time 
 for particular and perhaps local objects. 
 Sabbath Observance, Education, and the 
 like, all bring Christians of different de- 
 nominations into better acquaintance with 
 each other, and tend to promote mutual 
 respect and affection. 
 
 Within the last few years Professor 
 Schmucker, already mentioned, has pro- 
 posed a plan of union for all the evangel- 
 ical Protestant churches, which has met 
 with much favour, so that a society has been 
 formed for promoting it. Dr. Schmucker, 
 who, I may remark, is much beloved among 
 Christians of all denominations, as well as 
 extensively known by his writings, does not 
 propose any amalgamation or fusion of the 
 churches, but the adoption merely of cer- 
 tain fixed principles, upon which all the 
 evangelical churches shall acknowledge 
 the ecclesiastical acts of each other, and 
 maintain a fraternal intercommunion. 
 
 Another proposal of like tendency will, 
 I trust, ere long, be carried into effect. It 
 is that there should be a yearly meeting of 
 the friends of foreign missions, held in ono 
 
Chap. I.] 
 
 UNEVANGELICAL CHURCHES. 
 
 269 
 
 or other of the principal cities, for receiv- 
 ing summary statements from each of the 
 missionary societies of its operations and 
 success. Such a meeting, if well conduct- 
 ed, might do much substantial good, both 
 by diffusing important information as to 
 the progress of the kingdom of Christ, and 
 also by promoting brotherly love among 
 Christians of different churches. 
 
 Taking all the professed Christians, 
 amounting, it has been seen, to more than 
 2,500,000, in our evangehcal churches, I 
 hesitate not to say that far more mutual 
 respect and brotherly love prevail among 
 them than would were they all coerced 
 into one denomination. The world has al- 
 ready seen what sort of union and brother- 
 hood can be produced by all being brought 
 into one immense Church, that admits of 
 no deviation from the decrees of its coun- 
 cils and conclaves. There may, indeed, be 
 external agreement, yet beneath this appa- 
 rent unanunity there may be internal di- 
 visions and heartburnings in abundance. 
 There may be union against all who dare 
 to impugn her dogmas, but who can tell 
 the almost infernal haired with which her 
 Religious Orders have been found to re- 
 gard each other? Compared with this, all 
 the temporary attritions, together with all 
 the controversies and exacerbations of feel- 
 ing that accompany them, that take place 
 in our evangelical Protestant denomina- 
 tions, are as nothing. 
 
 Common civility, on the contrary, con- 
 curs with Christian charity to make the en- 
 lightened members of one denomination 
 respect and esteem those of another, and 
 to appreciate the beautiful sentiment re- 
 cently attributed by the chancellor of the 
 exchequer, in the British Parliament, to the 
 late Mr. Wilberforce ; " I experience," said 
 that distinguished philanthropist, " a feel- 
 ing of triumph when I can get the better of 
 these little distinctions which keep Chris- 
 tians asunder. I would not that any one 
 should sacrifice his principles ; but, exerci- 
 sing the Protestant right of private judg- 
 
 ment, leave each to his own conclusions. 
 It is delightful to see that in this way men 
 of different sects can unite together for the 
 prosecution of their projects for the ame- 
 lioration of human society. When I thus 
 unite with persons of a different persua- 
 sion from myself, it affords me an aug- 
 mented degree of pleasure ; I rise into a 
 higher nature, into a purer air ; I feel that 
 fetters which before bound me are dissolv- 
 ed, and I delight in that blessed liberty of 
 love which carries all other blessings with 
 it." 
 
 Still, the question remains, Whence have 
 foreigners, while visiting the United States, 
 received the impression, which, by being 
 promulgated in their writings, has led me 
 to write this chapter. The answer is easy. 
 While such is the prevailing respect and 
 regard for each other among the members 
 of our evangelical churches, they all unite 
 in opposing, on the one hand, the errors 
 of Rome, and, on the other, the heresy 
 that denies the proper divinity and atone- 
 ment of Christ, together with those other 
 aberrations from the true Gospel which 
 that heresy involves. Now, it is this re- 
 fusal to hold fellowship with errors of vital 
 moment, it is this earnest contending for 
 saving truth, that leads tourists in the 
 United States, whom chance or choice has 
 thrown into the society of persons opposed 
 in their religious tenets to the evangeli- 
 cal churches, to charge us with uncharita- 
 bleness. Hinc ilia lachryma. 
 
 We deny not that in some of the divis- 
 ions of Churches that have taken place 
 in the United States, men have at times 
 permitted themselves to speak and write 
 with an acrimony unbecoming the Gos- 
 pel, and, by so doing, may have made an 
 unfavourable impression on foreigners. 
 But such cases have been local and ex- 
 ceptional rather than general and ordina- 
 ry, and never could justify any sweeping 
 charge against the evangelical denomina- 
 tions as a body. 
 
 BOOK VI I. 
 UNEVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS IN AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 Having thus reviewed, as far as the 
 compass of our work will permit, the Evan- 
 gelical Churches or Denominations in the 
 United States of America, we come now 
 to speak of those that are considered as 
 unev angelical by Orthodox Protestants ; 
 and under this head we shall, for conve- 
 nience' sake, range all those sects that 
 
 either renounce, or fail faithfully to exhib- 
 it, the fundamental and saving truths of 
 the Gospel. Here, however, let us not 
 be misunderstood. When we put Roman 
 Catholics in the same category with Uni- 
 tarians, we would not for a moment be 
 supposed as placing them on the same foot- 
 ing. The former, doubtless, as a Church, 
 hold those doctrines on which true believ- 
 ers in all ages have placed their hopes for 
 eternal life, yet these have been so buried 
 
270 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII, 
 
 amid the rubbish of multiplied human tra- 
 ditions and inventions, as to remain hid 
 from the great mass of the people. Still, 
 as in their doctrinal formularies they have 
 not denied " the Lord that bought them," 
 however much they may have multiplied 
 other " saviours," they must not be con- 
 founded with those who have openly re- 
 jected that " sure foundation which is laid 
 in Zion." While, therefore, we must de- 
 plore " their holding the truth in unrigh- 
 teousness," and instead of presenting 
 through their numerous priesthood the 
 simple and fundamental doctrines of the 
 Gospel, their supplanting these, in a great 
 measure, by introducing " another Gos- 
 pel," we would not say that an enlight- 
 ened mind may not find in their church 
 the way of life, obstructed- though it be by 
 innumerable obstacles. 
 
 Neither would we be thought to put the 
 Unitarians on the same footing with the 
 Universalists. The moral influence of the 
 preaching of the former, and their standing 
 in society, make them far more valuable 
 than the latter as a component part of the 
 general population. Nor would we put 
 the Jews, or even the more serious part 
 of the Universalists, on the same level 
 with " Socialists," " Shakers," and " Mor- 
 mons." 
 
 All that we mean by putting these vari- 
 ous bodies in one category is, that they 
 can none of tliem be associated with the 
 evangelical Protestant Churches — with 
 churches whose religion is the Bible, the 
 whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible — 
 nor, indeed, do we suppose that, however 
 much they may dislike being all reviewed 
 in one and the same section of this work, 
 they would any of them choose to be as- 
 sociated with the evangelical Protestant 
 communions, or challenge for themselves 
 that appellation. 
 
 The doctrines and economy of the Ro- 
 man Catholics being well known almost 
 everywhere, a very general account of 
 that Church may suffice, though it is by 
 far the most important of all the bodies 
 that arc to be noticed in this section of 
 our work. As the appearance, and the 
 spread of Unitarianism in " the land of the 
 Pilgrims," on the other hand, has been mat- 
 ter of much surprise and curiosity in Eu- 
 rope, as full an account of its rise, prog- 
 ress, and present prospects in the United 
 States will be given as our plan will per- 
 mit. Of the other bodies that find a place 
 here, we shall take such a notice, at least, 
 as will enable the reader to form a correct 
 idea of their true character and present 
 condition. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 Maryland, Ave have seen, was original- 
 ly a Roman Catholic colony, founded ou 
 most liberal principles, under the auspi- 
 ces and through the exertions of Lord Bal- 
 timore. And although Protestant Episco- 
 pacy was established in the colony under 
 the reign of William and Mary, the laws 
 of England agahist Roman Catholics be- 
 ing at the same time rigorously enforced, 
 they continued, nevertheless, to form the 
 most numerous and influential body in the 
 province down to the American Revolu- 
 tion. Even to this day, though now but 
 a small minority of the entire population, 
 not exceeding, in fact, 80,000, and inferior 
 in point of numbers both to the Protestant 
 Episcopalians and Methodists, they have 
 much influence, and are perhaps the wealth- 
 iest communion in the state. 
 
 Except in Pennsylvania and Rhode Isl- 
 and, I am not aware that the Roman Cath- 
 olics anywhere enjoyed their fair share of 
 political rights at the commencement of 
 the war of the Revolution, but now, I be- 
 lieve, they are everywhere upon the same 
 footing with others, and enjoy all the po- 
 litical privileges that our Constitution af- 
 fords.* 
 
 * I have often heard Roman Catholics in Europe 
 reproach the Protestants of the United States with 
 intolerance ; and in proof of this, they have chiefly 
 urged the burnmg by the populace of a convent at 
 Charlestown, near Boston, in 1834. That, indeed,, 
 is the only case, I believe, which even they them- 
 selves can possibly urge as amounting to persecution ; 
 and as, in the notoriety that it has obtained, it has 
 been sadly misrepresented, especially by the late i 
 Bishop England, in his letters to the Propaganda 
 Society, I need make no apology for taking some 
 notice of it. 
 
 The convent in question, which was one of Ursu- 
 line Sisters, and was founded in 1820, was rather a 
 boarding-school for girls than anything else. The 
 number of nuns varied from eight to ten, and that of 
 the pupils from twenty to si.xty. The buildings, fur- 
 niture, and grounds were ample and valuable. The 
 occasion of its being destroyed was as follows : One 
 of the nuns, a Miss Harrison, who taught music, 
 while suffering from temporary derangement caused 
 by excitement, left the establishment for a short 
 tmie. Hence a report that she had been ill treated, 
 which soon spread through the adjacent borough ot 
 Charlestown, and then through Boston, which is 
 within two miles' distance. Strong suspicions having 
 been entertained for several years, on what founda- 
 tion I know not, of highly improper conduct on the 
 part of some of the nuns, Miss Harrison's case in- 
 flamed the minds of the populace, and led to a riot 
 on the night of August 11th, 1834, ending in the en- 
 lire destruction of the convent with all its furniture, 
 the actors being for the most part young men and 
 boys from Charlestown and Boston. This outrage 
 was condemned in the strongest terms by all respect- 
 able people, and an able report was published a few 
 days afterward, and subscribed by thirty-seven Bos- 
 ton Protestants, all of the highest moral respectabil- 
 ity, in which the reputation of the convent was de- 
 cidedly, and I dare say justly, vindicated. Some of 
 the rioters were identified and punished, and a con- 
 siderable portion of the public demanded that the 
 
Chap. II] 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 271 
 
 The acquisition of Louisiana, in 1803, 
 and of Florida in 1821, very considerably 
 increased the Roman Catholic population 
 of the country. To this must be added an 
 immense immigration from Europe, main- 
 ly from Ireland and Germany, during the 
 last sixty, still more during the last twen- 
 ty-five years. At the beginning of 1844 
 they were estimated, by well-informed 
 Roman Catholics, at 1,300,000 souls in all. 
 Their increase has been rapid since the 
 * Revolution, partly owing to the above- 
 mentioned territorial acquisitions, partly 
 to conversions, but most of all to immigra- 
 tion. According to the Metropohtan Cath- 
 olic Almanac for 1844, published at Balti- 
 more, there were at that time in the United 
 States, 
 
 21 Diocesses. 
 1 Apostolic Vicariate. . 
 
 1 Archbishop, 17 bishops in service, and 8 bish- 
 ops elect. 
 634 Priests, of whom 520 are employed in the min- 
 istry, and 114 as professors of colleges, &c. 
 611 Churches, and 66 building. 
 461 Other stations for preaching, where churches 
 had yet to be built. In all, 1072 places for 
 preaching. 
 19 Ecclesiastical Seminaries. 
 261 Clerical students. 
 16 Literary institutions for young men, whereof 
 
 12 or 13 are incorporated colleges. 
 45 Female religious institutions (convents). 
 48 Female academies. 
 
 The Roman Catholics have seven week- 
 ly papers^ of which one appears in Ger- 
 man, and three monthly, and one annual 
 periodical. 
 
 It is clear, from all this, that the Roman 
 Catholic Church has gained a firm and ex- 
 tensive footing in the United States. The 
 building of fifty church edifices in one year 
 is a large increase for a denomination be- 
 lieved to influence, more or less directly, 
 1,300,000 of the country's inhabitants. For 
 such objects large sums are received from 
 the Propaganda Society in France, and 
 the Leopold Society in Austria. It is be- 
 lieved that nearly $135,000 were received 
 in 1842 from these two sources.* 
 
 State of Massachusetts should indemnify the Roman 
 Catholics for the loss they had sustained. 1 regret 
 that, from various causes, no indemnification has to 
 this day been made, mainly, I believe, because it was 
 insisted that the state should rebuild the convent — 
 a demand opposed by many who would grant a full 
 pecuniary compensation, but have no idea that the 
 state, as such, should give any apparent sanction to 
 an establishment of that kind. 
 
 It ought to be known, however, that the convent at 
 Charlestown was not destroyed because it was a 
 Roman Catholic institution. Indeed, I am satisfied, 
 from what I heard at Boston a few weeks after its 
 destruction, that had it been a Protestant one it 
 would, under the same circumstances, have shared 
 the same fate. This forms no justification of the 
 barbarous act, nor even a palliation of it ; but it does 
 show that it was not owing to hostility to its occu- 
 pants because they were Roman Catholics. 
 
 * If the Roman Catholics in the United States 
 receive aid from their brethren in Europe, they also 
 
 The assertion has often been made by 
 the opponents of the Roman Catholics in 
 the United States, that they never can be 
 safe citizens of a republic, and that the 
 predominance of their church would in- 
 volve the overthrow of our political Con- 
 stitution. Such an opinion must rest, I 
 should think, on the presumed hatred of 
 the priests to republican institutions, and 
 the impossibility of counteracting the in- 
 fluence they possess over their people. 
 However this may be, many valuable citi- 
 zens and stern patriots in this country 
 have belonged to the Roman Catholic 
 Church, and it remains to be seen how far 
 it is possible for the Roman Catholic priests 
 to obtain or exercise the same influence 
 over their followers here that they pos- 
 sess in some European countries. One 
 thing is certain : the Protestant population, 
 and the clergy in particular, are not likely 
 to be indifferent to their movements. The 
 last few years have witnessed a great deal 
 of discussion in the United States on the 
 doctrines and influence of Romanism, and 
 much distinguished talent and deep re- 
 search have been exhibited in the course 
 of it.* Neither has this discussion been 
 confined to any particular denomination of 
 evangelical Protestants, but has extended 
 almost to every pulpit in every branch of 
 that body. Never was there so general a 
 determination to give publicity to the opin- 
 ions they entertain of the character and 
 tendency of the Roman Catholic religion ; 
 nor have its friends and abettors been si- 
 lent under these attacks. 
 
 Much curiosity is felt in Europe as to 
 how far the increase of the Roman Catho- 
 lics in the United States arises from pros- 
 elytism. No doubt it may partly be as- 
 cribed to that, but much more to the im- 
 migration of Roman Catholics, and of per- 
 sons of Roman Catholic origin from Eu- 
 rope. As for proselytism, the Protestants 
 probably gain as much as the Roman Cath- 
 olics from that source. f 
 
 The Roman Catholics of the United 
 States have done much for the establish- 
 ment of schools and other institutions of 
 learning ; and among their priests and 
 higher clergy there is a considerable num- 
 
 sometimes give aid to their friends in the Old World. 
 For instance, large sums have lately been raised ia 
 our chief cities to aid in building a magnificent ca- 
 thedral at Ardah, in the centre of Ireland. 
 
 * Among the ablest writers on this subject may- 
 be reckoned the Rev. Drs. Brownlee and R. J. Breck- 
 inridge, and the Rev. Messrs. Boardman and Berg. 
 To these may be added the late Rev. Drs. John 
 Breckinridge and Nevins, men of distinguished piety 
 and learning, and whose memory is precious to many 
 of the churches in America. Among the Roman 
 Catholics, the late Bishop England and Bishop 
 Hughes have been the most able disputants. 
 
 t Captain Marryat, in his work on the United 
 States, asserts that the Roman Catholics are in- 
 creasing rapidly in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and other 
 
272 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII. 
 
 ber of men of distinguished talents and 
 extensive erudition. 
 
 A considerable proportion of the sums 
 received from Europe is laid out in build- 
 ing churches and cathedrals, several of 
 which are costly and splendid edifices. 
 That at Baltimore cost $300,000 ; those of 
 Cincinnati and St. Louis cost much less, 
 yet are large and showy buildings. 
 
 A visiter from Europe would, on enter- 
 ing the Roman Catholic churches of the 
 United States, be struck with the few pic- 
 tures and other such ornaments that they 
 exhibit. This may arise from time and 
 money being required for such things. The 
 priests, too, dress like other citizens when 
 not engaged in their official duties. Nor 
 will it escape a stranger from any part of 
 Roman Catholic Europe, that processions 
 and religious services in the streets are 
 hardly ever seen in the United States. 
 
 By the rapid multiplication of their 
 priests in the United States the Roman 
 Catholics have, no doubt, checked those 
 conversions from their church to Protest- 
 antism which were frequent in former 
 times. Bishop England, in one of his let- 
 ters to the Propaganda, stated, a few years 
 ago, that " the Church" had lost no fewer 
 than 50,000 of her legitimate children in 
 liis diocess by such conversions, for want 
 of shepherds to look after them. 
 
 But whatever may be the fact in regard 
 to the increase of the Roman Catholics in 
 the United States, or whatever may be the 
 zeal and activity of the Protestants to pre- 
 vent that increase, there is no well-inform- 
 ed American who does not rejoice in the 
 perfect religious liberty which exists for 
 all ; nor is tliere wanting a good degree of 
 kindness and social intercourse among 
 men of all religious opinions ; while as to 
 the government, it fulfils the declaration of 
 the Carthaginian queen : 
 
 " Tros Tyriusque mihi nvllo discrimine agetur." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CNITARIANISM. 
 
 parts of the Valley of the Mississippi, and states it 
 as his opinion that theirs will, at no distant day, 
 be the predominant religion in all that region. But 
 "his mere opinion, unsupported by authentic statistical 
 documents, is really of very little worth in such mat- 
 ters. The gallant captain is at home on the seas, but 
 ■when he attempts to describe the moral and religious 
 state of the American Confederation, he is evidently 
 in a world of which he knows little or nothing. A 
 man who could allow himself to be hoaxed as he was 
 when in this country — an author who could believe, 
 and gravely relate, that the excessive modesty of 
 the young ladies there leads them to put pantaloons 
 on the legs of their pianos — is hardly fit for the task 
 of carefully collecting and comparing facts, and de- 
 ducing from them fair conclusions. 
 
 To understand the history of Unitarian- 
 ism in New-England, the reader must have 
 a clear idea of the leading ecclesiastical 
 usages of the Puritans, and of the principles 
 on wliich they were founded. 
 
 The Puritans held that all men are by 
 nature destitute of true piety ; that they 
 naturally grow up in the practice of sin ; 
 and that no one becomes religious except 
 by a change in his habits of thought, feel- " 
 ing, and conduct, which they ascribed to 
 the special operation of the Holy Spirit as 
 its supernatural cause. They believed that 
 the truly pious are ordinarily conscious of 
 this change in the action of their own 
 minds when it takes place, and are able to 
 describe it, though they may not then know 
 thtit the change of which they are con- 
 scious is regeneration. In some cases, 
 they admitted, the man is not aware of any 
 change at the time of his conversion ; yet 
 he will be conscious of exercises after- 
 ward, such as no unregenerate man ever 
 has, and he can describe them. Some 
 may be regenerated in infancy, which it is 
 lawful for us to hope is the case with all 
 who die before they are old enough to 
 profit by the external means of grace. If 
 any of them live to maturity they will not 
 be able to remember the time of their 
 change, but they will be conscious of sen- 
 sible love to God and holiness, penitence 
 for sin and other pious exercises, and can 
 give an account of them. They believed, 
 therefore, that every converted person 
 who has arrived at the age of discretion, 
 has a religious " experience" which he can 
 tell, and by hearing which other pious per- 
 sons may judge of his piety. The evi- 
 dence thus afforded, however, was to be 
 compared with his conduct in all the rela- 
 tions of life, and if this also was " such as 
 becometh saints," he was to be accounted 
 a pious man. 
 
 A church they held to be " a company 
 of faithful persons," that is, persons who 
 have saving faith, regenerate persons, 
 agreeing and consenting " to meet con- 
 stantly together in one congregation for 
 the public worship of God and their mutual 
 edification ; which real agreement and 
 consent they do express by their constant 
 practice in coming together for the wor- 
 ship of God, and by their religious subjec- 
 tion," that is, by subjecting themselves 
 voluntarily, from religious motives, " to 
 the ordinances of God therein."* 
 
 To become a member of a church, ac- 
 cording to these principles, a person must 
 voluntarily apply for admission. But if the 
 admission were open to all applicants, bad 
 men would come in, who neither knew 
 their duty, nor were willing to perform it. 
 
 * Cambridge Platform, 1648, chap, iv., sec. 4. 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 273 
 
 With such members, Congregationalism 
 •would not be a safe system of church gov- 
 ernment. The applicant must, therefore, 
 furnish evidence of his fitness for member- 
 ship. He must give an account of his re- 
 ligious experience. This being satisfac- 
 tory, he must be "propounded;" that is, 
 his application for membership must be 
 announced from the pulpit, and his admis- 
 sion must be deferred for a given time, that 
 all the members might have opportunity to 
 acquaint themselves with his life and con- 
 versation. These being found such as the 
 Gospel requires, he was allowed to become 
 a member, by publicly entering into cove- 
 nant with the Church and with God. 
 
 It must be particularly observed, that 
 the burden of proof rested on the applicant. 
 Every man, the Puritans held, is born in 
 sin ; and if no evidence of a change ap- 
 pears, the presumption is, that he is still 
 in his sins. They regarded and treated 
 all in whom no evidence of regeneration 
 appeared as unregenerated ; as persons 
 who must yet be converted or finally 
 perish. 
 
 Throughout' Christendom, in that age, 
 neither Jews, Turks, pagans, infidels, nor 
 excommunicated persons could enjoy the 
 full privileges of citizenship. These priv- 
 leges belonged only to persons who were 
 in communion with the churches estab- 
 lished by law. The same rule was adopted 
 in New-England. None but members of 
 the churches could hold offices or vote at 
 elections. Here, however, it operated as 
 it did nowhere else. As the churches 
 contained only those who were, in the 
 judgment of charity, regenerate persons, 
 a large portion of the people, among whom 
 ■were many persons of intelligence, of good 
 moral character, and orthodox in their 
 creed, were excluded from valuable civil 
 privileges. 
 
 The principles on which this system was 
 founded the Puritans brought with them 
 from England ; but the system was first 
 brought to maturity here ; and New-Eng- 
 land Congregationalists, when on visits to 
 their fatherland, did much towards giving 
 its form and character to the Congrega- 
 tionalism that afterward prevailed there. 
 The system appears to have been adopted 
 in 1648, with a good degree of unanimity ; 
 but as the number of unconverted adults 
 increased, both by immigration and by the 
 growing up of children without piety, there 
 ■was an increasing dissatisfaction with it. 
 By the year 1662, such a change of opin- 
 ions had been wrought that what was called 
 the " half-way covenant" was introduced, 
 by a recommendation of a general Synod. 
 According to this new system, persons 
 baptized in infancy were to be considered 
 members of the church to which their 
 parents belonged ; though they were not to 
 be admitted to the Lord's table without 
 S 
 
 evidence of regeneration. Such persons, 
 on arriving at maturity, " understanding 
 the doctrine of faith, and publicly profess- 
 ing their assent thereto, not scandalous in 
 life, and solemnly owning the covenant 
 before the church, wherein they give up 
 themselves and their children to the Lord, 
 and subject themselves to the government 
 of Christ in the church," had a right to 
 Baptism for their children. This was an 
 important change. It relieved the appli- 
 cant for church membership from the ne- 
 cessity of furnishing evidence of his piety, 
 and obliged the church, if it would exclude 
 him, to prove that he was heretical in his 
 opinions or scandalous in his life. This 
 change was strenuously opposed; and as 
 the synod had only advisory power, and 
 many churches disapproved its decisions, 
 it never became universal. 
 
 One step more remained to be taken. In 
 1704, " the venerable Stoddard," of North- 
 ampton, avowed his belief that unregener- 
 ate persons ought to partake of the Lord's 
 Supper ; and in 1707 he published a ser- 
 mon in defence of that doctrine. He main- 
 tained that the Lord's Supper is a means 
 of regeneration, and that unrenewed men, 
 regarding themselves, and being regarded 
 by the church as such, ought to partake of 
 it as a means of procuring that desirable 
 change in their own hearts. One of his 
 arguments was, that it is impossible to dis- 
 tinguish the regenerate from the unregea- 
 erate, so as to admit the former and ex- 
 clude the latter. After some controversy, 
 this doctrine gained an extensive preva- 
 lence among the churches which had 
 adopted the " half-way covenant" system. 
 Among these churches, the principles and 
 rules of admission were now completely 
 reversed. The church was now obliged 
 to convict the applicant of a scandalous 
 life, or of heresy, or admit him to full com- 
 munion : and one reason for it was, the 
 supposed impossibility of judging whether 
 he was regenerate or not. 
 
 Stoddard was a decided Calvinist ; but 
 his system fostered the growth of Armini- 
 anism. It taught the impenitent that they 
 had something to do before repentance, as 
 a means of obtaining saving grace. The 
 unregenerate communicant supposed him- 
 self to be obediently walking in the way 
 which God had appointed for such persons 
 as himself. He couM not, therefure, feel 
 much to blame for being what he was, or 
 much afraid that God would remove him 
 from the world without first preparing him 
 for heaven. This, combined with the be- 
 lief that the regenerate could not be distin- 
 guished from the unregenerate by their 
 Christian experience, was enough to throw 
 the conscience into a profound sleep. 
 
 The labours of the great Edwards, and 
 the " revival of 1740," as it is usually 
 called, form the next turning-point in this 
 
274 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII; 
 
 history. Edwards was the grandson of 
 " the venerable Stoddard," and his succes- 
 sor at Northampton. In consequence of 
 the manifest increase of Arminianism, and 
 the consequent habit of relying on works 
 done in impenitence as a means of prepa- 
 ring for heaven, Edwards commenced his 
 course of sermons on justification by faith. 
 These discourses, and others on kindred 
 topics, were the means of a very powerful 
 revival, which became fully developed at 
 Northampton early in 1735, and spread 
 into many other towns in Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut. The converts in this 
 revival were generally able to give a clear 
 account of the exercises of their own 
 minds in their awakening, their conviction 
 of sin, their submission to God, and ac- 
 ceptance of Christ as their all-sufficient 
 Saviour. So many undeniable instances, 
 in which the regenerate could be distin- 
 guished from the unregenerate by the his- 
 tory of their religious exercises, gave a 
 serious shock to the doctrine that making 
 such a distinction is impossible. It taught 
 ministers to hope and labour for conver- 
 sions of which evidence could be found. It 
 made those who had no evidence of their 
 own conversion afraid that they were still 
 unregenerate. By special request, Ed- 
 wards prepared a narrative of these " Sur- 
 prising Conversions," which was printed 
 in London, with an introduction by the 
 Rev. Drs. Watts and Guise. It was soon 
 reprinted in Boston, and was extensively 
 read, and exerted a powerful influence on 
 both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 From this time there continued to be 
 similar revivals, on a smaller scale, in va- 
 rious parts of New-England. In 1739, and 
 the beginning of 1740, they were evidently 
 increasing. The celebrated Whitfield, who 
 was ordained in 1736, had already exci- 
 ted much attention in England, and was 
 preaching with great success in the South- 
 ern American colonies. To help forward 
 this good work, he was invited to Boston, 
 where he arrived in October, 1740. The 
 exciting point of his doctrine was the ne- 
 cessity of a sensible change of heart in 
 order to preparation for heaven. Like the 
 old Puritans, and like Edwards, he held 
 that every man is born in sin, and unless 
 some evidence appears to the contrary, 
 is to be esteemed an heir of perdition. 
 The believers of this doctrine had always 
 been numerous and powerful both among 
 the clergy and in the churches of New- 
 England ; and by those who were not its 
 believers, it was rather neglected than op- 
 posed. It was now brought home to men's 
 hearts as they had never known it to be 
 before. All have heard of the eloquence 
 of Whitfield ; and that of Edwards, though 
 in a different style, was at least equally 
 effective, and more sure to leave perma- 
 nent results. These men had powerful 
 
 allies in several of the pastors in Boston 
 and other parts of New-England, and 
 especially in the Tennents, and their fel- 
 low-labourers in New- Jersey and Penn- 
 sylvania. 
 
 These men assumed as an established 
 truth, and proclaimed with all possible dis- 
 tinctness and earnestness, the doctrine that 
 regeneration is a change accompanied with 
 evidence by which it may be proved, and. 
 that all in whom no such evidence is found 
 are unregenerate, and in the broad road to 
 perdition. They preached to them, accord- 
 ingly, not as Christians w'ho needed in- 
 struction, but as impenitent, enemies of 
 God and righteousness, who must be con- 
 verted or perish forever. Multitudes were 
 awakened, convinced, converted ; and in a 
 few years, tens of thousands were added 
 to the churches ; and other multitudes who 
 were already in the churches, were in like 
 manner awakened and brought to repent- 
 ance. 
 
 Such an attack on men's hopes of heaven 
 could not fail to provoke resistance. As 
 has been shown already, the habit had been 
 formed of hoping favourably concerning 
 all who were not proved guilty of heresy 
 or immorality, and of admitting all such to 
 the communion of the churches, for this 
 reason, among others, that perhaps they 
 were regenerate. The promoters of the 
 I'evival made unsparing war upon all such 
 hopes, and pronounced all who had nothing 
 else to rest upon, heirs of perdition. This 
 their opponents called " censoriousness ;" 
 and those who practised it were denounced 
 as uncharitable, as usurpers of God's pre- 
 rogative of judging the heart, as fanatics 
 who delighted to throw orderly, quiet Chris- 
 tians into needless alarm. Such was the 
 usual language of that part of the clergy 
 who leaned strongly towards Arminianism, 
 of their followers, and of many othei-s. 
 Some zealous promoters of the revival 
 were guilty of great errors, and really de- 
 served these reproaches ; and its adversa- 
 ries were not slow in seizing the advan- 
 tage thus brought within their reach. They 
 convinced many that the revival was made 
 up of uncharitableness and fanaticism, and 
 thus succeeded in setting limits to its prog- 
 ress. 
 
 In a few years after the commencement 
 of this revival, Edwards became so fully 
 convinced that the prevailing system of ad- 
 mission to the communion, introduced by 
 his grandfather and predecessor, was wrong, 
 that he could no longer practise it. He 
 pubhshed his "Treatise on the Qualifica- 
 tions for Full Communion," in which he 
 maintained that none ought to be admitted 
 without such a declaration concerning the 
 exercises of their own minds as, if true, 
 would imply that they were regenerate per- 
 sons. Tiiis change of opinion led to his dis- 
 mission in 1750. His doctrine on this point, 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 UNITARIANI SM. 
 
 275 
 
 however, even then, had many advocates. 
 It spread rapidly among the friends of the 
 revival, and is now held by all the Congre- 
 gational churches of New-England that 
 have not become Unitarian. Where the 
 system of Stoddard and the half-way cov- 
 enant have not been abolished by a formal 
 vote, they have fallen into disuse, for none 
 think it right to practise according to them. 
 The ancient doctrine of the Puritans has 
 been restored, and evidence of piety is re- 
 quired of those who would become mem- 
 bers of the Church. 
 
 The principal faults charged upon the 
 promoters of the revival by its opponents 
 were censoriousness and undue excitement. 
 They laboured to exclude both from their 
 own parishes, and, as far as they could, 
 from the country. To a considerable ex- 
 tent they were successful. They produced 
 a profound calm on the subject of religion 
 among all who were governed by their in- 
 fluence — a calm which amounted to indif- 
 ference. And as to censoriousness, they 
 adhered to the practice of admitting men 
 to the communion of the church without 
 evidence of their piety. Their doctrine 
 was, that every man's piety is to be taken 
 for granted, unless some scandalous eri'or 
 of doctrine or practice proves him destitute 
 of it. The most important characteristic — 
 the fundamental element — of New-England 
 Unitarianism was now fully developed. A 
 party was formed, the members of Avhich 
 condemned and avoided all solicitude con- 
 cerning their own spiritual condition or 
 that of others. 
 
 When this state of mind had been pro- 
 duced and confirmed, the remainder of the 
 process was natural and easy. As in this 
 party there was to be no strong feeling with 
 respect to religion, except a strong unwill- 
 ingness to be disturbed by the " censori- 
 ousness" of others, there could, of course, 
 be no vigorous opposition to a change in 
 doctrines, no vigilance against error. A 
 system of doctrines, too, was wanted, con- 
 taining nothing to alarm the fears or dis- 
 turb tlie repose of the members of the par- 
 ty. The doctrines of man's apostacy from 
 God, and dependance on mere grace for 
 salvation, of the necessity of an atonement 
 by the blood of the Son of God, and of re- 
 generation by the special influence of the 
 Holy Spirit, were felt to be alarming doc- 
 trines. They were the doctrines by which 
 Edwards and others had filled their hear- 
 ers with anxiety, and produced excitement. 
 They were therefore laid aside ; but silent- 
 ly and without controversy, for controver- 
 sy might have produced feeling. Men were 
 suffered to forget that the Son and the Spir- 
 it have anything important to do in the 
 work of man's salvation ; and then it be- 
 came easy to overlook their existence. In 
 this way the Unitarian party was formed, 
 and furnished with all its essential attri- 
 
 butes long before Unitarian doctrines were 
 openly avowed, and probably long before 
 they were distinctly embraced in theory, 
 except by a very small number. 
 
 Unitarianism being introduced in this 
 manner, it is evident that no distinct ac- 
 count of the successive steps of its progress 
 can be given. The revivalists of 1740 as- 
 serted that " Socinianism" was even then 
 in the land. This assertion was then re- 
 pelled as a slander ; but Unitarians now 
 admit and assert that several leading op- 
 ponents of the revival were Unitarians at 
 that time, or soon after. The prevalence 
 of Unitarianism, however, was not then 
 extensive. The greater part of those who 
 are now claimed as having then belonged 
 to the " liberal" party were only Armini- 
 ans, or, at the farthest. Pelagians ; and 
 some of them were decided Calvinists- 
 
 From 1744 to 1762 the colonies were 
 engaged, almost incessantly, in the wars 
 that secured them against the arms of 
 France. In 1765 troubles with England 
 began, and continued till 1783; Then 
 came the formation of our system of gov- 
 ernment, and the anxious period of its 
 early operations. Thus the attention of 
 men was drawn off from religion, and fixed 
 on other subjects for about half a century, 
 affording a favourable opportunity for hab- 
 its of indifference to become confirmed, 
 and for error to make progress unobserved. 
 Yet it was not wholly unobserved. In 
 1768, the Rev. Dr. Hopkins preached in 
 Boston on the divinity of Christ, and pub- 
 lished the sermon, assigning as a reason 
 for the choice of this subject, his belief that 
 it was needed there. From time to time 
 other testimonies appeared of similar char- 
 acter. 
 
 The first congregation that became 
 avowedly Unitarian was that at the 
 " King's Chapel," in Boston. It was Epis- 
 copalian. Being without a pastor, they 
 employed Mr. Freeman, afterward Dr. 
 Freeman, as reader, in 1782. In 1785 he 
 succeeded in introducing a revised liturgy, 
 from which the doctrine of the Trinity 
 was struck out. He applied to several 
 American bishops for ordination, but none 
 would ordain him. He was, therefore, or- 
 dained by the church-wardens, in 1787. 
 For many years he maintained a constant 
 correspondence with the leading Unitari- 
 ans in England, and was a convenient me- 
 dium of communication between them and 
 the secret adherents of the same doctrines 
 in America. 
 
 The first Unitarian book by an Ameri- 
 can author is said to have been " Ballou on 
 the Atonement," published in 1803. Mr. 
 Ballou was pastor of a Universahst socie- 
 ty in Boston. But the term U?iiversaUst 
 must not be understood here as it often is 
 in Europe. It designates the belief that 
 all intelligent beings — men and devils, if 
 
276 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII. 
 
 there are any devils — will be saved. Some 
 Universalists hold that all men at death 
 pass directly into heaven ; others, that a 
 part of mankind will undergo a limited 
 punishment in hell, or, rather, in purgato- 
 ry, in proportion to the number and atroci- 
 ty of their sins. The doctrine has been 
 favoured by a few men of considerable 
 learning and respectable morals ; but its 
 chief success has been among the igno- 
 rant, the vulgar, and the vicious, not one 
 of whom was ever known to be reformed 
 by it. Mr. Ballou was a man of some ge- 
 nius, but little learning. His works have 
 done something to diffuse Unitarian opin- 
 ions among Universalists. A Mr. Sher- 
 man, in Connecticut, published in favour 
 of Unitarianism in 1805. He was dismiss- 
 ed from his pastoral charge about the same 
 time, and in a few years left the ministry 
 and lost his character. In 1810, Thomas 
 and Noah Worcester began to publish their 
 modification of Arianism in New-Hamp- 
 shire. The same year the church in Cov- 
 entry, Connecticut, became suspicious that 
 their pastor, the Rev. Abiel Abbot, was a 
 Unitarian. The subject was brought be- 
 fore the Consociation to which that church 
 belonged, and he was dismissed. He then 
 called together a council, composed chiefly 
 of men suspected of Unitarianism, who 
 dismissed him a second time, and gave 
 him a certificate of regular standing. The 
 irregularity of this transaction called forth 
 many expressions of disapprobation. 
 
 In and around Boston no Congregational 
 church had yet avowed itself Unitarian. 
 Harvard College had an orthodox presi- 
 dent and professor of theology till after 
 the commencement of the present century. 
 After the death of Professor Tappan, in 
 1804, the Rev. Dr. Ware was elected as 
 his successor. While the question of his 
 election was pending, a suspicion of his 
 Unitarianism was suggested, but it was 
 repelled by his friends as a calumny. 
 Even when President Kirkland was elect- 
 ed, in 1812, it has been said, on high Uni- 
 tarian authority, that he could not have 
 been elected if he had been known as a 
 defender of Unitarianism. 
 
 No pastor of a Congregational church 
 in or near Boston had yet avowed himself 
 a Unitarian, either from the pulpit or the 
 press. Yet the style of preaching adopted 
 by many was such as to excite susj 'nion ; 
 several periodicals openly advocated Uni- 
 tarianism, and Unitarian books were im- 
 ported and published in considerable num- 
 bers. Orthodox ministers, when att^ending 
 councils for ordaining pastors, found them- 
 selves opposed and tlivvarted in their at- 
 tempts to ascertain the theological views 
 of the candidates. Many other circum- 
 stances indicated the presence and secret 
 diffusion of error ; but the means were 
 wanting of fastening the cliarge upon indi- 
 
 viduals. There was, therefore, an increase 
 of preaching and publishing against Unita- 
 rianism. In the Panoplist, a monthly mag- 
 azine commenced in Boston in 1806, this 
 subject received special attention ; but all 
 its warnings were denounced as " calum- 
 ny." The facts, however, could not be 
 much longer concealed. 
 
 In 1812, the memoir of Lindsay, by Bel- 
 sham, was publislied in London. Only a 
 few copies of the work were imported, and 
 these were carefully kept from the sight 
 of all but a select few for nearly three 
 years. At length, the Rev. Dr. Morse, af- 
 ter months of fruitless effort, succeeded in 
 obtaining possession of a copy. The ac- 
 count there given of Unitarianism in Amer- 
 ica was extracted and published in a pam- 
 phlet. It contained letters from several 
 leading Unitarians in Boston, especially 
 Dr. Freeman, of various dates, from 1796, 
 or thereabout, to 1812. In these letters 
 the spread of Unitarianism, and the means 
 used to promote it, were described without 
 reserve. Concealment was no longer pos- 
 sible. Unitarianism was, therefore, open- 
 ly avowed by those who had been detect- 
 ed, and by others whose character and in- 
 terests were closely identified with theirs. 
 
 The ecclesiastical results of this disclo- 
 sure need to be particularly explained. 
 Among Congregationalists, each church, 
 that is, each congregation of covenanted 
 believers, has full power to manage its 
 own ecclesiastical concerns, without sub- 
 ordination to any earthly tribunal. There 
 was no way, therefore, of compelling 
 churches that had become Unitarian to 
 part with their Unitarian pastors. On the 
 same principle, pastors and churches that 
 continued orthodox were at liberty to with- 
 hold Christian fellowship from those in 
 whom they had no confidence. There was 
 no means of compelling orthodox minis- 
 ters and churches to perform any act by 
 which a Unitarian would be virtually ac- 
 knowledged as a Christian minister, or his 
 church as a Christian church. Orthodox 
 ministers, therefore, refused to exchange 
 pulpit labours on the Sabbath with those 
 whom they believed to be Unitarians, or to 
 sit with them in ecclesiastical councils, or 
 in any other way to recognise them as 
 ministers of Christ. This practice, how- 
 ever, was adopted gradu;illy. Many or- 
 thodox men were slov/ in believing that 
 one and another of their neighbours was a 
 Unitarian ; and many undecided men con- 
 trived to avoid for some time a declara- 
 tion in favour of either party, and to keep 
 on good terms with both. At lengtli, how- 
 ever, successive disclosures made the di- 
 viding line so visible, throughout its whole 
 length, that every man knew his own side 
 of it, and the parties are completely sep- 
 arated williout any formal excommunica- 
 tion of one by the other. They meet only 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 277 
 
 once in a year in the " General Conven- 
 tion of Congregational Ministers," and they 
 continue to meet together there only on 
 account of a fund of about 100,000 dollars 
 for the support of their widows. 
 
 On the publication of Mr. Belsham's dis- 
 closures, it was found that all the Congre- 
 gational churches in Boston had become 
 LTnitarian, except the Old South and Park- 
 street, which last had been established 
 within a few years by some zealous Trin- 
 itarians. The whole number of Unitarian 
 churches in various parts of New-England, 
 but mostly in the eastern part of Massa- 
 chusetts, was supposed to be about sev- 
 enty-five, though subsequent disclosures 
 showed it to have been considerably lar- 
 ger. They had then almost entire pos- 
 session of Harvard College ; and, by a 
 change in its charter, deliberately planned 
 some years before, but hurried through the 
 Legislature at a favourable moment, they 
 secured the control of it to their party. 
 
 A considerable number of churches in 
 Massachusetts had funds, given by the pi- 
 ous of former generations, for the support 
 of the ministry and of Christian ordinan- 
 ces. The main object of the donors was 
 to secure to their descendants, in perpetui- 
 ty, the services of learned, pious, and or- 
 thodox pastors ; and the funds were com- 
 mitted to the church, and not to tlie parish, 
 because the church, being composed of per- 
 sons of approved piety, would guard them 
 most effectually against perversion. Such 
 was the case with the First Church in Ded- 
 ham. In 1818, a majority of the inhabitants 
 of the parish with which that church was 
 connected chose a Unitarian to be their 
 pastor. The church refused to receive 
 him as their pastor. A few of its members, 
 however, seceded from the church, chose 
 the Unitarian for their pastor, and com- 
 menced a lawsuit against the church for 
 the possession of its property. In March, 
 1821, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts 
 decided in their favour, and established the 
 principle that, in all such cases, those who 
 act with the majority of the parish are the 
 church, and have a right to the funds. By 
 this decision many churches have been 
 deprived of their funds, their houses of 
 worship, and even the furniture of their 
 communion-table ; and many Unitarian 
 churches owe their existence to means 
 thus obtained. 
 
 After this decision the existence of a 
 church, as distinct from the parish, became 
 unimportant among Unitarians. Its sec- 
 ular interests were wholly in the power 
 of the parish, and might as well be held 
 by the parish directly. Their churches, as 
 has been shown, were never intended to be 
 bodies from which the unregenerate should 
 be excluded. There was, therefore, no 
 longer any important end to be answered 
 by their existence. Generally, it has not 
 
 been thought best to disband them ; but in 
 a considerable number of instances they 
 have been suffered to become extinct, and 
 there remains only the parish and the pas- 
 tor, who administers the ordinances indis- 
 criminately to all who desire it. Accord- 
 ing to some of their own writers, the re- 
 sult is that the ordinances become cheap 
 in men's esteem, and few care to receive 
 them. Church discipline, of course, has 
 fallen into entire disuse. The discipline 
 of the clergy appears to be also extinct. 
 If any of their clergy become scandalous- 
 ly immoral, they are not formally deposed 
 from the ministry, or visited with any ec- 
 clesiastical censure, but are allowed to 
 continue in office till their reputation be- 
 comes such that none will employ them, 
 and then to retire silently to private life. 
 
 In 1825 the number of Unitarian con- 
 gregations was estimated at 120. Now, 
 in 1844, they are said to amount to 230. 
 There are several causes of this increase. 
 
 In 1825 the process of taking sides was 
 not completed. Of the few which then 
 remained without character, a part have 
 doubtless become decidedly Unitarian, 
 
 Mr. Ballou's work on the atonement has 
 already been mentioned as the first Uni- 
 tarian work by an American author. That 
 and other works of a similar character 
 prepared the Universalists, somewhat ex- 
 tensively, to avow Unitarian opinions. 
 The Unitarians have, to a great extent, 
 and it is believed generally, embraced the 
 doctrine of the final salvation of all men. 
 There is, therefore, no doctrinal distinc- 
 tion between the two sects. As Unitari- 
 anism is esteemed the more genteel reli- 
 gion of the two, Universalists are under a 
 strong temptation to change their name, 
 and call themselves Unitarians. Such 
 changes very naturally occur when a Uni- 
 versalist congregation becomes vacant, and 
 a Unitarian preacher of acceptable address 
 offers himself as a candidate. Sometimes 
 congregations change from one of these 
 sects to the other, and back again, as tem- 
 porary convenience dictates. 
 
 Unitarianism, as has been shown, ori- 
 ginally grew out of a dislike to the prac- • 
 tice of requiring evidence of piety in can- 
 didates for admission to the churches. 
 There are many, in various parts of the 
 country, in whom this fundamental feeling 
 of the sect is very strong, but who are yet 
 unwilling to live without some form of re- 
 ligion. They are easily organized into a 
 society which requires no creed, and sub- 
 jects them to no discipline. Societies 
 thus formed, however, often vanish as ea- 
 sily and suddenly as they are made. 
 
 In 1787 a " Society for Propagating the 
 Gospel among the Indians and others in 
 North America" was incorporated by the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts. It acquired 
 permanent funds to the amount of 9000 
 
278 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII. 
 
 dollars. It elects its own members ; and 
 a majority of them having proved to be 
 Unitarian, the society has passed wholly 
 into the hands of that sect. It expends 
 the income of its fund in supporting two 
 or three preachers among the remnants of 
 Indian tribes in New-England. One or 
 two other unimportant societies, not ori- 
 ginally formed by them, have in like man- 
 ner passed under their control. They have 
 no organization for foreign missions. To 
 the Bible Society they contribute some- 
 thing, but the amount is not known. 
 
 The " American Unitarian Association," 
 formed in 1825, is their principal organ- 
 ization for united action. Its object is de- 
 clared to be " to diffuse the knowledge 
 and promote the interests of pure Chris- 
 tianity throughout our country." Its six- 
 teenth annual report gives the names of 
 117 clergymen who have been made life 
 members by the payment of thirty dol- 
 lars each, of whom eight are dead. The 
 whole number of life members are stated 
 at 374. It expended during the year end- 
 ing in May, 1841, the sum of 4962 dollars, 
 which was 81 dollars 89 cents more than 
 its receipts. The expenses of adminis- 
 tration were, the salary of the general 
 agent, 1800; his travelling expenses, 100; 
 office rent, 200 ; total, 2100 dollars ; being 
 very nearly three sevenths of the whole. 
 
 This association has published 179 dif- 
 ferent tracts, the prices of which vary 
 from one cent to six cents. During the 
 year ending in May, 1841, it aided sixteen 
 destitute congregations, of which ten were 
 in New-England, three in the State of New- 
 York, and three in the Western States. 
 The lowest appropriation for this purpose 
 was thirty dollars, and the highest 300. 
 It also expended 570 dollars for mission- 
 ary services, of which 530 were expended 
 to the west of New-England. 
 
 The smallness of the amount expended 
 by Unitarians in the way of associated ac- 
 tion is not to be ascribed to parsimony, 
 but to religious indifference. A large part 
 of the wealth of Boston, and of the east- 
 ern part of Massachusetts, is in their hands ; 
 ' and their capitalists have made many splen- 
 did donations to literary, scientific, and hu- 
 mane institutions. 
 
 Their churches probably contain some 
 truly regenerate persons, who became 
 members of them before they were avow- 
 edly Unitarian, and who remain there from 
 reverence for ancient usages, attachment 
 to the places where their ancestors wor- 
 shipped, and other similar causes. Others 
 of them are men of stern and almost Puri- 
 tanic morality, who have had from infan- 
 cy great reverence for religion in the 
 gross, but have never seriously studied its 
 apphcation to themselves in the detail of 
 its doctrines and duties, and wlio would 
 have remained steadfast members of the 
 
 same congregations just as quietly had 
 those congregations remained orthodox. 
 
 In philosophy the Unitarians of New- 
 England were at first, and for some years, 
 followers of Locke ; holding that all our 
 ideas, or, at least, the elements of which 
 they are formed, are received through the 
 senses. Very naturally, therefore, they 
 built their belief of Christianity wholly on 
 evidence addressed to the senses. They 
 believed that miracles had been wrought, 
 because it appeared so extremely improb- 
 able that the apostles were deceived con- 
 cerning them, or attempted to deceive oth- 
 ers ; or that the canonical writings ascri- 
 bed to them are spurious ; or that the ac- 
 counts of miracles which they contain are 
 interpolations. Those miracles they held 
 to be the testimony of God, addressed to 
 the senses of men, proving the truth of 
 Christianity. Yet they did not admit the 
 infallibility of the apostolic writings as we 
 have them. Many of them held that the 
 authors of the several parts of the New 
 Testament had no inspiration which se- 
 cured them against mistakes and false 
 reasoning ; and they very generally held, 
 that strong texts in favour of the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, or 
 the personality of the Holy Spirit, must 
 be interpolations or corruptions. Their 
 religious guide, therefore, was so much of 
 the Bible as they judged to be true ; and 
 their religion was, in its theory, the con- 
 formity of their hearts and lives to certain 
 external rules, which, in all probability, 
 were originally given by God, and which 
 have been transmitted to us in a record 
 which is not free from error. To this, in- 
 dividuals among them appended more or 
 less of sentiment and imagination, accord- 
 ing to the prompting of their own genius. 
 A system like this can never long continue 
 to satisfy any community. It fails to meet 
 certain feelings of spiritual want, which 
 are sure to spring up in many minds. 
 Hence there has been among the more se- 
 rious, ever since the separation, a gradual 
 going over to orthodoxy, which has retard- 
 ed the growth of Unitarianism. Now the 
 orthodox Congregational churches in Bos- 
 ten are about as numerous as the Unita- 
 rian, and the worshippers much more nu- 
 merous ; and the result is similar in the 
 surrounding country. 
 
 A few years since, German Transcen- 
 dentalism made its appearance among the 
 Unitarian clergy, and has spread rapidly. 
 Its adherents, generally, are not very pro- 
 found thinkers, nor very well acquainted 
 with the philosophy which they have em- 
 braced, or witli the evidence on which it 
 rests. It promises to relieve its disciples 
 from the necessity of building their reli- 
 gious faith and hopes on probabilities, how- 
 ever strong, and to give them an intuitive 
 and infallible knowledge of all that is es- 
 
Chap. Ill] 
 
 UNITARIANISM. 
 
 279 
 
 f.ential in religion; and it affords an un- 
 limited range for the play of the imagina- 
 tion. It has charms, therefore, for the con- 
 templative and for the enthusiastic. 
 
 The controversy on this subject became 
 public in 1836. It was brought out by an 
 article in the Christian Examiner, main- 
 taining that our faith in Christianity does 
 not rest on the evidence of miracles ; that 
 a record of miracles, however attested, can 
 prove nothing in favour of a religion not 
 previously seen to be true ; and that, there- 
 fore, we need to see and admit the reason- 
 ableness and truth of the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, before we can believe that miracles 
 were wrought to commend it to mankind. 
 The "Old School" Unitarians, as they 
 called themselves, pronounced this theory 
 infidelity, for it struck at the foundation 
 of the only reasoning by which they proved 
 the truth of Christianity. The controversy 
 was protracted, and somewhat bitter ; but 
 no attempt was made by the " Old School" 
 to separate themselves from those whom 
 they denounced as infidels. 
 
 The charge of Pantheism is brought 
 against the Transcendent alists generally, 
 by their Unitarian opponents ; and, in fact, 
 some of their publications are evidently 
 Pantheistic, while others are ambiguous 
 in that respect. Some of them have bor- 
 rowed largely from Benjamin Constant, 
 and maintain that all religions, from Feti- 
 chism to the most perfect form of Christi- 
 anity, are essentially of the same nature, 
 ■being only developments, more or less per- 
 fect, of the religious sentiment Avhich is 
 common to all men. According to them, 
 all men who have any religious thoughts 
 or feelings are so far inspired ; Moses. 
 Minos, and Numa, and a few others, had 
 an unusual degree of inspiration ; and Jesus 
 of Nazareth most of all. They do not 
 believe, however, that even Jesus was so 
 inspired as to be in all cases an infallible 
 teacher ; and they declare themselves by 
 no means sure that we shall not yet see 
 his superior. They reject Christ as a me- 
 diator in every sense of the term, and de- 
 clare that, in order to be true Christians, 
 we must hold intercourse with God as 
 Christ himself did, without a mediator. 
 
 These impious doctrines have been pro- 
 mulgated in periodicals and otherwise, 
 from time to time, with increasing boldness. 
 In the spring of the year 1841, they were 
 put forth without disguise and without re- 
 serve in a sermon at an ordination at South 
 Boston. Several of the leading Unitarian 
 clergy of the " Old School" were present, 
 and took part in the services. It is said 
 that some of them, in performing their parts, 
 uttered sentiments at variance with those 
 of the preacher, from which attentive hear- 
 ers might infer that the sermon did not 
 meet their approbation ; but there was no 
 explicit condemnation of the sermon either 
 
 then or afterward, till public attention was 
 called to the subject by three evangelical 
 clergymen who attended the ordination as 
 hearers, and took notes of the discourse. 
 These three Avitnesses, some weeks after 
 the ordination, published extracts from the 
 sermon in several religious newspapers, 
 and called on the members of the ordaining 
 Council to say whether they recognised 
 the preacher as a Christian minister. Pub- 
 lic attention was roused. Several intelli- 
 gent Unitarian laymen united in the de- 
 mand. Continued silence became imprac- 
 ticable. A number of articles appeared in 
 newspapers and magazines, in which indi- 
 vidual Unitarian ministers denounced the 
 sermon, and pronounced its doctrines deis- 
 tical ; but they carefully avoided the ques- 
 tion, whether its author was recognised by 
 them as a Christian minister. Others of 
 them preached and wrote in his defence. 
 His ecclesiastical relations still remain 
 undisturbed. Some of his Unitarian neigh- 
 bours have recognised his ministerial char- 
 acter by exchanging pulpits with him on 
 the Sabbath ; and he has, in his turn, 
 preached the weekly lecture maintained 
 by the Unitarian clergy of the Boston As- 
 sociation. It is understood, therefore, that 
 the public avowal of doctrines like his, 
 forms no obstacle to a regular standing in 
 the Unitarian ministry. 
 
 Why was not this defection arrested in 
 its progress by ecclesiastical authority^ 
 The answer is easy. 
 
 In Connecticut, where one or two min- 
 isters became Unitarian while the com- 
 munity remained orthodox, it was done. 
 Those Unitarian ministers were removed 
 from their places, and the progress of error 
 was arrested. In Massachusetts, the de- 
 fection was carried on by a different pro- 
 cess. Men did not fall, one at a time, from 
 orthodoxy into open Unitarianism, but al- 
 most the whole community in the eastern 
 part of the state sunk down gradually and 
 together. For a long time there was no 
 proof by which any one could be convicted 
 of heresy ; and when proof was obtained, 
 the heretics were found to be the majority 
 in the ecclesiastical bodies to which they 
 belonged, and of course, if any process had 
 been commenced, would have decided all 
 questions in their own favour. 
 
 The friends and abettors of the Congre- 
 gational independence of individual church- 
 es maintain that it has been the means 
 of saving New- England from universal 
 apostacy. Had the Synod in 1662, they 
 say, instead of being merely advisory, 
 possessed jurisdiction over the churches, 
 it would have imposed the half-way cove- 
 nant upon them all. As it was only ad- 
 visory, a considerable number of churches 
 rejected its advice, and adhered to the 
 ancie nt practice of the Pilgrims.* So, half 
 
 * Many readers, however, will be of opinion that, 
 
280 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII. 
 
 a century later, had there been an eccle- 
 siastical government to which all the 
 churches owed obedience, Stoddard's doc- 
 trine of admitting the unregenerate to full 
 communion would have been enforced 
 upon all ; for numbers and influence were 
 in its favour. And when Edwards, after 
 the great revival of 1740, reproclaimed the 
 ancient doctrine concerning church mem- 
 bership, had there been an ecclesiastical 
 tribunal having authority over all the 
 churches, he and his Reformation would 
 )iave been put down at once, and the ad- 
 mission of the unregenerate to the Lord's 
 table would have been required of all. And, 
 finally, consider, they still farther say, the 
 state of things in 1815, when conclusive 
 proof was first obtained of the existence 
 of Unitarianism among the Congregational 
 clergy in Eastern Massachusetts. The 
 Unitarians had the majority in the ec- 
 clesiastical bodies of which they were 
 members. Had these bodies possessed ju- 
 risdiction over all churches within their 
 bounds, they might have established Uni- 
 tarianism in them all, and might have for- 
 bidden all efforts for the revival or preser- 
 vation of orthodoxy. If there had been a 
 body representing all the churches in the 
 state, and having authority over all, the 
 majority would have been orthodox ; but 
 the Unitarians were numerous and power- 
 ful enough to have thrown oft" its jurisdic- 
 tion, and to have subsisted by themselves, 
 as they now do. If the civil government 
 had been invested with power to enforce 
 religious uniformity, it could have prevent- 
 ed such a result ; but it would not have 
 done it ; for the most important powers of 
 the civil government were then, and, with 
 few exceptions, have been ever since, 
 wielded by Unitarian hands. 
 
 In all these instances, the independence 
 of the churches, its friends firmly believe, 
 secured to the most orthodox the privi- 
 lege of adhering to the whole truth, both 
 in doctrine and practice, and of exerting 
 themselves in its defence and for its diflfu- 
 sion. This privilege there have always 
 been some to claim and to use. Error, 
 therefore, has always been held in check 
 till truth could rally its forces and regain 
 its ascendency. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHRIST-IAN CONNEXION. 
 
 The body that assumes the title of Chrls- 
 
 but for the isolation of ministers and congregations 
 under the Congregational system, error must have 
 been much sooner discovered, and checked in its be- 
 ginnings. The same remark applies to the apostacy 
 of many nominally Presbyterian ministers and con- 
 gregations in England. These never were Presby- 
 terians in fact. Error thus had leave to work its way 
 unchecked by the oversight either of bishop or pres- 
 bytery. 
 
 tians is of purely American origin. They 
 are more generally called in the United 
 States Christ-ians, the i in the first syllable 
 being pronounced long, though this pro- 
 nunciation, I need hardly say, is rejected 
 by themselves. 
 
 Dating their rise from about the year 
 1803, they appeared, it seems, in New- 
 England, Ohio, and Kentucky, some say 
 also in the South, nearly about the same 
 time. They boast of having no founder — 
 no Luther or Calvin, no Whitefield or Wes- 
 ley — that can claim any special influence 
 among them. They are the largest no- 
 creed sect in America, and had their origin 
 in the dissatisfaction that existed in some 
 minds with what they called the " bondage 
 of creeds," and still more, with the bond- 
 age of discipline that prevails, as they in- 
 sist, in all other churches. This may be 
 easily accounted for. Many of the most 
 active promoters of the new sect had been 
 excluded from other communions because 
 of their denial of some important doctrine, 
 or their refusal to submit to discipline and 
 government. 
 
 The Christ-ians, according to some of 
 their leading authorities, had a threefold 
 origin. The first members of their socie- 
 ties, or churches, in New-England, were 
 originally members of the Regular Bap- 
 tist connexion ; in the West they had been 
 Presbyterians, and in the South Metho- 
 dists. Their churches have all along been 
 constituted on the following principles : 
 "The Scriptures are taken to be the only 
 rule of faith and practice, each individual 
 being at liberty to determine for himself, 
 in relation to these matters, what they en- 
 join ; no member is subject to the loss of 
 church fellowship on account of his sin- 
 cere and conscientious belief, so long as 
 he manifestly lives a pious and devout 
 life ; no member is subject to discipline 
 and church censure but for disorderly and 
 immoral conduct ; the name Christian to 
 be adopted, to be exclusive of all sectarian 
 names, as the most appropriate designa- 
 tion of the body and its members ; the only 
 condition or test of admission, as a mem- 
 ber of a church, is a personal profession 
 of the Christian religion, accompanied 
 with satisfactory evidence of sincerity and 
 piety, and a determination to live according 
 to the divine rule or the Gospel of Christ ; 
 each church is considered an independent 
 body, possessing exclusive authority to 
 regulate and govern its own affairs."* 
 
 Although their founders continued to 
 cleave more or less closely to some, at 
 least, of the peculiarities of the various 
 bodies in which they had been brought up, 
 a process of assimilation to each other 
 has been gradually going on, and has at 
 
 * See an " Account of the Christian Connexion, 
 or Christ-ians," by the Rev. Joshua V. Himes, in the 
 Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge. 
 
Chap. V] 
 
 THE UNIVERSALISTS. 
 
 281 
 
 length brought them to a considerable de- 
 gree of uniformity on most points of doc- 
 trine. Trinitarians for the most part at the 
 outset, they have now almost unanimously 
 rejected the doctrine of the Trinity as un- 
 scriptural ; and although they refuse to be 
 tied down to a creed, the following may be 
 considered as a fair outline of the doctrines 
 that prevail among them : " There is one 
 living and true God, the Father Almighty, 
 who is unoriginated, independent, and eter- 
 nal, the Creator and Supporter of all 
 worlds ; and that this God is one spiritual 
 intelligence, one infinite mind, ever the 
 same, never varying : that this God is the 
 moral Governor of the world, the absolute 
 source of all the blessings of nature, prov- 
 idence, and grace, in whose infinite wis- 
 dom, goodness, mercy, benevolence, and 
 love, have originated all his moral dispen- 
 sations to man : that all men sin and come 
 short of the glory of God, and, consequent- 
 ly, fall under the curse of the law : that 
 Christ is the Son of God, the promised Mes- 
 siah, and Saviour of the world, the Mediator 
 between God and man, by whom God has 
 revealed his will to mankind ; by whose 
 sufferings, death, and resuj-rection, a way 
 has been provided by which sinners may 
 obtain salvation — may lay hold on eternal 
 life ; that he is appointed of God to raise 
 the dead, and judge the world at the last 
 day : that the Holy Spirit is the power and 
 energy of God — that holy influence of God 
 by whose agency, in the use of means, the 
 wicked are regenerated, converted, and 
 recovered to a virtuous and holy life, sanc- 
 tified and made meet for the inheritance of 
 the saints in light ; and that, by the same 
 Spirit, the saints, in the use of means, are 
 comforted, strengthened, and led in the path 
 of duty : the free forgiveness of sins, flow- 
 ing from the rich mercy of God, tln-ough 
 the labours, sufferings, and blood of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ : the necessity of re- 
 pentance towards God, and faith towards 
 our Lord Jesus Christ : the absolute ne- 
 cessity of holmess of heart and rectitude 
 of life to enjoy the favour and approbation 
 of God : the doctrine of a future state of 
 immortality : the doctrine of a righteous 
 retribution, in which God will render to 
 every man according to the deeds done in 
 the body : the baptism of believers by im- 
 mersion : and the open communion at the 
 Lord's table of Christians of every denom- 
 ination having a good standing in their re- 
 spective churches."* 
 
 Although each church is wholly inde- 
 pendent of all others in the management 
 of its aft'airs, yet, for the promotion of their 
 mutual prosperity, they have associations 
 called " State Conferences," composed of 
 delegates from the clergy and the church- 
 es, but with only advisory powers. In 
 
 * See " Account of the Christian Connexion, or 
 Christ -ians," by the Rev. Joshua V. Himes, as above. 
 
 1841 there were in the United States and 
 Canada forty-one conferences, embracing, 
 it was estimated, 593 ministers, 591 church- 
 es, and about 30,000 members. The pop- 
 ulation supposed to be under their influ- 
 ence is estimated at 300,000, which is man- 
 ifestly too high, for many of their con- 
 gregations are very small, particularly in 
 the West. 
 
 Generally speaking, their ministers are 
 men of little education, but a laudable de- 
 sire for improvement in this respect has 
 been showing itself. The State of Indiana 
 granted them a charter some years ago 
 for a college at New Albany, but whether 
 it has taken effect I know not. They have 
 no theological seminaries. For some years 
 past they have had a religious journal call- 
 ed " The Christian Palladium," published 
 in the State of New- York, and two other 
 journals, one published in New-Hampshire, 
 the other in Illinois. They have a Book 
 Association also. Upon the whole, much 
 inferior as the Christians are to the Unita- 
 rians in point of wealth, the size of their 
 churches, the learning and eloquence of 
 their ministers, and the rank and respect- 
 ability of their members, yet being far more 
 numerous, and having doctrines of quite as 
 elevated a character, their influence upon 
 the masses, whlie kindred in nature, is per- 
 haps greater in extent. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE UNIVERSALISTS. 
 
 In our chapter on the Unitarians we ex- 
 pressed our views of the moral influence 
 of the doctrines of the Universalists. The 
 latter were little known as a sect in Amer- 
 ica until about the middle of the last cen- 
 tury, when a few persons of reputation 
 partially or wholly embraced their doc- 
 trines. These were afterward preached 
 by the Rev. John Murray, who came from 
 England in 1770, and were embraced by 
 the Rev. Elhanan Winchester, a Baptist 
 minister of considerable talent. Both Mur- 
 ray and Winchester held the doctrine of 
 restoration, that is, that after the resurrec- 
 tion and the judgment, the wicked, after 
 suffering in hell for a time, and in a meas- 
 ure proportioned to their guilt, will event- 
 ually be recovered through the influences 
 of the Spirit, and saved by the atonement 
 of Christ. About the year 1790, the Rev. 
 Hosea Ballon appeared as a Universalist 
 preacher, and taught that all punishment 
 is in this life, and, consequently, that the 
 souls of the righteous and the wicked alike 
 pass immediately at death into a state of 
 happiness — a doctrine which, being nmch 
 more acceptable to the unrenewed heart, 
 became much more popular than that of 
 restoration as above described. The res- 
 
282 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII. 
 
 torationist preachers in the United States 
 hardly exceed twelve or fifteen in number, 
 and their churches are even fewer ; where- 
 as the Universalists, properly so called, 
 have rapidly increased here within the 
 last forty years. In 1801 there were but 
 twenty-two avowed Universalist preach- 
 ers ; they now state their numbers to be 
 as follows : a General Convention, twelve 
 State Conventions, fifty-nine Associations, 
 540 preachers, 550 meeting-houses, 875 
 societies, and 600,000 of the population 
 under their influence. The last item, we 
 suspect, is much too high. Their congre- 
 gations are mostly small, and many attend 
 from mere curiosity. 
 
 The doctrines of the American Univer- 
 salists are well expressed in three articles 
 adopted as a " Profession of Belief" by the 
 General Convention of Universalists, held 
 in 1803. It is said to be " perfectly sat- 
 isfactory to the denomination," and is as 
 follows : 
 
 1. " We believe that the Holy Scrip- 
 tures of the Old and New Testaments 
 contain a revelation of the character of 
 God, and of tlie duty, interest, and final 
 destination of mankind. 
 
 2. " We believe that there is one God, 
 whose nature is love ; revealed in one 
 Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of 
 grace, who will finally restore the whole 
 world of mankind to holiness and happi- 
 ness. 
 
 3. " We believe that holiness and true 
 happiness are inseparably connected ; and 
 that believers ought to be careful to main- 
 tain order and practise good works ; for 
 these things are good and profitable unto 
 men." 
 
 Although their churches are all several- 
 ly independent of each other, yet for con- 
 sultation they have local associations. 
 State Conventions, and a General Con- 
 vention. They have begun of late years 
 to pay some attention to education, and 
 have now what they call a university in 
 the State of Vermont, and three or four 
 inferior institutions. Most of their preach- 
 ers, though men of little learning, by di- 
 recting all their thoughts to one point, and 
 mustering every plausible argument in 
 favour of their doctrines, become wonder- 
 fully skilful in wielding their sophistry, 
 so as readily to seduce such as want to 
 find an easier way to heaven than can be 
 found in the Scriptures, when these are 
 not tortured and perverted to serve some 
 particular end. They say that they have 
 jio fewer than twenty newspapers, advoca- 
 ting their doctrines in different parts of 
 the country. 
 
 The only Universalists whose preaching 
 seems to have any moral influence, are the 
 handful of Rcstorationists — the rest are 
 Iieard with delight chiefly by the irreligious, 
 the profane, Sabbath-breakers, drunkards, 
 
 and all haters of evangelical religion. 
 Their preaching positively exercises no 
 reforming influence on the wicked, and 
 what worse can be said of it 1* 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SWEDENBORGIANS AND TUNKERS. 
 
 The New Jerusalem Church, or Sweden- 
 borgians, are not numerous in America. 
 Their doctrines were first propagated here, 
 I believe, by some missionaries from Eng- 
 land. Their churches, which are small, are 
 about thirty or forty in number, and iso- 
 lated members of the sect are to be found 
 in various parts of the country. They 
 have about thirty-five ministers, with hard- 
 ly 10,000 souls under their instruction. 
 Their churches, in point of government, 
 are, in the main, independent, with consul- 
 tative conventions of their ministers, held 
 from time to time. Their doctrines, which, 
 the reader must be aware, are of Swedish 
 origin, and have for their author Baron 
 Emanuel Swedenborg, are a strange " amal- 
 gamation," as some one has justly re- 
 marked, " of Sabellianism, the errors of the 
 Patripassians, many of the anti-scriptural 
 notions of the Socinians, and some of the 
 most extravagant vagaries of mysticism. 
 Their mode of interpreting Scripture is to- 
 tally at variance with every principle of 
 sound philology and exegesis, and neces- 
 sarily tends to unsettle the mind, and leave 
 it a prey to the wildest whimsies that it is 
 possible for the human mind to create or 
 entertain." They practise both Baptism 
 and the Lord's Supper. f They have two 
 or three periodicals, in which their doc- 
 trines are expounded and defended. 
 
 Tunkers. — The Tunkers,or Dunkers, are, 
 on the other hand, a sect of German ori- 
 gin. They are Seventh-day Baptist Uni- 
 versalists. They are Restorationists, and 
 teach that men may do works of superero- 
 gation ; on this latter point, as well as on 
 
 * On the opening of a Universalist place of wor- 
 ship in any of our cities ami villages, it is flocked to 
 chiefly by low, idle, and vicious persons. Curiosity 
 sometimes attracts others of a better description for 
 a time; but it is a remarkable fact, established by 
 the testimony of Universalists on becoming con- 
 verted to the Truth, that few can, however desirous, 
 ever bring themselves to believe the doctrine of uni- 
 versal salvation. Most are like the New-England 
 farmer who, at the close of a Universalist service, 
 thanked the preacher for his sermon, saying that he 
 vastly liked his doctrine, and would give him five 
 dollars if ho would only prove it to be true ! 
 
 t The Swedenborgians say that they are increas- 
 ing faster in America than anywhere else at present. 
 If this be so, their increase throughout the world 
 must be slow indeed. The late Judge Young, of 
 (ireensburg, in Pennsylvania, and a few other men 
 of some influence, have been reckoned among their 
 converts. In some instances men who have grown 
 tired of the coldness of Unitarianism, have betaken 
 themselves to Swedenborgianism. 
 
'Chap. VIII.] JEWS, RAPPISTS, SHAKERS, MORMONS, ETC. 
 
 383 
 
 some others, they show a strong leaning 
 towards Romanism. They allow mar- 
 riage, but make mucli account of celibacy ; 
 in Baptism they hold that the immersion 
 should be repeated thrice, and observe the 
 seventh day as their Sabbath. Their 
 church order is like that of the Regular 
 Baptists, except that every brother is al- 
 lowed to speak, and the most fluent is 
 generally chosen the regular minister. 
 Most of the men in this communion wear 
 their beards long, and dress in long coats, 
 or tunics, reaching to their heels, and bound 
 at the waist with a girdle. They are but 
 a small body, having some churches, but 
 in many places meet in private houses. 
 Some of them appear to possess piety. 
 Their ministers are supposed to be about 
 equal in number to their churches, and the 
 aggregate amount of their members may 
 be about 3000 or 4000. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 Whatever may have been the early 
 legislation of the Anglo-American colonies 
 in regard to the descendants of Abraham, 
 it is certain that the Jew now finds an asy- 
 lum, and the full enjoyment of his civil 
 rights, in all parts of the United States. 
 Yet I know not how it has happened, un- 
 less it be owing to the distance of our 
 country from Europe, and its presenting 
 less scope for the petty traffic which forms 
 their chief employment in the Old World, 
 that it has been only at a comparatively 
 recent period that any considerable num- 
 ber of Jews have found their way to our 
 shores. So much have they increased, 
 however, among us during the last ten 
 years, that it is now computed tliat there 
 are no fewer than 50,000 in the United 
 States. They have about fifty synagogues, 
 and the same number of Rabbles. Five or 
 six synagogues are now to be found in 
 New- York, instead of one, as a few years 
 ago. There is one in which the service 
 is conducted in English, at Charleston, in 
 South Carolina, and no doubt in other 
 cities also. A few instances of conver- 
 sion to Christianity have taken place, but 
 only a few, the attention of Christians, we 
 may truly say, not having been sufficiently 
 turned to that object. This may have been 
 from the fewness of the Jews, until of late 
 years, causing them to be overlooked, or 
 from the want of suitable persons to devote 
 themselves to the work. We are pleased 
 to see that some interest has begun to be 
 taken in this subject during the last year 
 or two. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 RAPPISTS, SHAKERS, MORMONS, ETC. 
 
 The Rappists are a small body of German 
 Protestants, who came to the United States 
 from Wurtemburg, about the year 1803, 
 under their pastor, a Mr. George Rapp, 
 who has recently deceased. They settled 
 at a place called Economy, on the Ohio, 
 about fifteen miles below Pittsburgh. From 
 Economy part of them, headed by Mr. 
 Rapp, went to the W^abash River, in Indi- 
 ana, and on its banks formed a new settle- 
 ment, called Harmony, but this they after- 
 ward sold to the well-known Robert Owen, 
 and returned to Economy, in Pennsylvania. 
 Their distinguishing principle is an entire 
 " community of goods," upon what they 
 suppose to have been the example of the 
 primitive Christians. The whole scheme, 
 however, of this small community, for it 
 comprises but a few hundred members, 
 seems mainly of a worldly and merely 
 economical character, though they keep 
 up the form of religious observances and 
 services. 
 
 The Shakers are a fanatical sect of Eng- 
 lish origin. About 1747, James Wardley, 
 originally a Quaker, imagining that he had 
 supernatural dreams and revelations, found- 
 ed a sect which, from the bodily agitations 
 practised in some parts of their religious 
 services, were called Shakers, or Shaking 
 Quakers ; it is not, however, to be suppo- 
 sed for a moment that they are connected 
 with the respectable people called Qua- 
 kers or Friends. Ann Lee, or, rather, Mrs. 
 Standley, for she had married a man of 
 that name, the daughter of a blacksmith in 
 Manchester, England, adopted Wardley's 
 views and the bodily exercises of his fol- 
 lowers. From the accounts we have of her 
 she must have become a thorough adept 
 during the nine years which she spent in 
 convulsions, fastings, «fec. ; for she is said 
 to have clinched her fists in the course of 
 her fits so as to make the blood pass through 
 the pores of her skin, and wasted away so 
 that at last she had to be fed like an infant. 
 About 1770 she discovered the wickedness 
 of marriage, and began " testifying against 
 it." She called herself " Ann the Word," 
 meaning that the Word dwelt in her. And 
 to this day her followers say that " the man 
 who was called Jesus, and the woman who 
 was called Ann, are verily the two first pil- 
 lars of the Church, the two anointed ones." 
 In other words, they hold that, as the first 
 Adam was accompanied by a woman, so 
 must be the second Adam. 
 
 In May, 1774, Ann Lee, otherwise Mrs. 
 Standley, together with three elders, and 
 others of the sect, emigrated to America, 
 and two years after formed a settlement 
 at Niskayuna, a few miles from Albany, in 
 the State of New- York. From that, as 
 from a centre, they put forth shoots, until 
 
284 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book vni. 
 
 at length there are now about fifteen Shaker 
 settlements, or villages, in different parts 
 of the United States, comprising some 6000 
 or 8000 souls. Their doctrines are a strange 
 mixture of the crudest errors with some 
 few Gospel truths, but it would be a sad 
 misnomer to call them Christian. They 
 call themselves the Millennial Church. 
 They hold that the millennium has begun, 
 and that they are the only true church, and 
 have all the apostolic gifts. They insist 
 that Baptism and the Lord's Supper ceased 
 with the apostolic age ; that the wicked 
 will be punished for a definite period only, 
 except such as apostatize from them, and 
 these will be punished forever ; that the 
 judg;ment has already commenced ; that 
 Christ will not again appear in the world, 
 except in the persons of his followers, that 
 is, the Shakers ; that marriage is sinful, 
 and that " they that have wives should be 
 as though they had none," even now, and 
 that thus alone purity and holiness, and 
 the consequent beatitude of the heaven- 
 ly state, can be attained ; that sin com- 
 mitted against God is committed against 
 them, and can be pardoned only for Christ's 
 sake through them. Such are some of 
 their absurd tenets. The discipline of 
 their churches rests for the most part with 
 "their elders," who follow the instructions 
 left by "Mother Ann Lee." In their reh- 
 gious worship, they range themselves at 
 intervals in rows, and then spring upward 
 a few inches ; sometimes, however, they 
 become so excited in this exercise as to 
 throw off their upper garments, and jump 
 as if they would touch the ceiling — all, as 
 they say, to express their joy in the Lord. 
 After this they sit down and listen awhile 
 to their preachers, and then, when tired of 
 hearing, resume their dancing freaks. 
 
 They maintain the doctrine of a commu- 
 nion of goods. The men and women live 
 apart. The children of proselytes are in- 
 stantly separated, by the boys being sent 
 into the male apartment, and the girls into 
 the female. Of course it is only from such 
 recruits that a community of this kind can 
 keep up its numbers. 
 
 The Shakers have the reputation, in gen- 
 eral, of being honest and industrious, but I 
 have had no means of ascertaining what 
 their interior life and conduct may be, be- 
 yond this, that no small number of their 
 members have left them in disgust, and are 
 far from speaking well of them. The read- 
 er will perceive their insignificance in point 
 of numbers, yet, to believe some European 
 travellers, there is cause to fear that the 
 United States may one day be overrun 
 with this ignorant and deluded sect. But 
 the absurd importance which such writers 
 would fain attach to the Shakers is easily 
 accounted for ; their eccentricities afford 
 a topic sufficiently marvellous and amusing 
 to fill a chapter or two in a " Diary" or 
 
 " Notebook," while in the United States no- 
 body thinks it worth while to bestow much 
 thought upon them. So long as they re- 
 spect the persons, rights, and property of 
 others, the government suffers them to grat- 
 ify their fancies undisturbed. According- 
 ly, they remain a small and quite obscure 
 community, that must in time utterly dis- 
 appear instead of growing into something 
 like importance, which would be the prob- 
 able result if they were persecuted. Were 
 the Shakers to appear in some European 
 countries, a very different, and, in my opin- 
 ion, a far less prudent course would be fol- 
 lowed. Accustomed to meddle with eve- 
 rything, even with conscience itself, their 
 governments would probably interfere, un- 
 der the plea of saving the children from 
 being brought up in such delusion. But 
 we prefer letting them alone, under the 
 conviction that, all things considered, it is 
 better to do so, and with the hope that the 
 light that surrounds them, and with which 
 they must come into contact in their inter- 
 course with the world, will, in God's own 
 time, reach their minds. To interfere with 
 those parental ties, and that consequent 
 responsibility which God himself has es- 
 tablished, must always be a difiicult and 
 dangerous task even for the best and wi- 
 sest of governments.* 
 
 * A book of a character somewhat remarkable has 
 lately been published by these deluded people. It is en- 
 titled, " A Holy, Sacred, and Divine ROLL AND 
 BOOK, FRO.M THE LORD GOD OF HEAVEN, to 
 THE Inhabitants of the Earth ; revealed in 
 THE United Society at New-Lebanon. Coun- 
 ty of Columbia, State of New-York, United- 
 States of America. Read and understand all ye 
 in mortal clay. Published at Canterbury, N. H., 1843." 
 
 The history of this strange production is as fol- 
 lows : A certain Philemon Stewart asserts that a 
 holy angel from the Lord came to him in the morn- 
 ing of the 4th of May, 1842, at New-Lebanon, and 
 commanded him to appear before the Lord on the 
 Holy Mount, bowing himself seven times as he ap- 
 proached. He obeyed the heavenly messenger, and 
 met a mighty angel on the summit of the hill or 
 mount, who read to him six hours every day from 
 the Roll which he had in his hand, m order that he, 
 Philemon Stewart, might write down the sacred 
 revelation. 
 
 The contents of this volume are various. First, 
 there is a Proclamation of the Almighty to all that 
 dwell on the earth, announcing that he was going to 
 make a great revelation through his holy angel, who 
 is Jesus Christ. Next comes a proclamation from 
 God to his holy angel. Then follows a proclamation 
 of the angel himself After this, we have the intro- 
 duction to the Sacred Roll by the holy angel, giv- 
 en also at New-Lebanon (after the volume had been 
 written), on the 2d of February, 184.3, at twelve 
 o'clock, M. Then comes the " Sacred Volume and 
 Sealed Roll, opened and read by the mighty angel," 
 consisting of 33 chapters, each of which is divided 
 into verses, after the manner of the Scriptures. 
 
 To give anything like an adequate idea of its con- 
 tents in a short space is impossible. I will only say, 
 that it proposes to give an account of the character 
 of God ; the creation of man ; of his fall through the 
 temptation of the serpent [irrational or animal pro- 
 pensities] ; of God's dealing with mankind ; of Jesus 
 Christ; of the departures from the Gospel; of the 
 second advent, or the Christ in the female (Mother 
 
Chap. VIII.] 
 
 RAPPISTS, SHAKERS, MORMONS, ETC. 
 
 285 
 
 The Mormons, or Latter Day Saints, as 
 they call themselves. The annals of mod- 
 ern times furnish few more remarkable 
 examples of cunning in the leaders, and 
 delusion in their dupes, than is presented 
 by what is called Mormonism. An ig- 
 norant but ambitious person of the name 
 of Joseph Smith, Jun., then residing in the 
 western part of the State of New- York, 
 pretends that an angel appeared to him in 
 1827, and told him where he should find 
 a stone box, containing certain golden 
 plates, with a revelation from heaven in- 
 scribed on them. Four years after this, the 
 plates having, of course, been found as de- 
 scribed, the impostor set about the writing 
 out of this revelation, and pretended, with 
 the aid of a pair of stone spectacles, found 
 also in the box, to read it off to a man 
 of the name of Harris, and afterward to 
 one called Cowdery, these acting as his 
 amanuenses. The " prophet," as he is 
 
 Ann Lee) ; of the way by which holiness may be at- 
 tained, viz., the renunciation of sexual and sensual 
 desires, and living as brothers and sisters, instead of 
 husband and wife; of the terrible judgments which 
 men will encounter if they do not obey this revela- 
 tion, etc., etc. 
 
 As it is important that this book should be known 
 to all mankind, it is enjoined by the mighty angel 
 that every minister of the Gospel should have a copy, 
 as soon as he can procure one, in the sacred pulpit, 
 that people may see it. All boards of missions are 
 commanded to have it translated into foreign lan- 
 guages. One edition has been printed by the " So- 
 ciety" for gratuitous distribution. Copies have been 
 sent, in the name of the Lord, to the principal book- 
 sellers, and a modest request is made that they 
 would publish and circulate the work, and some di- 
 rections respecting the manner of doing so are giv- 
 en.* 
 
 We learn, furthermore, from a letter dated the 18th 
 of December, 1843, addressed to the Messrs. Harper, 
 that the committee or agents of the Society have re- 
 solved upon a pretty wide and thorough dissemina- 
 tion of the 500 copies which they had, agreeably to 
 the divine command, printed for general distribution. 
 " We do not feel it our province," say they, " to judge 
 of the work and designs of the Almighty in this mat- 
 ter ; but we feel ourselves under the most solemn ob- 
 ligations to obey his divine command, which has been 
 revealed to us by the inspiration of his holy angel, 
 with that degree of evidence which we cannot doubt. 
 We have, therefore, made arrangements to forward 
 four copies to each of the governments of Europe and 
 Asia, part of which are already on the way to Eu- 
 rope ; four to the chief magistrate of these United 
 States, and two to the executive of each state, and 
 also to the different boards of foreign missions. 
 
 " We are aware that the manner in which the 
 hook was revealed and written, in the name of in- 
 spiration from the Almighty, is not according to the 
 generally-received opinions and present sense and 
 ideas of mankind, but we solemnly testify that this 
 work was not directed nor dictated by any mortal 
 power or wisdom." 
 
 The whole is a strange mixture, in which entire 
 passages, as well as verses, of the Scriptures are min- 
 gled up with the speculations, often both impious 
 and absurd, of the professed author. 
 
 * In fact, ou page 161, it is expressly ordained that fhe 
 book must be " bound in yellow paper, with red backs, 
 ■edges also yellow ; and it is my command, saith the Lord, 
 that if ajiy person or persons shall add aught to this book, 
 he or they shall not prosper in time, nor find rest m eter- 
 nity." 
 
 now called, took care, of course, that nei- 
 ther of them, nor any one else, should 
 see the plates, the part of the room he 
 occupied having been partitioned off from 
 where they sat by a blanket. After three 
 years spent in concocting this new rev- 
 elation, the book at last was completed, 
 and pubhshed as a I'2mo volume of 588 
 pages, at Palmyra, in the State of New- 
 York. It is commonly called the Mor- 
 mon's Bible, but more properly The Book 
 of Mormon, and is divided into fifteen 
 books or parts, each purporting to be writ- 
 ten by the author whose name it bears. 
 These profess to give the history of about 
 a thousand years from the time of Zedeki- 
 ah, king of Judah, to A.D. 420. The whole 
 work claims to be an abridgment by one 
 Moroni, the last of the Nephites, of the 
 seed of Israel, from the records of his 
 people. Not to trouble the reader with de- 
 tails respecting this most absurd of all pre- 
 tended revelations from heaven, we need 
 only say that it undertakes " to trace the 
 history of the Aborigines of the American 
 Continent, in all their apostacies, pilgrim- 
 ages, trials, adventures, and wars from the 
 time of their leaving Jerusalem, in the 
 reign of Zedekiah, under one Lehi, down 
 to their final disaster, near the Hill of Ca- 
 morah, in the State of New- York, where 
 Smith found his golden plates. In that 
 final contest, according to the Prophet Mo- 
 roni, about 230,000 were slain in battle, 
 and he alone escaped to tell the tale."* 
 
 But the Book of Mormon, which they do 
 not consider so nmch in the light of a sub- 
 stitute for the Holy Scriptures as of a sup- 
 plement to them, does not contain all Jo- 
 seph Smith's revelations ; a I2mo volume, 
 of about 250 pages, called The Book of Cov- 
 enants and Revelations, and filled with the 
 silliest things imaginable, of all sorts, has 
 been added to it by way of another supple- 
 ment. Thoroughly to comprehend the 
 whole system, however, one must read Mr. 
 Parley P. Pratt's " Voice of Warning," for 
 he is an oracle among the Mormons, and 
 also the newspaper which they publish 
 as an organ for the dissemination of their 
 doctrines. We may add, that, aided by 
 his wonderful spectacles, Smith is ma- 
 king a new translation of the Bible, al- 
 though quite unacquainted with Hebrew" 
 and Greek ! 
 
 The publication of his own Bible, in 
 1830, may be considered as the starting- 
 point of the sect. For some years he 
 made but few converts, but having remo- 
 ved to Kirtland, Ohio, he was there joined 
 by Sidney Rigdon, formerly a heterodox 
 Baptist preacher, who had been preparing 
 the way for Mormonism by propagating 
 certain doctrines of his own, and being a 
 
 ♦Turner's "Mormonism in all Ages," published 
 at New-York, and to be had of Wiley and Putnam, 
 booksellers, London. 
 
286 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VH. 
 
 much better-informed man than Smith, it 
 is chiefly under his plastic hand that the 
 religious economy of the sect has been 
 formed. From Ohio they began to re- 
 move, in 1834, to Jackson county, in Mis- 
 souri, where they were to have their 
 " Mount Zion," the capital and centre of 
 their great empire. The people of Mis- 
 souri, a few years after, compelled them 
 to leave it ; upon which they went to Illi- 
 nois, and there they are now building the 
 city of Nauvoo, on the left bank of the 
 Mississippi, and thither their disciples have 
 been flocking ever since, until their num- 
 bers amount to several thousands. Smith 
 and Rigdon are still their chief prophets. 
 For a while, they had many to sympathize 
 with them on account of the severity with 
 which they had been supposed to be treat- 
 ed in Missouri, but so much has lately 
 come to light in proof of the inordinate am- 
 bition, and vile character and conduct of 
 their leaders, who want to found a kind of 
 empire in the West, that their speedy an- 
 nihilation as a sect seems now inevitable. 
 One dupe after another is leaving them, 
 and exposing the abominations of the fra- 
 ternity and its chiefs. Smith and some 
 others seem now marked out as objects on 
 which the laws of the land must soon in- 
 flict summary justice. Their leaders are 
 evidently atrocious impostors, who have 
 deceived a great many weak-minded per- 
 sons, by holding out to them promises of 
 great temporal advantage. " Joe Smith," 
 as he is commonly called, will soon find 
 that America is not another Arabia, nor 
 he another Mohammed ; and his hope of 
 founding a vast empire in the Western 
 hemisphere must soon vanish away. 
 
 To conclude, the Mormons are a body 
 of ignorant creatures, collected from al- 
 most all parts of the United States, and 
 also from Great Britain.* A full exposi- 
 tion of the wickedness of their leaders has 
 lately been made by John C. Bennet, for- 
 merly a major-general in the " Legion of 
 Nauvoo," and an important man among 
 them. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ATHEISTS, DEISTS, SOCIA.LISTS, FOURRIERISTS, 
 ETC. 
 
 These sects can hardly be placed with 
 propriety among religious denominations 
 of any description, the most they pretend 
 to being a code of morals, such as it is. 
 The avowed Atheists are, happily, few in 
 number, and are chiefly to be found among 
 
 * It is a singular fact that so large a proportion of 
 them are from Great Britain. But it is not difficult 
 to account for it. Smitli and the other leaders know 
 well that there is a large population in England of a 
 low and ignorant character, who may be readily 
 tempted, by the prospect of bettering their fortunes 
 to take part in such an enterprise. 
 
 the frequenters of our remaining groggeries 
 and rum-holes. 
 
 As for our Deists, including unbelievers 
 in Christianity of all classes, there is a 
 considerable number, especially in New- 
 York, and some of our other large cities 
 and towns. A very large proportion of 
 them are foreigners. The infidelity of the 
 present times, however, in the United 
 States is remarkably distinguished from 
 what was to be found there fifty years 
 ago, when that of France, after having dif- 
 fused itself in the plausible speculations of 
 a host of popular writers, wherever the 
 French language was known, became at 
 length associated with the great Revolu- 
 tion of that country, and obtaining credit 
 for all that was good in a work which it 
 only corrupted and marred, became fash- 
 ionable in America as well as Europe, 
 among the professed admirers of liberty, 
 in what are called the highest classes of 
 society. At the head of these, in the Uni- 
 ted States, stood Mr. Jeff"erson, who was 
 President from 1801 to 1809, and who in 
 conversation, and by his writings, did more 
 than any other man that ever lived among 
 us to propagate irreligion in the most in- 
 fluential part of the community. In the 
 same cause, and about the same period, 
 laboured Mr. Thomas Paine, and, at a later 
 date, Mr. Thomas Cooper, who endeavour- 
 ed to train to infidelity by sophistical rea- 
 soning, and still more, by contemptible 
 sarcasms and sneers, the youth whom it 
 was his duty to teach better things. 
 
 Now, however, it is much otherwise. 
 When men dislike evangelical truth, they 
 take refuge in something which, under the 
 name of Christianity, makes a less demand 
 on their conscience and their conduct. - 
 Open infidelity, meanwhile, has descended 
 to the lower ranks. It now burrows in 
 the narrow streets, and lanes, and purlieus 
 of our large cities and towns, where it finds 
 its proper aliment — the ignorant and the 
 vicious to mislead and to destroy. 
 
 Owenisni, Socialism, and Fourrierism,. 
 are of foreign origin. The first two are 
 fi-om England, and are but economical or 
 political schemes, in which infidelity seeks 
 to imbody and sustain itself. Fourrierism 
 is also an economical scheme. It is not 
 necessarily allied to infidelity, but as it 
 has not long been known in the United 
 States, I am not informed of its character 
 there. 
 
 Robert Owen, from Scotland, and Miss 
 Frances Wright, from England, endeavoiu-- 
 ed some years ago to form the first infidel 
 community upon the social principle adopt- 
 ed by the Shakers and the Mormons ; fail- 
 ing in which, they set about endeavouring 
 to bring over the labouring classes of New- 
 York, and other great cities, to certain, 
 agrarian schemes. But after much labour 
 in travelling, lecturing, and forming socie- 
 
Chap. X.] 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 287 
 
 ties for the circulation of infidel tracts and 
 books, their efforts have proved almost 
 fruitless. Their lectures at first attracted 
 crowds both of Americans and foreigners, 
 who attended them from curiosity, but be- 
 fore long their audiences consisted chiefly 
 of foreigners, and such is the state of 
 things at present.* That there is a con- 
 siderable amount of infidehty in America 
 is not denied, but it cannot be compared 
 to the vast amount of true religion, much 
 less with the much vaster amount of re- 
 spect for religion, and religious belief, 
 Avhich so largely pervades the moral at- 
 mosphere of the country. Of the truly 
 great men of the nation, very few are in- 
 fidels. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS ON THE STATE OF THEO- 
 LOGICAL OPINION IN AMERICA. 
 
 Having concluded these notices of the 
 various denominations — evangelical and 
 non-evangelical — in the United States, I 
 would now make a few remarks on the 
 past history and present state of theologi- 
 cal opinion in that country. Fully and 
 philosophically treated, this could not fail 
 to interest sincere inquirers after truth in 
 all countries, but it would require not a 
 chapter, but a volume, and would hardly 
 be consistent with the nature of this work. 
 We must leave such a discussion to an- 
 other time, and, probably, to other hands, 
 and shall now merely touch on a few^ gen- 
 eral topics. 
 
 I. Let us first mark some of the causes 
 and influences to which this diversity of 
 religious doctrines may be traced. The 
 chief of these are, 
 
 1. Difference of origin and ancestry. 
 This we have already noticed, but must 
 refer to it again. 
 
 Had the whole territory of the United 
 States been originally settled by one class 
 of men, holding the same system of reli- 
 gious opinions, more uniformity of doc- 
 trine might reasonably have been looked 
 for. But what philosophical inquirer, know- 
 ing the different origins of New-England, 
 Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New- York, 
 would expect that the mere federal union 
 
 * At one time it was feared that vast numbers 
 of the labouring classes in New-York, as well as in 
 Philadelphia and other cities, would be carried away 
 by the plausible but vile discourses of Miss Frances 
 Wright. But facts soon proved that those fears 
 were groundless. Even in the acme of her popular- 
 ity, a friend of mine who was present at one of her 
 lectures told me that she was hissed no less than 
 two or three times for making the assertion, and re- 
 peating it, that Washington was an infidel ! There 
 are few people in the United States who would not 
 consider it a dishonour done to the name of that 
 great and good man, whom humanity claims as her 
 own, to call him an infidel. 
 
 of states that differ so much in their ori- 
 ginal inhabitants, could ever bring them 
 all to complete rehgious uniformity 1 Let 
 us but look at the number of different reli- 
 gious bodies — different, I mean, in their 
 origin — to be found in these and the other 
 states of the Union. (L) The New-Eng- 
 land Congregational churches, formed by 
 immigrant Puritans, and, down to the epoch 
 of our Revolution, sympathizing strongly 
 with all the changes of opinion among the 
 English dissenters. (2.) The Presbyterian 
 Church in its larger and smaller branches, 
 very much of Scotch and Irish origin, and 
 still aiming at an imitation of the Church 
 of Scotland as its pattern. (3.) The Epis- 
 copal Church, an offshoot from the Church 
 of J]ngland, dreading and almost scorning 
 to borrow ideas from any quarter save its 
 mother-church. (4.) The Dutch Reformed 
 Church, which long received its ministers 
 from Holland, and still glories in the Hei- 
 delberg Catechism and the decrees of the 
 Synod of Dort. (5.) The Lutherans, the 
 Reformed, and other German churches, 
 who preserve their old nationality, both 
 by being still organized as distinct com- 
 munions, and by the constant emigration 
 of ministers and people from their original 
 fatherland. Now, why should we expect 
 to see all these fused and amalgamated in 
 the United States more than in Europe ? 
 
 2. Mark, too, that none of their ministers 
 can extend any such di7-ect influence over 
 other churches than their own, as might 
 make the exercise of brotherly love pass 
 into close intimacy and final amalgama- 
 tion. Each of them has its own colleges 
 and theological seminaries ; each its own 
 weekly, monthly, or quarterly periodicals ; 
 and some of them may almost be said to 
 have an independent religious literature, 
 edited and published by their own respon- 
 sible agents. All this is counterbalanced 
 only by many ministers of diflferent denom- 
 inations receiving their classical and sci- 
 entific education at the same institutions, 
 preparatory to their more strictly profes- 
 sional studies. 
 
 3. The freedom allowed in the United 
 States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion 
 necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, 
 which is seen not only in there being differ- 
 ent denominations, but different opinions 
 also in the same denomination. Perhaps 
 there is not a single ecclesiastical conven- 
 tion in which there are not two parties at 
 least, whose different views lead some- 
 times to discussions keenly maintained, 
 yet turning generally upon points which, 
 however interesting, are confessedly not 
 of fundamental importance. On what may 
 be called vital or essential points there is 
 little disputation, just because there is much 
 harmony in all the evangelical commu- 
 nions. Nor could it be well otherwise, see- 
 ing that in doctrine and practice they all 
 
288 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII. 
 
 take the Bible as their inspired and sole 
 authoritative guide. 
 
 4. Nor must we forget that what may 
 be called provincial peculiarities necessa- 
 rily lead so far to diversities of religious 
 sentiment. A true Eastern man from Con- 
 necticut, and a true Western man. born and 
 brought up on the banks of the Ohio, can 
 hardly be expected to speculate alike on 
 dubious points in theology, any more than 
 on many other subjects. So, also, are the 
 inhabitants of the North and South dis- 
 tinguished from each other by peculiarities 
 fully as marked as those that distinguish 
 the northern from the southern inhabitants 
 of Great Britain. 
 
 II. Yet it is not difficult to draw a line 
 between the various unevangelical sects 
 on the one hand, and those that may be 
 classed together as evangelical denomina- 
 tions on the other. The chief of the for- 
 mer, as we have said, are the Roman Cath- 
 olics, Unitarians, Christ-ians, Universalists. 
 Hicksite Quakers, Swedenborgians, Tun- 
 kers or Bunkers, Jews, Shakers, and so on 
 down to the Mormons, beginning with the 
 sect that has buried the truth amid a heap 
 of corruptions of heathenish origin, and 
 ending with the grossest of all the delusions 
 that Satanic malignity or human ambition 
 ever sought to propagate. Now it will be 
 observed that, with the exception of the 
 first two, these sects have few elements 
 of stability. Their ministers are almost 
 all men of little learning, and that little is 
 almost all concentrated in specious endeav- 
 ours to maintain their tenets, by perverting 
 the Scriptures, by appealing to the prejudi- 
 ces of their hearers, and by. misrepresent- 
 ing and ridiculing the doctrines of oppo- 
 nents who meet their subtle arguments 
 with tiie plain declarations of Scripture, as 
 well as with unanswerable arguments 
 drawn from sound reason. The congre- 
 gations of the Universalists and Christ-ians 
 — the latter of whom are Unitarian Bap- 
 tists, and the most numerous of the une- 
 vangelical sects next to the Roman Catho- 
 lics — are far from large, except in some of 
 the largest cities and towns in New-Eng- 
 land, and they often last but a few years, 
 disappearing almost entirely before the ex- 
 tension of the evangelical communions. 
 At times a religious revival almost anni- 
 hilates, in the course of a few weeks, 
 th-.- attea'tpts made by come Universalist i 
 preacher to form a society of that sect, at 
 places where the faiLiTul lieruld of the Gos- 
 pel has lifted up a standard for Truth. And 
 as none of the unevangelical bodies, not 
 even the Roman Catholics, can absolutely 
 debar their members from attending the 
 preaching of evangelical ministers when 
 they come into their neighbourhood, they 
 present no insurmountable barrier to the 
 advance of truth. 
 A better and more intimate acquaintance 
 
 with the state of society in the United 
 States than foreigners can well possess, 
 seems necessary to account for the number, 
 variety, and numerical magnitude of some 
 of our unevangelical sects, and thus to 
 abate the surprise which these may occa- 
 sion to many of our readers. Neverthe- 
 less, to a certain extent, this may be 
 brought within the comprehension even of 
 those who have never seen the country. 
 First, then, be it observed that not only 
 can a far larger proportion of the white in- 
 habitants of the United States read than is 
 to be found in almost any other country, 
 but they actually do read and pursue the 
 acquisition of knowledge in almost every 
 possible way. Novelty, accordingly, has 
 always great attractions for them. Next, 
 with the exception, perhaps, of Scotland, in 
 no other country is there so little work done 
 on the Lord's day ; not only does the law 
 require, but the disposition of the people 
 enforces it ; and as they are not at all of a 
 character that would incline them to spend 
 the day at home in idleness, they naturally 
 take advantage of the opportunities within 
 reach of attending public meetings, and 
 listening to what may be said there. And 
 religion being a subject to which they at- 
 tach more or less importance almost uni- 
 versally, it is what they most like to hear 
 discussed on the Sabbath. Thirdly, where 
 there is no evangelical preaching, vast 
 numbers, particularly of such as have no 
 decided religious convictions, will resort 
 to a Universalist, or even to an infidel 
 preacher, if one is announced in their 
 neighbourhood, rather than go nowhere 
 at all. No doubt curiosity leads them thith- 
 er first, and perhaps for long afterward. 
 Fourthly, absolute religious liberty being 
 the principle of the government, the people 
 may everywhere have what preaching they 
 please, if they can find it, and choose to be 
 at the expense of maintaining it ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, they who dislike faithful evan- 
 gelical preaching, often combine to form 
 a congregation where some heterodox 
 preacher may hold forth doctrines more 
 acceptable to them. Congregations so 
 formed, especially in cities and large towns, 
 may last for years, or even become m some 
 sense permanent, but in by far the greater 
 number of cases they disappear, part of 
 their members removing to some other 
 place, and others becoming converts to the 
 orthodox creed of the surrounding evan- 
 gehcal churches. 
 
 Thus it will be perceived that the une- 
 vangelical sects in the United States are 
 mainly composed of persons who, in other 
 countries, would remain stupidly indiffer- 
 ent to religion, spending their Sabbaths in 
 employments or amusements wholly sec- 
 ular. Even this may be thought better by 
 some than that they should " give heed to 
 doctrines of devils," upon the principle that 
 
Chap. X.] 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 289 
 
 no religion is better than a false one. This 
 may be true in many cases, but hardly in 
 <ill. Experience proves, I think, very de- 
 cidedly in America, that persons that oc- 
 cupy their minds with the subject of reli- 
 gion, even when they doubt the truth or 
 embrace positive error, are more accessi- 
 ble to the faithful preaching of the Gospel, 
 than others that are sunk in stupid indiffer- 
 ence and infidelity. The forms of error 
 in that country have, with one exception, 
 no element of stability — no vigorous dog- 
 matism or permanent fascinations to op- 
 pose to the solid orthodoxy of evangelical 
 preaching. The one exception is Roman- 
 ism, which presents a sort of mosaic of 
 truth and error, so artfully combined as to 
 exert a charm over the minds of those who 
 have once received it, which it is almost im- 
 possible to dissipate. 
 
 Next to Romanism, Unitarianism is, of 
 all forms of error that assume the title of 
 Christian, the most stable. Its professors 
 are chiefly to be found in the eastern parts 
 of Massachusetts ; but as those, as well as 
 other parts of New-England, are constantly 
 sending out emigrants to the new settle- 
 ments, small knots of persons with Uni- 
 tarian preferences may be found in the 
 Middle, Southern, and Western States. 
 Still, this dispersion of Unitarianism, and 
 its sprouting up at various points, not in 
 Massachusetts, has rather the appearance 
 than the reality of increase. It may be 
 •more than doubted whether it be not posi- 
 tively declining in Boston and its vicinity. 
 Except that it by no means prevails in the 
 same proportion, it is very much in Amer- 
 ica what Rationalism is in Protestant Eu- 
 rope — a disease caught by the Church from 
 the epidemic skepticism of the eighteentli 
 century — a skepticism which is now in 
 both hemispheres taking the form of a 
 mystical pantheism. The career of Uni- 
 tarianism, which one of its advocates calls 
 not a " religion, but a fashion,"* as a sect 
 or party, is manifestly drawing to a close ; 
 and such, I rather think, is the impression 
 of its most intelligent and eminent leaders. 
 It seems to be given up as incapable of dif- 
 fusion ; and the thirty years' experience it 
 has had of a separate organization con- 
 firms to my mind this conclusion, though 
 others may think differently. At all events, 
 no one who is well informed with regard 
 to the present aspect of things in America, 
 can claim for Unitarianism much vigour 
 or any greater positive increase than tliat 
 of the natural increase of the population 
 within its pale ; and it may be doubted 
 whether it is increasing even so much as 
 that. 
 
 A certain amount of moral influence for 
 good may fairly be attributed to some of 
 the unevangelical sects, but this can hardly 
 
 * The Rev, O. A. Brownson. 
 T 
 
 be said of the Universalists — and they 
 comprise nearly the whole — who deny a 
 future judgment and all punishment beyond 
 this life ; while as for the Atheists, Deists, 
 and Socialists of every hue, it is hardly 
 slander to say, that their influence upon 
 society is positively mischievous. 
 
 As for the Shakers, Mormons, and other 
 such agglomerations, they may be ac- 
 counted for, I apprehend, on two princi- 
 ples. First, the binding nature of human 
 depravity, which makes men prefer any- 
 thing, however absurd, that looks like re- 
 ligion, and suits their fancies, to retaining, 
 or, rather, to obtaining, the true knowledge 
 of God. Next, these bodies always hold 
 out some temporal good — some economi- 
 cal advantage — which, far more than any 
 religious consideration, tempts persons to 
 enter them. One would suppose, for ex- 
 ample, that a religion which, like that of 
 the Shakers, makes the sinfulness of mar- 
 riage a fundamental principle, and obliges 
 married proselytes to live single, could 
 never find followers. Yet, as persons 
 sometimes grow tired of the man-iage rela- 
 tion, or, rather, of those with whom it has 
 bound them as husband and wife, so some 
 may be found wiUing, even by becoming 
 Shakers, to rid themselves of a burden 
 that feels grievous to them. So, also, in 
 the separation of children from their pa- 
 rents, and the entire breaking up of the 
 family relationships, weak people may al- 
 ways be found ready to snatch at any op- 
 portunity of ridding themselves of parental 
 responsibility, by shifting it upon other 
 shoulders. This despicable and unmanly 
 selfishness may be regarded as the main 
 foundation of all the forms of Socialism. 
 
 HI. We have yet to consider the extent 
 of doctrinal agreement and diversity in and 
 among the communions classed together 
 as evangelical — a subject already noticed, 
 but to which it is necessary to return, in 
 order that the reader may perceive its con- 
 nexion with certain other interesting and 
 important topics. 
 
 1. They agree generally in holding the 
 body of doctrines professed by the Reform- 
 ed churches of P'rance and Switzerland, as 
 imbodied in the Westminster Assembly's 
 Catechisms, and in the doctrinal articles 
 of the Church of England. In particular, 
 they hold the supremacy of the Scriptures 
 as a rule of faith, and that whatever doc- 
 trine can be proved from Holy Scripture 
 without tradition is to be received unhesi- 
 tatingly, and that nothing that cannot so be 
 proved shall be deemed an essential point 
 of Christian belief They hold the inspi- 
 ration of the Scriptures — the three persons 
 in the divine unity — the holiness of the first 
 Innnan pair as created and placed upon 
 probation— their fall, and the involved or 
 consequent apostacy of the whole human 
 race — the necessity of some atonement 
 
290 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VII. 
 
 (sufficient to vindicate the justice of God's 
 government) in order to the pardon of 
 sin — the fact of such an atonement having 
 been made by the humiUation, sufferings, 
 and death of Jesus Christ, who is both 
 God and man — the offer of forgiveness to 
 all mankind, as provided for them by the 
 mercy of God in Christ — the free justifi- 
 cation of the believer, not for his works 
 past or foreseen, nor for his faith, but for 
 Christ's sake alone — the necessity of an 
 inward spiritual renovation in order to sal- 
 vation — the fact that this spiritual renova- 
 tion is the result not of human endeavours, 
 but of the Holy Spirit operating upon the 
 soul, and thus making the call of God in 
 His Word, and by all instrumentalities out- 
 ward to the soul, an effectual call — the 
 dependance of the believer, for his progress 
 in holiness, on the continued communion 
 with God by the indwelling of the Holy 
 Spirit — the resurrection of the dead — the 
 universal judgment — the eternal state of 
 happiness for the saved, and of misery for 
 the lost. 
 
 2. The Methodists and some smaller 
 bodies reject the Calvinistic or Reformed 
 doctrine of predestination, especially in its 
 application to the individuals who, in the 
 fulfilment of God's counsels, become the 
 subjects of renewing grace. They also 
 deny the doctrine that all who are once 
 renewed to holiness are effectually and 
 certainly kept by the power of God through 
 faith unto salvation. But in other com- 
 munions these doctrines are held as clearly 
 taught in the Scriptures, and as of great 
 practical value. 
 
 3. A considerable proportion, perhaps a 
 third, of the clergy and members of the 
 Episcopal Church, agree with what is 
 called the Oxford party in the Church of 
 England ; so far, at least, as to ascribe to 
 sacraments and other external institutions, 
 a certain spiritual efficacy not recognised 
 by other Protestants. 
 
 4. The theological discussions and dis- 
 putes which sometimes agitate these vari- 
 ous communions are such, for the most 
 part, as to make it no easy matter to con- 
 vey a just idea of them to a foreigner. In 
 many instances, indeed, the disputants 
 themselves can hardly state the point in 
 debate to each other's satisfaction. For 
 instance, I could not expect to state mi- 
 nutely the differences between the " Old 
 School" and " New School," in the Pres- 
 byterian churches, without giving offence 
 to one party or the other, or perhaps to 
 both parties. 
 
 Let it suffice, then, to say that, generally, 
 the debates among theologians in America 
 are debates about the constitution of the 
 human mind, the analysis of responsibility 
 and moral agency, and the old question of 
 " fate and free-will." Some hold that all 
 mankind, individually, are literally respon- 
 
 sible before God for the sin of their first 
 parents ; others hold only that, in conse- 
 quence of Adam's sin, all his posterity are 
 sinners. Some hold that sin consists in a 
 propensity to sin concreated in the soul, 
 or, at least, existing in the soul from the 
 indivisible instant in which its existence 
 commences, anterior to all choice, all in- 
 telligence, all desire or emotion ; others 
 hold that sin consists only in the perver- 
 sion of the powers of human nature. Some 
 hold that the " new birth" is not only fig- 
 uratively and morally, but literally and 
 physically, a new creation ; that it is a 
 change in the being itself, from which a 
 moral renovation inevitably proceeds ; that 
 anterior to repentance, to faith, to any 
 right movement of the soul, there is not 
 merely an influence of the Holy Spirit 
 upon the soul, but a subjective change 
 within the soul, which change they call 
 repentance. Others, on the contrary, hold 
 that conversion, or the turning of the soul 
 to God in repentance and faith, is regener- 
 ation, and is the effect of a divine influence 
 upon the soul. Some hold that the re- 
 newed man will persevere in holiness, be- 
 cause the power of God upon him is such 
 that he cannot fall away ; others that God's 
 promise to keep him cannot fail, and that, 
 therefore, he %vill not fall away. Some 
 hold that God, in His works of creation, 
 providence, and redemption, has not con- 
 stituted the best system possible to Him, 
 and that He could have done much better 
 than He has done ; others hold that the 
 system of the universe, including all 
 events, is absolutely the best ; the best 
 which the mind of God could conceive ; 
 better, with all the sin which exists, than it 
 could have been if all creatures had re- 
 tained forever their allegiance to God ; and 
 others still hold that this system, including 
 all the evil which exists under it, is, on the 
 whole, better than any other system of 
 creation and government could have been, 
 but not better than if all God's creatures 
 had remained holy and happy. Some hold 
 that in every instance in which sin takes 
 place, God, on the whole, prefers that sin 
 to holiness in its stead ; others hold that 
 God never chooses evil rather than good, 
 or sin rather than holiness, yet that in 
 every instance in which sin actually takes 
 place, he, for some wise reason, chooses 
 to permit rather than to interpose his pow- 
 er to prevent it. Some hold that all the 
 acts of voluntary agents are predestined in 
 such a way that the agent has no power to 
 act otherwise than he does act ; others 
 hold that while all the acts of moral agents 
 are certain beforehand in the counsels of 
 God, nothing in that certainty is inconsist- 
 ent with the power of the voluntary agent 
 to act otherwise. 
 
 Such is a specimen of the controversial 
 theology in the evangelical, and panic u- 
 
Chap. X.] 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 291 
 
 larly in the Congregational and Presbyte- 
 rian denominations. Were I to indicate 
 the probable direction of religious opinion 
 and theological science in the United 
 States, amid this metaphysical strife, I 
 should little hesitate to say that it is tend- 
 ing, on the whole, towards a higher appre- 
 ciation of the simplest and most Scriptural 
 Christianity, that is, of the Gospel as 
 " glad tidings" to all men, tidings of for- 
 giveness for guilt through the expiation 
 made by the Son of God, and tidings of 
 the gift of the Holy Spirit to lead sinners 
 to repentance, and to carry on a vvork of 
 sanctification in the hearts of the believing. 
 The demand is everywhere for a Christian- 
 ity that can be preached, and that, being 
 preached, will commend itself to every 
 man's conscience in the sight of God. 
 Under such a demand, wire-drawn specu- 
 lations about Christianity — remote from 
 any application to the conscience, to the 
 sinner's fears, and to the hopes and devout 
 affections of the believer — are felt to be 
 impertinent. Thus the Gospel is preached 
 less and less as a matter of traditionary 
 dogmatism and speculation, and more and 
 more as Gospel, the message of God's 
 mercy to needy and guilty man, to be re- 
 ceived by every hearer as suited to his 
 wants, and to be hailed with faith and joy 
 as life from the dead. Against this gen- 
 eral tendency there is, and there will be, 
 occasional, local, and party resistance ; the 
 surface may he ruffled from time to time 
 by some wind of doctrine, or speculation, 
 rather, and the current may seem to be 
 setting in the opposite direction. But I 
 am fully persuaded that, on the whole, if 
 not from year to year, at least from one 
 period of change to another, the progress 
 of religious opinion will be found to be to- 
 wards the simplest and most Scriptural 
 views of the Gospel as God's gracious 
 message, which every man may embrace, 
 and should embrace immediately, and away 
 from those philosophical and traditionary 
 expositions of Christianity which it only 
 embarrasses the preacher to deliver, and 
 the hearer to receive. 
 
 The increased attention which the the- 
 ologians of America are giving to the ac- 
 curate and learned investigation of the 
 Holy Scriptures, may be regarded as an 
 indication of the tendency of theological 
 seience in this country. That the Scrip- 
 tures are the only authority in matters of 
 faith is not only universally acknowledged 
 in theory, but more and more practically 
 acted upon. Thus the science and art of 
 interpretation are more and more appreci- 
 ated. The best theologian must be he who 
 bests understands, and who can best ex- 
 plain the Bible. The questions, What did 
 Edwards hold ] What did the Puritans 
 hold ] What did the Reformers hold \ 
 Wliat did Augustine, Jerome, or the earli- 
 
 er Fathers hold! though admitted to be 
 important in their place, are regarded as 
 of small importance in comparison with 
 the questions, What saith the Scripture % 
 What did Christ and the Apostles teach ? 
 Under this influence, the tendency of the- 
 ological science, as well as of the popular 
 exposition of Christianity from the pulpit, 
 is towards the primitive simplicity of Chris- 
 tian truth. 
 
 The great achievement of American the- 
 ology is, that it has placed the doctrine of 
 the atonement for sin in the clearest light, 
 by illustrations drawn from the nature of 
 a moral government. Nowhere is the dis- 
 tinction between the work of Christ as the 
 propitiation for the sins of men, and that 
 of the Holy Spirit in renewing and sancti- 
 fying the sinner, more clearly drawn — no- 
 where is the necessity of each to the sal- 
 vation of the soul more constantly and for- 
 cibly exhibited. The tendency of our the- 
 ology, under the impulse of the Edwardean 
 exposition of the doctrine of the atonement, 
 is to avoid the habit — so common to phi- 
 losophers and philosophizing theologians — 
 of contemplating God exclusively as the 
 First Cause of all beings and all events, and 
 to fix attention upon him as a moral gov- 
 ernor of beings made for responsible ac- 
 tion. Here it is that the God of the Bible 
 differs from the God of philosophy. The 
 latter is simply a first cause — a reason why 
 things are — sometimes, if not always, a 
 mere hypothesis to account for the exist- 
 ence of the universe, another name for 
 nature or for fate. The former is a moral 
 governor, that is, a lawgiver, a judge, a dis- 
 penser of rewards and penalties. God's 
 law is given to the universe of moral be- 
 ings for the one great end of promoting 
 the happiness of that vast empire. As a 
 law, it is a true and earnest expression 
 of the will of the lawgiver respecting the 
 actions of his creatures. As a law, it 
 must be sanctioned by penalties ade- 
 quate to express God's estimation of the 
 value of the interests trampled on by dis- 
 obedience. As the law is not arbitrary, 
 but the necessary means of accomplishing 
 the greatest good, it may not be arbitrarily 
 set aside. Therefore, when man had be- 
 come apostate, and the whole human race 
 was under condemnation, God sent his Son 
 into the world, in human nature, " to be 
 made a sin-offering for us ;" and thus, by 
 his voluntary sufferings magnifying the law, 
 " to declare the righteousness of God, that 
 God may be just, and the justifier of him 
 who believeth." Thus it is that God, as a 
 moral governor, is glorified in the forgive- 
 ness of sinners ; that He calls upon all 
 men to repent, with a true and intense de- 
 sire for their salvation ; that He sends into 
 a world of rebellion the infinite gift of his 
 Spirit, to impart life to those who are dead 
 in sin ; that in a world of sinners, who, if 
 
292 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 left to themselves, would all reject the of- 
 fered pardon, He saves those whom He has 
 chosen out of the world ; that he uses the 
 co-operation of redeemed and renewed men 
 in advancing the work of saving their fel- 
 low-men. Men are saved from sin and 
 condemnation, not by mere power, but by 
 means that harmonize with the nature, and 
 conduce to the ends of God's moral gov- 
 ernment. This method of illustrating the 
 Gospel carries the preacher and the theolo- 
 gian back from the Platonic dreams and dry 
 dogmatizing of the schools, to the Bible. 
 It sets the theologian upon studying, and 
 the preacher upon imitating, the freedom, 
 simplicity, and directness, with which the 
 Apostles addressed the understandings and 
 sensibilities of men. And thus it may be re- 
 garded as coinciding with other indications 
 of the tendency of religious opinion in the 
 various evangelical bodies of America. 
 
 I would remark, in conclusion, that few 
 things in, the history of the Gospel more 
 strikingly prove its inherent life and divin- 
 ity, than the extent to which it has se- 
 cured and retains a hold upon the Ameri- 
 fidLii people. Their Christianity is not the 
 ;dead formalism of ecclesiastical institu- 
 tions — upheld by law, tradition, or the force 
 ^of fashion.* It is not a body of supersti- 
 
 tions, lying with oppressive weight upon 
 the common mind, and giving support to a 
 domineering priesthood. It is not that Ra- 
 tionalism which, retaining little of Chris- 
 tianity but the name, has had a brief as- 
 cendency in some parts of Protestant Eu- 
 rope. It is evangelical Christianity — the 
 Christianity of the New Testament. Wher- 
 ever the stranger sees a place of worship 
 in our cities, or in the country, the pre- 
 sumption is — the probability is, with few 
 exceptions, ten to one— that there God is 
 worshipped in the name of the one Medi- 
 ator, with faith and penitence ; that there 
 pardon is offered to the guilty, freely through 
 Christ the Lamb of God ; and that there the 
 Holy Spirit is looked for, and is given to 
 renew the heart of the sinner, and to fill 
 the believing soul with joy and peace. The 
 worship may, in many instances, be such 
 as would offend the sensibilities of certain 
 cultivated minds — most unlike the choral 
 pomp of old cathedrals — still, rude as it 
 may be, it is often that only acceptable 
 worship which is offered in spirit and in 
 truth. The Gospel may be preached there 
 ignorantly, and with many imperfections, 
 still it is the Gospel, and often does it be- 
 come " the wisdom of God, and the power 
 of God unto salvation." 
 
 B O O K V 1 1 1. 
 
 EFFORTS OF THE AMERICAN CHURCHES FOR THE CONVERSION OP 
 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 We cannot well close our view of the 
 religious condition of the United States 
 without a brief notice of what the church- 
 es here are doing for the propagation of 
 the Gospel in other lands. This forms a 
 
 * Much has been said in Europe about the tyranny 
 of public opinion in the United States, but I confess 
 I never have been able to compreliend what this ex- 
 pression means. M. de Tocqueville employs it, but 
 ■without givmg any clear idea upon the subject, as 
 lias been well remarked by the Hon. John C. Spen- 
 cer, in his Notes to the American edition of M. de 
 T.'s work. If public opinion be strong and decided 
 in America, it is because the character of the people 
 makes it so. When they form an opinion, more es- 
 pecially on any matter in which the judgment or the 
 conscience is concerned (and what subject of a prac- 
 tical kind does not involve one or other of these,) ? 
 they are not willing to change it but for good reasons. 
 And in all matters of religion, and morals especially, 
 the Protestant Faith, which has so much influence 
 with a large proportion of the population, concurs 
 with the earnestness and steadiness of the Anglo- 
 Saxon character, to make public opinion, not only 
 strong, but right, on all points on which it has been 
 sufficiently informed. Mr. Laing, in his excellent 
 work on Sweden, has some judicious remarks on 
 this subject, proving that he takes a philosophic view 
 of it. 
 
 natural sequel to what has been said of 
 their endeavours to plant and to sustain its 
 institutions on their own soil. 
 
 Some readers, indeed, may be surprised 
 to learn that our churches are doing any- 
 thing at all for the spiritual welfare of oth- 
 er countries, while they have so much to 
 do in their own. When they hear that 
 our population is increasing at the rate of 
 500,000 of souls in the year, so that no- 
 thing short of the most gigantic efforts can 
 effect a proportionate increase of ministers 
 and congregations ; when they read of no 
 fewer than 60,000 or 80,000 immigrants 
 arriving from Europe, the greater number 
 of whom are ignorant of the true Gospel, 
 and many of them uneducated, poor, and 
 vicious, they may be astonished that the 
 American churches, unaided by the gov- 
 ernment in any way, receiving no tithes, 
 taxes, or public pecuniary grants of any 
 kind, even for the support of religion at 
 home, do nevertheless raise large sums for 
 sending the Gospel to the heathen. Such, 
 however, is not the feeling of enlightened 
 and zealous Christians in America itself. 
 They feel that, while called upon to do 
 their utmost for religion at home, it is at 
 
Chap, n.] 
 
 EFFORTS TO CONVERT THE ABORIGINES. 
 
 293 
 
 once a duty and a privilege to assist in 
 promoting it abroad. They feel assured 
 that he that watereth shall himself be re- 
 freshed, and that, in complying so far as 
 they can with their Saviour's command 
 to " preach the Gospel to every creature," 
 they are most likely to secure the bless- 
 ing of that Saviour upon their country. 
 And facts abundantly prove that they are 
 right. 
 
 Moreover, our churches have a special 
 reason for the interest they take in for- 
 eign missions. No churches owe so much 
 to the spirit of missions as they do. Much 
 of the country was colonized by men who 
 came to it not only as a refuge for their 
 faith when persecuted elsewhere, but as a 
 field of missionary enterprise ; and their 
 descendants would be most unfaithful to 
 the high trust that has been bequeathed to 
 them, did they not strenuously endeavour 
 to carry out the principles of their forefa- 
 thers. Alas, we have to mourn that we 
 have, after all, done so little to impart the 
 glorious Gospel, to which our country 
 owes so much, to nations still ignorant of 
 it ! Still, we have done something, and 
 the candid reader will perhaps admit that 
 we have not been altogether wanting in 
 our duty, nor greatly behind the church- 
 es of most other countries in this enter- 
 prise. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EARLIER EFFORTS TO CONVERT THE ABORI- 
 GINES. 
 
 Notwithstanding the common mistake 
 at the present day, of those who conceive 
 that religious liberty, and to some extent, 
 also, the enjoyment of political rights, were 
 the sole inducements that led to the ori- 
 ginal colonization of the United States, we 
 have seen that the plantations of both -Vir- 
 ginia and New- England were designed to 
 conduce to the spread of Christianity by 
 the conversion of the Aborigines, as is 
 proved both by the royal charters estab- 
 lishing those early colonies, and by the ex- 
 pressed sentiments of the Massachusetts 
 settlers. 
 
 The royal charter granted to the Plym- 
 outh Company, having referred to the de- 
 population of the country by pestilence 
 and war, and its lying unclaimed by any 
 other Christian power, goes on to say, 
 "In contemplation and serious considera- 
 tion whereof, we have thought it fit, ac- 
 cording to our kingly duty, so much as in 
 us lieth, to second and follow God's sacred 
 will, rendering thanks to his divine Majes- 
 ty for his gracious favour in laying open 
 and revealing the same unto us before any 
 other Christian prince or state ; by which 
 means, without offence, and as we trust to 
 
 his glory, we may with boldness go on to 
 the settling of so hopeful a work, which 
 tendeth to the reducing and conversion of 
 such savages as remain wandering in des- 
 olation and distress, to civil society and 
 the Christian religion." And in this, the 
 charter professes to favour the " worthy 
 disposition" of the petitioners to whom it 
 was granted. Nothing could be more nat- 
 ural, therefore, than that John Robinson, 
 pastor of that part of the church which re- 
 mained at Leyden, in Holland, should ex- 
 claim, in his letter to the governor of the 
 colony at Plymouth, "Oh that you had 
 converted some before you killed any!" 
 But, in fact, the Plymouth colonists ap- 
 plied themselves to the conversion of the 
 natives from the very first. They en- 
 deavoured to communicate the knowledge 
 of the Gospel to the scattered Indians 
 around them, and took pains to establish 
 schools for their instruction. The result 
 was, that several gave satisfactory evi- 
 dence, living and dying, of real conversion 
 to God. A poor, small colony, struggling 
 for its very existence with all manner of 
 hardships, could not be expected to do 
 much in this way, yet in 1636 we find that 
 it made a legal provision for the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel among the Indians, and 
 for the establishment of courts to punish 
 trespasses committed against them. 
 
 The Massachusetts charter sets forth 
 that, " to win and incite the natives of that 
 country to the knowledge and obedience 
 of the only true God and Saviour of man- 
 kind, and the Christian Faith, in our royal 
 intention and the adventurer's free profes- 
 sion, is the principal end of the plantation." 
 The seal of the colony had for its device 
 the figure of an Indian, with the words of 
 the Macedonian entreaty, " Come over and 
 help us." And here, as at Plymouth, some 
 not altogether abortive attempts were made 
 to convert the natives from the very first. 
 
 Thus, these two colonies might be con- 
 sidered as self-supporting missions, and 
 rank among the earliest Protestant mis- 
 sionary enterprises. The Swedes had in 
 the preceding century done something for 
 their benighted countrymen in the north- 
 ern part of that kingdom. French Hugue- 
 nots, too, as we have seen, made an at- 
 tempt so early as 1556, under the auspices 
 of the brave and good Coligny, to carry 
 the Gospel to America, by founding a set- 
 tlement in Brazil. Calvin furnished sev- 
 eral pastors for it from his school at Ge- 
 neva. But Villagagnon, who took the lead, 
 having relapsed to Romanism, put three 
 of the Genevan pastors to death ; where- 
 upon some of the colonists returned to 
 Europe, and the remainder were massa- 
 cred by the Portuguese. A subsequent 
 attempt, made under the same auspices, 
 to plant a Protestant colony in Florida, 
 also failed. Thus, even assuming, which 
 
294 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 is not very evident, that these attempts 
 were of a missionary character, certain it 
 is that the New-England colonies may be 
 regarded as the first successful enterprises 
 of the kind. 
 
 In 1646, the Massachusetts Legislature 
 passed an act for the encouragement of 
 Christian missions among the Indians, and 
 that same year the celebrated John Eliot 
 began his labours at Nonantum, now form- 
 ing part of the township of Newton, about 
 six miles from Boston. Great success at- 
 tended this good man's preaching, and 
 other modes of instruction. Nor were his 
 labours confined to the Indians near Bos- 
 ton. From Cape Cod to Worcester, over 
 a tract of country near 100 miles long, he 
 made repeated journeys, preaching to the 
 native tribes, whose language he had thor- 
 oughly mastered, and had translated the 
 Scriptures and other Christian books into 
 it. Both editions of his Indian Bible, the 
 one of 1500 copies in 16G3, the other of 
 2000 copies in 1685, were printed at Cam- 
 bridge, near Boston, and were the only 
 Bibles printed in America until long af- 
 ter. Eliot, who has ever since been call- 
 ed the " Apostle of the Indians," died in 
 1690, at the age of eighty-five. " Wel- 
 come joy," was one of his last expres- 
 sions. His labours, and those of others 
 whom he engaged in the same great work, 
 were blessed to the conversion of many 
 souls, and many settlements of " praying 
 Indians" were formed in the country round 
 Boston. 
 
 But Eliot was not the first who preached 
 the Gospel with success to the Indians in 
 New-England. Thomas Mayhew began 
 his labours among them on the island call- 
 ed Martha's Vineyard, in 1643. In 1646 
 he sailed for England to solicit aid ; but the 
 ship was lost at sea. His father, Thomas 
 Mayhew, the proprietor of the island, 
 though seventy years of age, then under- 
 took the task, and continued it till 1681, 
 when he died, at the age of ninety-three. 
 His grandson succeeded ; and for five gen- 
 erations, till the death of Zachariah May- 
 hew in 1803, aged eighty-seven years, that 
 family supplied pastors to the Indians liv- 
 ing on Martha's Vineyard. 
 
 In the Plymouth colony we find honour- 
 able mention made, among those who la- 
 boured to evangelize the Indians during 
 Eliot's lifetime, of Messrs. Treat, Tup- 
 per, and Cotton ; while in Massachusetts, 
 besides Eliot, there were Messrs. Goskin, 
 Thatcher, and Rawson ; and in Connecti- 
 cut, Messrs. Fitch and Pierson. The re- 
 sult of their united eff"orts was seen in 
 1675, in fourteen settlements of " praying 
 Indians, twenty- four congregations, and 
 twenty-four Indian preachers." Besides 
 religious instruction, the Indians were 
 taught agriculture, and the other most ne- 
 cessary arts of civilized life. 
 
 But that very year (1675), King Philip, 
 the chief of the Pokanoket tribe, instiga- 
 ted by his hatred of Christianity, and still 
 more, probably, by jealousy of the growing 
 power of the EngUsh settlers, made an un- 
 provoked war upon the colonies. It ended 
 in the annihilation of his party, not, how- 
 ever, without vast injury to the '"praying 
 settlements." Still, though the Gospel ex- 
 perienced a check, it soon began again to 
 make progress, so that in 1696 there were 
 thirty Indian churches in Massachusetts 
 colony, and, two years later, 3000 reputed 
 " converts." 
 
 In Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Long 
 Island, which belonged to the province of 
 New- York, though its eastern part was col- 
 onized by emigrants from New-England, 
 missionary efforts were less successful. 
 Still, the Gospel was not wholly without 
 eff'ect, and portions of the Narragansett, 
 Pequod, Nantick, Mohegan, and Montauk 
 tribes were converted to Christianity, and 
 long formed " Christian settlements," some 
 remnants of which exist to this day. 
 
 The news respecting the progress of the 
 Gospel among the Indians in New-Eng- 
 land excited so much interest in the moth- 
 er-country from the first, that " The Socie- 
 ty for Propagating the Gospel in New- 
 England" was incorporated in England so 
 early as 1649, and though its charter was 
 annulled &t the Restoration in 1660, a new 
 one was granted the following year, reor- 
 ganizing the society, under the title of 
 " The Society for Propagating the Gospel 
 among the Heathen Nations of New-Eng- 
 land and the parts adjacent in America." 
 The celebrated Robert Boyle took a great 
 interest in it, and was its " governor" or 
 president for thirty years. The good Bax- 
 ter was its friend. In 1698, " The Society 
 for promoting Christian Knowledge" was 
 founded by members of the Established 
 Church in England ; and in 1701, " The So- 
 ciety for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts" was instituted. This last joined with 
 the first in aiding the American missions, 
 as did also, at a later day, " The Society for 
 Propagating Christian Knowledge," which 
 was founded in Scotland. A considerable 
 portion of the funds expended by these so- 
 cieties, in the missions among the Indians, 
 was contributed by the churches in Amer- 
 ica ; for, before the Revolution, they had 
 no independent missionary organizations 
 of their own, owing to their dependant con- 
 dition as colonies. In 1762, the Massachu- 
 setts Legislature incorporated a society 
 formed at Boston, "for promoting Christian 
 knowledge among the Indians in North 
 America," but the ratification of this act by 
 the crown being refused, the missions had 
 still to be conducted on behalf of the soci- 
 eties in Great Britain, through American 
 committees formed at Boston and New- 
 York. 
 
chaf. n.] 
 
 EFFORTS TO CONVERT THE ABORIGINES. 
 
 295 
 
 In 1734, Mr. John Sergeant began to la- 
 bour among some Mohegans whom he had 
 gathered round him at Stockbridge, in Mas- 
 sachusetts, whence the name given them 
 ever after of " Stockbridge Indians." That 
 good man, whose labours were greatly- 
 blessed, died in 1749, whereupon these In- 
 dians passed under the care of the great 
 Jonathan Edwards, who had been settled at 
 Northampton. It was while labouring as 
 an humble missionary at Stockbridge that 
 he wrote his celebrated treatises on the 
 " Freedom of the Will" and " Original 
 Sin." 
 
 Having spent six years at Stockbridge, 
 he was called to be President of Princeton 
 College, New-Jersey. After the Revolu- 
 tion, the Stockbridge Indians, many of 
 them being Christians, removed to the cen- 
 tral part of the State of New- York, thence 
 to Indiana, thence to Green Bay, and at 
 last to their present settlement on the east 
 of Lake Winnebago, where they have a 
 church and a missionary. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the commence- 
 ment of Mr. Sergeant's labours at Stock- 
 bridge the Moravians began a mission in 
 <jeorgia, whence they were compelled by 
 supervening difficulties to remove soon 
 after to Pennsylvania. In compliance 
 with applications transmitted by them to 
 Hernnhut, in Germany, the Society sent 
 over several missionaries, and these wor- 
 thy men began in 1740 to labour very suc- 
 cessfully among the Mohegans on the bor- 
 ders of the States of Connecticut and New- 
 York. But the opposition of wicked white 
 men compelled them at length to remove, 
 with as many of the Indians as would ac- 
 company them, to the neighbourhood of 
 Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, and there they 
 remained for several years, but suffered 
 much in consequence of the hostilities 
 between France and Britain in 1755-63. 
 From that they went first to the banks of 
 the Upper Susquehanna, and afterward be- 
 yond the western borders of Pennsylvania, 
 where they joined some Indian converts 
 of the excellent David Zeisberger from the 
 Alleghany River. These quarters they ex- 
 changed in 1772 for others on the Muskin- 
 gum River, in Ohio, where they enjoyed 
 great spiritual prosperity for a season. 
 From that they moved afterward to the 
 Sandusky River, in the same state. After 
 many calamities and much suffering du- 
 ring the Revolutionary war, in which the 
 Indians generally took part against the 
 Americans, and after several changes of 
 quarters subsequent to the return of peace, 
 they finally settled on the River Thames, 
 in Upper Canada, where they built the town 
 of Fairfield, at which they now reside. 
 
 David Brainerd commenced his short 
 but useful career in 1743 among the In- 
 dians between Albany and Stockbridge, 
 near what is now called New-Lebanon. He 
 
 preached afterward to the Indians at the 
 Forks of the Delaware, in Pennsylvania, 
 the site of the present town of Easton. 
 And, finally, he laboured for a sliort time, 
 but with amazing success, among the 
 New-Jersey Indians at Crossweeksung. 
 On the termination of his labours by death, 
 at the age of thirty, his brother John con- 
 tinued them, and was much blessed in the 
 attempt. Upon John's death in 1783, his 
 Indian flock had the ministrations of the 
 Word continued chiefly by the pastors in 
 the neighbourhood until 1802, when it join- 
 ed the Stockbridge Indians at their settle- 
 ment in New-York. 
 
 A school for Indian youth was opened at 
 Lebanon, in Connecticut, in 1748, under the 
 Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, and there the well- 
 known Indian preacher, Mr. Occum, and 
 the celebrated Mohawk chief. Brant, were 
 educated. It was afterward removed to 
 Hanover, in New-Hampshire, where it is 
 still to be found, and is nominally connect- 
 ed, I understand, with Dartmouth College. 
 Its proper title is " Moor's Charity School." 
 
 One of the most useful of the more re- 
 cent missionaries among the Indians was 
 the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who began his 
 labours with the Oneidas in the State of 
 New-York in 1764, and died in 1808, hav- 
 ing preached the Gospel to the Indians, 
 with some short interruptions, for more 
 than forty years. 
 
 We have elsewhere referred to some- 
 thing being done in the way of Indian mis- 
 sions in Virginia, but in none of the South- 
 ern colonies was there anything of this 
 kind accomplished deserving of particular 
 mention. The wars between the Aborigi- 
 nes and the immigrants, that broke out soon 
 after the arrival of the latter, and were re- 
 peatedly renewed afterward, extinguished 
 any little zeal they may have ever felt in 
 such a cause. 
 
 These notices will, no doubt, surprise 
 such of our readers as have been under the 
 impression that the colonists never did 
 anything for the conversion of the Indians 
 to the Gospel. Still, who can but regret 
 that more was not done to bring the origi- 
 nal occupants of the soil to that knowledge 
 both of Christianity, and the arts of civil- 
 ized life, by which alone the gradual ex- 
 tinction of so many of their tribes could 
 have been arrested! The efforts of the 
 colonists, however, encountered many ob- 
 stacles. The wars between France, when 
 mistress of the Canadas, and the Brit- 
 ish Empire, of which the United States 
 were then a part, invariably drew their re- 
 spective colonies, together with tlie inter- 
 vening Indian tribes, into hostilities. These 
 were protracted, bloody, and cruel, so as 
 to leave deep traces of exasperation in the 
 minds of all who did not possess a large 
 share of the spirit of the Gospel. All war 
 is dreadful, but Indian warfare is horrible 
 
296 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA, 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 to a degree altogether beyond the concep- 
 tion of those who have only heard of it at 
 a distance, and it ultimately begot such a 
 spirit of hatred and revenge among the col- 
 onists as proved exceedingly unfavourable 
 to missions. I stop not here to inquire 
 who was in the wrong ia the first instance. 
 Only let me remark, in passing, that they 
 are egregiously mistaken who assume that 
 the colonists were always in the wrong. 
 
 Again, the churches in the colonies were 
 neither numerous nor rich, so that, upon 
 the whole, those in New-England, and per- 
 haps those, also, in New- York and New- 
 Jersey, did as much, probably, in proportion 
 to their ability, then as they do now. 
 
 At length came the long war of the Rev- 
 olution, and the still longer period that fol- 
 lowed of distraction, confusion, and spirit- 
 ual desolation. • Small, indeed, was the 
 prospect then of sufficient attention being 
 paid to missions among the Indians, many 
 of whose tribes were far from being peace- 
 ably disposed towards the United States 
 government. And no sooner did the coun- 
 try and the government begin to recover 
 from this state of moral syncope, than they 
 fell into fresh troubles in consequence of 
 the wars between the British and French, 
 following upon the French Revolution — 
 troubles which ultimately brought on the 
 ■war of 1812-1815, between the United 
 States and Great Britain. Thus, it was 
 not until tiie peace of 1815, and the general 
 restoration of good- will between the Indian 
 tribes and the United States, that a favour- 
 able opening for missions among the for- 
 mer was again presented. Blessed be God, 
 our churches have ever since been becom- 
 ing more and more interested every year 
 in this good cause, as will appear from 
 the operations of our societies for foreign 
 missions. 
 
 It is no easy task, indeed, to Christian- 
 ize and civilize savages who, from times 
 unknown, have been devoted to hunting 
 and to war; and, when not thus occupied, 
 lounge like their dogs about their miser- 
 able hovels and tents, clad in skins, and 
 leaving to their women, or squaws, the 
 drudgery of cultivating a little patch of 
 maize, making the fires, and even dressing 
 the animals that have been slain in the 
 chase, as well as all other domestic cares. 
 Their aversion to the methodical labour 
 required for the arts of civilized life is such 
 as none can conceive without a personal 
 knowledge of them. Not a single noble 
 aspiration seems ever to enter their souls, 
 but all they care about seems to be that 
 they may pass away life as their fathers 
 did, and then die amid the vague and 
 shadowy visions of the unknown future. 
 In short, as long as their forests last, and 
 game can be found, they seem not to have 
 a thought of adopting the habits of civil- 
 ized life. 
 
 Some persons are forever indulging^ 
 mawkish lamentations over the disappear- 
 ance >of the aboriginal tribes of North 
 America, and, if one may interpret their 
 sentimental distress on this subject, they 
 would rather see this vast continent oc- 
 cupied by a few hundred thousand sav- 
 ages, roaming the forests, and continu- 
 ally at war with each other, than covered 
 with a civilized and Christian population; 
 either forgetting, or else never having 
 known, that a state of savageism is not 
 only wretched, but necessarily tends to 
 annihilation. 
 
 But how civilized men are to share the 
 same continent with uncivilized, without 
 the latter being supplanted and made to 
 disappear, is a question by no means of 
 easy solution. On a continent of great 
 natural resources, and possessing every- 
 thing calculated to invite civilized men to 
 its shores, becoming discovered, it is easy 
 to see that the time cannot be distant 
 when civilized men, by natural increase 
 and immigration, will crowd upon and dis- 
 place the uncivilized. To save the latter 
 from extinction, under such circumstances, 
 one or other of two courses must be pur- 
 sued : either the two races must be amal- 
 gamated, which is next to impossible while 
 one remains uncivilized, and can only be 
 done by reducing one of them to a species 
 of slavery, and thus bringing them into the 
 bosom of civilized society, as was very 
 much the course pursued by the Spaniards 
 in Mexico and South America; or the un- 
 civilized race be allowed to preserve their 
 natural or tribial existence in some distinct 
 territory. The plan pursued by the Span- 
 iards was revolting to the feelings of the 
 English colonists, and they adopted, ac- 
 cordingly, that of letting the Indians enjoy 
 a separate existence. 
 
 But even this, easy as it may seem at 
 first sight, is attended with many difficul- 
 ties. It would be very practicable if all 
 men were what they ought to be ; for then, 
 after the immigrants had purchased the ter- 
 ritory they required, the Indians would be 
 left in undisturbed possession of what they 
 chose to reserve to themselves, and the 
 two races would live in each other's pres- 
 ence, respecting each other's rights, and 
 each contented with its own possessions. 
 But this, alas ! is not a likely result among 
 fallen men whom even Christianity has 
 only partially restored. As the civilized 
 increased in numbers, they desired more 
 and more territory, which the Indians did 
 not hesitate to sell as long as their own 
 domain seemed almost boundless, and so 
 the white men went on pushing the red 
 farther and farther towards the West. 
 Meanwhile, the latter disappointed the ex- 
 pectations of those who had looked for- 
 ward to their adopting the manners and 
 customs of civilized life. Living in close 
 
Chap. II.] 
 
 EFFORTS TO CONVERT THE ABORIGINES. 
 
 297 
 
 proximity to the white men's settlements, 
 these they often visited with the skins of 
 animals or blankets thrown over their 
 shoulders, and their extremities exposed 
 in the coldest weather; and then, after 
 lounging about the houses of the colonists, 
 and taking such presents as might be of- 
 fered, they returned to their comfortless 
 w^igwams without having acquired the 
 slightest desire to exchange their wretch- 
 ed mode of living for the conveniences and 
 comforts they had just witnessed. They 
 were too fond of the habits in which they 
 had been nurtured, and too averse to every- 
 thing like steady industry, to seek any 
 change. 
 
 Nor were the colonists wanting in ef- 
 forts to induce their savage neighbours to 
 adopt civilized usages. Provision was 
 made in almost every treaty that they 
 should be supplied with articles of com- 
 fort, and agricultural and other useful im- 
 plements. But brandy, alas ! was inclu- 
 ded at times, that being thought, in those 
 days of ignorance, one of the first requi- 
 sites of life — equally necessary to the civ- 
 ilized and uncivilized man. Addresses with- 
 out number were presented to " chiefs" 
 and " councils" by the colonial governors 
 in favour of civilization, but these were all 
 in vain. The little that was done must be 
 ascribed to the missionaries sent to them, 
 chiefly by the churches in the colonies. 
 These succeeded, in several instances, in 
 partially civilizing the Indians among whom 
 they laboured, and to this the still extant 
 remnants of tribes may be said to owe 
 their preservation to this day, inasmuch as 
 those in which Christianity never gained 
 any footing, and in which agriculture and 
 the mechanical arts never made any prog- 
 ress, almost wholly disappeared, either by 
 becoming extinct, or by being merged in 
 other uncivilized and heathen tribes. 
 
 The result would, doubtless, have been 
 much more favourable had the missionary 
 spirit of the earliest colonists continued 
 to distinguish their followers. But, alas ! 
 mere cupidity tempted many to those 
 shores for the sole object of enriching 
 themselves by all practicable means, how- 
 ever unjustifiable, and often by overreach- 
 ing the poor ignorant savage. Nay, even 
 good men suffered themselves to be too 
 much influenced by the horrid massacres 
 often committed by the Indians upon the 
 frontier settlements in their wars with the 
 colonists. These atrocities could hardly 
 fail to cool the zeal for promoting the best 
 interests of their barbarous neighbours, 
 which such men had previously felt. 
 
 Add to other untoward influences that 
 of the phraseology of the royal charters, 
 where what were called " rights" to cer- 
 tain lands were granted, without tlie slight- 
 est reference being made to the previous 
 "rights" of the uncivilized occupants of 
 
 the soil. This seems to have suggested al- 
 most all the subsequent efforts made to ob- 
 tain per fas aut nefas, the territories marked 
 out by those charters. Thus the poor In- 
 dians had no certain resting-place. A few 
 reservations which certain remnants of 
 partially Christianized and civilized tribes 
 have retained in some parts of New-Eng- 
 land and New-York, are now the only In- 
 dian settlements to be found in all the At- 
 lantic States. Had the wise though much 
 vilified plan, pursued for some years past 
 by the United States government, been 
 sooner adopted — had the tribes whose 
 lands were included in the royal charters 
 been all collected on one territoiy, beyond 
 the boundaries of any charter, and ample 
 enough for their support by hunting in the 
 first instance, and afterward by tillage, 
 even the limited attempts that were made 
 to civilize them might have taken effect. 
 But, alas ! where was there a territory 
 ample enough to be found over which na 
 charter extended its claims 1 At last, by 
 the acquisition of Louisiana, this desidera- 
 tum was supplied, and men, as benevolent 
 as America has ever possessed, soon com- 
 prehended the important use that might be 
 made of it, and pressed it upon the atten- 
 tion of the government. Accordingly, the 
 country lying between the present States 
 of Arkansas and Missouri and the Great 
 American Desert, which stretches as far 
 west as the Oregon Mountains, was set 
 apart for the purpose, being sufficiently 
 large, and containing much good land, and 
 to it the government has succeeded in re- 
 moving above twenty tribes, or remnants of 
 tribes, from its own organized States and 
 Territories. Soon all that remain will fol- 
 low, so that there will be an Indian popu- 
 lation of above 100,000 souls on a compact 
 territory, stretching about 500 or 600 miles 
 from north to south, and about 200 from 
 east to west. Thither, also, have the mis- 
 sionaries, who had been labouring among 
 those tribes, gone ; and though the remo- 
 val of the several nations from their an- 
 cient homes, and from the graves of their 
 forefathers, has been followed by some 
 years of that hardship and suffering which 
 all removals from ancient settlements, 
 whether more or less civilized, to the dens- 
 er forests must occasion, yet they are sur- 
 mounting these, and gradually establishing 
 themselves in their new homes. In pro- 
 cess of time they will have their little 
 farms and lots of ground cleared, comfort- 
 able houses erected, mills built, and the 
 more necessary arts of civilized life intro- 
 duced among them. Great progress is al- 
 ready making, and the time, I trust, will 
 come when the inhabitants of this Indiaa 
 territory will accept the offer made by Con- 
 gress to the Cherokees, shortly after the 
 Revolution, to receive a delegation from 
 them to the National Congress, and thus 
 
298 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 admit them as a constituent portion of the 
 United States, and subject to its laws. 
 
 As this removal of the Indian tribes to a 
 territory west of the Mississippi has sub- 
 jected the General Government to great 
 misrepresentation, and, in my opinion, to 
 . most unjust censure, I may say a few 
 words farther respecting it. What has 
 been most censured is the removal of the 
 Cherokees, a tribe of Indians formerly 
 situated chiefly in the State of Georgia, 
 and by far the most advanced in civiliza- 
 tion of all the aboriginal race. 
 
 By the charter granted to Oglethorpe 
 and his friends, Georgia claimed an exten- 
 sive territory to the west of her present 
 limits, out of which the States of Alabama 
 and Mississippi have since been formed. 
 This territory she agreed to cede to the 
 United States, provided the General Gov- 
 ernment would buy out the claims of the 
 Indians residing within her present limits, 
 and remove them elsewhere. The Gen- 
 eral Government accordingly removed the 
 Creek Indians, after buying up their claims, 
 from the southwestern part of the State to 
 the west of the Mississippi. But the 
 " Cherokees, whose lands lay in the north- 
 western corner, refused to sell them, al- 
 though the General Government for years 
 tried every method that it deemed prop- 
 er to induce them to do so. Georgia at 
 length resolved to survey those lands, and 
 to extend her jurisdiction over both their 
 Indian occupants, and all who lived among 
 them ; upon which the missionaries re- 
 tired, with the exception of two, who re- 
 fused to take the oath of allegiance to the 
 state, on the ground that Georgia had no 
 right of jurisdiction over the Cherokee 
 territory. Being arrested and thrown into 
 prison for this, they appealed to the Su- 
 preme Court of the Confederation, which 
 gave judgment in their favour, and ordered 
 them to be set at liberty. This was de- 
 manded, accordingly, by the marshal of the 
 United States residing in the State of 
 Georgia. The Governor of Georgia re- 
 fused compliance. This was reported by 
 the marshal to the Supreme Court. Its 
 next yearly meeting was now drawing on, 
 and the Constitution then required that the 
 chief-justice should call upon the President 
 of the United States to enforce compliance, 
 which, by his oath of office, the latter was 
 obhged to do. At this crisis, the Governor 
 of Georgia, well aware that the President 
 would do his duty, first oftered pardon to 
 the imprisoned missionaries, and as they 
 refused to accept this, as a last resort he 
 convened the Legislature, and it, on some 
 trivial ostensible pretext, abolished the 
 penitentiary or state prison, and so turned 
 the missionaries out of doors. So the 
 affair ended. The cause of the Indians 
 was, in fact, sustained by the General 
 Government, and though they received 
 
 much trouble from their Georgian neigh- 
 bours, they remained several years longer 
 on their lands, and then sold them to the 
 United States for a great price,* and re- 
 moved west of the Mississippi, where they 
 are now settled. Although their removal 
 was attended with much hardship, and a 
 good deal of sickness, ihey are represented 
 as doing well in their new territory, where 
 they are placed beside the Choctas, Chick- 
 asas. Creeks, and other tribes. 
 
 It is hard to see wherein the General 
 Government was to blame in all this. It 
 was in favour of removing the Indians, be- 
 lieving that it would be best for them to 
 leave a territory where they could never 
 live in tranquillity, and place themselves in 
 another, which, being the absolute property 
 of the United States, could not, under any 
 pretext, be claimed by any state. There, 
 if anywhere, they can, and, I have no 
 doubt, will be protected. 
 
 So, also, the course pursued by the Gen- 
 eral Government in relation to the Semi- 
 nole Indians in Florida has been held up as 
 cruel and unjust in the highest degree, as 
 designed to uphold slavery, &c., &c. Now, 
 though far from believing that in this mat- 
 ter the government has acted wisely, I 
 think it obvious that the situation of the 
 long, narrow peninsula in question, al- 
 though nineteen twentieths of it are quite 
 unfit for any species of culture, might make 
 the possession of it desirable. A large 
 sum, accordingly, was offered for it to the 
 3000 or 4000 Indians who roamed over it, 
 and whose depredations on the white in- 
 habitants of the country adjoining had long 
 been exceedingly vexatious. A treaty was 
 made, as the government thought, with 
 chiefs having full authority to that effect. 
 But this the Indians refused to keep ; 
 hence hostilities broke out, which, after 
 having lasted for years, are now termina- 
 ted. That the government was deceived 
 by its agents is very probable, but I do not 
 believe that its intentions were unjust. 
 
 Upon the whole, I think that the National 
 Government, in its transactions with the 
 Indians, has sincerely aimed at doing them 
 justice. Its influence is happily exercised 
 in promoting peace among the tribes of 
 the West, the disputes constantly arising 
 among which its officers and agents do 
 their best to terminate in a peaceful way, 
 and by the influence of persuasion alone. 
 It has often, indeed, to bear the blame due 
 only to unfaithful agents, by whom it is 
 sometimes both deceived and committed. 
 The General Government has been bla- 
 med because rum and other ardent spirits 
 are carried by unprincipled men to the In- 
 dians on the borders, yet no government 
 
 * Five millions of dollars, besides the expenses of 
 their removal, and a year's support in their new 
 homes. All this was in addition to the lands which 
 they received in exchange for their former country. 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 BOARDS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 299 
 
 •could well do more to prevent this. It has 
 not only forbidden, but has taken measures 
 to prevent all such traffic ; and these have 
 not been wholly in vain. But what govern- 
 ment on earth could effectually guard such 
 an immense frontier of almost boundless 
 forests as that of the United States ! Eng- 
 land and France find it impossible to guard 
 effectually a few hundred miles of coast 
 against smuggling; how much more diffi- 
 cult the task which the United States are 
 blamed for not accomplishing 1 But the 
 formation of Temperance societies among 
 the Indians, and the passing of severe laws 
 among themselves against every villain, 
 •white or red, who may be found engaged 
 in such commerce, will be a more effectual 
 remedy. 
 
 In conclusion, I would state that the 
 United States government has done much 
 incidentally, during the last twenty-five 
 years, to promote missions among the In- 
 dian tribes, by a yearly grant of 10,000 
 dollars for the establishment of schools, 
 blacksmiths' shops, and other trades. This 
 sum is generally expended through the 
 several missionary societies, and of course 
 by the missionaries, as the persons most 
 competent for the task ; many, if not all, 
 of them being well acquainted with the 
 various handicrafts most necessary to the 
 partially civilized people among whom 
 they live. The late Secretary of War, the 
 Hon. John C. Spencer, has spoken in the 
 highest terms of the judicious manner in 
 which this money has been applied, and 
 of the good which has been accomplished. 
 A similar testimony has recently been 
 rendered by a committe of Congress, to 
 "which the same subject had been referred. 
 it is pleasant to state s, fact which shows 
 the favourable disposition of the govern- 
 ment towards the benevolent enterprise 
 of Christianizing and civilizing the tribes 
 on our borders, to whom we are far from 
 having done all our duty. Many of the 
 tribes, it may be added, appropriate large 
 sums from the yearly pensions they re- 
 ceive from the United States government 
 to the establishment of schools and the 
 promotion of the arts.* 
 
 * The United States government has done much 
 to procure a favourable reception for the missionaries 
 among the hidians, and to induce the latter to set 
 apart large sums from the price paid for their lands 
 by the United States, and which is generally done 
 in the shape of annuities, for the promotion of educa- 
 tion and religion, as well as the useful arts. These 
 annuities now exceed 1,000,000 of dollars. To pre- 
 serve these tribes, or, rather, all the tribes to which 
 it can find access, from the ravages of the smallpox, 
 the United States government also sends fit persons 
 from time to time to vaccinate them. 
 
 Within the territory claimed by the United States, 
 there are now above fifty missionary stations among 
 the Indians, about fifty missionaries, above forty as- 
 sistant missionaries, American and native, and not 
 much under 5000 communicants or members of 
 churches. There is also a very considerable number 
 cf schools and scholars. 
 
 Several of the aboriginal nations now 
 assembled on the territory which the gov- 
 ernment of the United States has assigned 
 them, and which lies, as we have said, 
 west of the Stales of Arkansas and Mis- 
 souri, are making astonishing progress in 
 civilization. As a proof of this, the fact 
 may be cited that in some of them, partic- 
 ularly the Cherokees and Choctas, many 
 schools are now maintained ; some of them 
 by the several missionary societies who 
 employ ministers of the Gospel and teach- 
 ers among them, and others by the govern- 
 ments of those tribes. In some cases, in- 
 dividual natives bear the expense of a 
 school themselves, for the benefit of their 
 children. Many of the natives are suffi- 
 ciently well educated to be good teachers. 
 
 The Chocta government has made pro- 
 vision for the education of their youth, 
 which may well cause many nations more 
 advanced in civilization to blush. Their 
 National Council in November, 1842, re- 
 solved to establish three academies for 
 boys and four for girls. For the former 
 (one of which, I believe, is to be a sort of 
 college) they made an annual appropria- 
 tion of 18,500 dollars, and for the latter 
 7800, making together the sum of 26,300 
 dollars as a public annual appropriation for 
 the support of schools ! And yet, a few 
 years ago, these people were ignorant sav- 
 ages, of whom not one could read ! And 
 who have, under God, been the authors of 
 this change 1 The missionaries ivho are la- 
 bouring among them, and who are all Prot- 
 estants. 
 
 As to the Cherokees, the progress of 
 civilization among them is not less won- 
 derful. Very many of them can now read. 
 A few years ago, one of their men, who 
 had been educated by the missionaries, in- 
 vented a syllabic alphabet, by which the art 
 of reading has been w^onderfully diffused 
 among them — a phenomenon which has 
 had no equal in any community in the 
 whole world these two thousand years. 
 There are three printing-presses in this 
 nation, one of which has lately been intro- 
 duced by their government for the purpose 
 of printing a Cherokee newspaper ! 
 
 We now proceed to give some notice of 
 the various Missionary Societies in the 
 United States, and in doing so shall have 
 occasion to speak of what has been done 
 since 1815 to introduce Christianity among 
 the Indians. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 .AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FOR- 
 EIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 With the exception of that of the Uni- 
 ted Brethren, the American Board of Com- 
 missioners for Foreign Missions is the old- 
 est society for foreign missions in the Uni- 
 
300 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 ted States. It has also the greatest num- 
 ber of missions and missionaries, and the 
 largest amount of receipts. Several reli- 
 gious denominations, agreeing substantial- 
 ly in their views of the Gospel, and in their 
 ecclesiastical organizations, unite in sus- 
 taining it. These are the Congregational, 
 numbering about 1500 churches, about the 
 same number of Presbyterian churches, 
 and the Reformed Dutch and German 
 Reformed, numbering together about 700 
 churches ; though but a small number of 
 the German Reformed churches yet take 
 an interest in foreign missions. The great 
 body of the Congregational churches are 
 in the New-England States. The others, 
 so far as this missionary institution is con- 
 cerned, are almost entirely in what are call- 
 ed the Middle and Western States. The 
 number of congregations which are really 
 connected with it, and operate through it on 
 the heathen world, is about 3500, in which 
 there may be 2,000,000 of souls. 
 
 Its Origin and Constitution.— The Board 
 had its origin in the following manner. Sev- 
 eral young men, graduates of New-England 
 colleges, and preparing for the Gospel min- 
 istry at the Theological Seminary at Ando- 
 ver, in the State of Massachusetts, agreed, 
 in the year 1809, to unite their efforts in 
 establishing a mission among the heathen 
 in some foreign land. In this they were 
 encouraged by the Faculty of the semina- 
 rj'. As the General Association of Congre- 
 gational ministers in Massachusetts were 
 to hold their annual meeting in June, 1810, 
 these young men were advised to submit 
 their case to that body. This was done by 
 four of their number — Messrs. Mills, Jud- 
 son, Newell, and Nott — in the following 
 paper : 
 
 " The undersigned, members of the Di- 
 vinity College, respectfully request the at- 
 tention of their reverend Fathers, conven- 
 ed in the General Association at Bradford, 
 to the following statement and inquiries. 
 
 " They beg leave to state, that their minds 
 have been long impressed with the duty 
 and importance of personally attempting a 
 mission to the heathen ; that the impres- 
 sions on their minds have induced a seri- 
 ous, and, they trust, a prayerful considera- 
 tion of the subject in its various attitudes, 
 particularly in relation to the probable suc- 
 cess, and the difficulties attending such an 
 attempt ; and that, after examining all the 
 information which they can obtain, they 
 consider themselves as devoted to this 
 work for life, whenever God, in his provi- 
 dence, shall open the way. 
 
 " They now offer the following inquiries, 
 on which they solicit the opinion and ad- 
 vice of this Association. Whether, with 
 their present views and feelings, they ought 
 to renounce the object of missions as either 
 visionary or impracticable ; if not, whether 
 they ought to direct their attention to the 
 
 Eastern or Western world : whether they 
 may expect patronage and support from a 
 missionary society in this country, or must 
 commit themselves to the direction of a 
 European society ; and what preparatory 
 measures they ought to take previous to 
 actual engagement. 
 
 " The undersigned, feeling their youth 
 and inexperience, look up to their Fathers 
 in the Church, and respectfully solicit their 
 advice, direction, and prayers." 
 
 On the 29th of June, the Association 
 elected a Board of Commissioners for For- 
 eign Missions, consisting of nine persons. 
 The Board, at its first meeting, held in the 
 following September, adopted the name of 
 the Ainerican Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions, thus recognising its high 
 calling to act for all in every part of the 
 nation, who might choose to employ its 
 agency in the work of missions among 
 the heathen. The transaction of its ordi- 
 nary business, however, was delegated to 
 an executive committee called the Pruden- 
 tial Committee, the members of which re- 
 side at or near Boston, where is the seat 
 of its operations. Subsequently it was 
 found necessary to obtain an Act of Incor- 
 poration from the Legislature of Massachu- 
 setts, in order that the Board might the bet- 
 ter manage its financial concerns. This 
 act, being respected by the legal tribunals 
 of all the other States in the Republic^ 
 has been found of great use, especially in 
 the recovery of bequests contested wrong- 
 fully by heirs at law. It requires one third 
 of the members to be laymen, and one third 
 clergymen ; the remaining third may be 
 either clergymen or laymen. Members 
 are elected by ballot. The object of the 
 Board is expressly recognised in the act to 
 be " the propagation of the Gospel in hea- 
 then lands, by supporting missionaries and 
 diffusing a knowledge of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures ;" and full power is granted to hold an 
 amount of permanently invested funds suffi- 
 cient for the purpose of credit in the com- 
 mercial world, and also to receive and ex- 
 pend annually, in pursuance of its object, 
 any amount of contributions its patrons 
 may think proper to place at its disposal. 
 
 The number of corporate members is 
 about 175, residing in nineteen of the 
 States, religious men, having in general a 
 high standing in their respective profes- 
 sions. These form the body corporate, 
 the Trustees in respect to the financial con- 
 cerns of the institution. But with these 
 are associated a large body of honorary 
 members, amounting, at present, to more 
 than 3500, who are made such by tlie pay- 
 ment of 100 dollars if laymen, or fifty dol- 
 lars if clergymen ; and who share equally 
 in the deliberations of the annual meetings, 
 but do not vote, as that would interfere with 
 the charter. A third class of members are 
 called corresponding members ; they are 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 BOARDS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 301 
 
 foreign members, and are elected by ballot. 
 In addition to the usual office-bearers for 
 presiding at the annual meetings, and re- 
 cording the proceedings at these meetings, 
 there are three Corresponding Secretaries 
 and a Treasurer, whose time is fully occu- 
 pied with the business. 
 
 Its History. — The proceedings of the 
 Board, and the results of its experience and 
 operations for the thirty years past of its 
 existence, must necessarily be stated in the 
 most comprehensive and summary manner. 
 
 It is among the remarkable facts in the 
 history of this institution, and in the eccle- 
 siastical history of the country, that, at the 
 outset, neither the Board nor its Prudential 
 Committee, nor, indeed, any of the leading 
 minds in the American churches at that 
 time, could see the way clear for raising 
 funds enough to support the four young 
 men who were then waiting to be sent forth 
 to the heathen world. One of them was 
 accordingly sent to England by the Pru- 
 dential Committee, mainly to see whether 
 an arrangement could not be made with 
 the London Missionary Society, by which 
 a part of their support could be received 
 from that society, and they yet remain 
 under the direction of the Board. That 
 society wisely declined such an arrange- 
 ment, and at the same time encouraged 
 their American brethren to hope for ample 
 contributions from their own churches as 
 soon as the facts should be generally 
 known. From this time no farther thought 
 was entertained of looking abroad for pe- 
 <;uniary aid. Indeed, the largest legacy 
 the Board has yet received was bequeath- 
 ■ed to it by a benevolent lady in Salem, 
 Massachusetts, in the early part of the year 
 1811. The first ordination of American 
 missionaries to the heathen in foreign 
 lands was in that place, on the 6th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1812. These were the Rev. Sam- 
 uel Newell, Adoniram Judson, Gordon 
 Hall, Samuel Nott, and Luther Rice, all 
 from the little missionary band in the The- 
 ological Seminary at Andover. They pro- 
 ceeded forthwith to Calcutta, in the East 
 Indies, but without being designated to any 
 specific field by the committee. There 
 was not then the hundredth part of the 
 knowledge of the heathen world in the 
 American churches that there is now. The 
 Prudential Committee seem to have been 
 unable to point to any one country, and 
 tell their missionaries decidedly to occupy 
 tha* in preference to other contiguous coun- 
 tries. The comparative claims of the dif- 
 ferent benighted portions of the unevan- 
 gelical world was a subject then but little 
 understood. The missionaries were left to 
 decide what field to occupy after their ar- 
 rival in India. 
 
 Messrs. Judson and Rice had not been 
 Jong with the Baptist missionaries at Se- 
 rampore, near Calcutta, before they de- 
 
 clared themselves converts to the peculiar 
 views of those missionaries in relation to 
 Baptism. Their consequent separation from 
 the society Avhich sent them forth, gave 
 rise to the formation of a Baptist Board 
 for Foreign Missions in the United States. 
 Messrs. Hall, Newell, and Nott, after much 
 painful voyaging from place to place, oc- 
 casioned by the reluctance of the East In- 
 dia Company to tolerate missionaries, and 
 especially American missionaries, in India 
 (the United States and Great Britain being 
 then, unhappily, at war), at length, in 1813, 
 found a resting-place and field of labour at 
 Bombay, in Western India. This was the 
 commencement of the mission to the Mah- 
 rattas. 
 
 The Mahrattas possess strong traits of 
 character as a people, compared with oth- 
 er nations of India, as is evident in their 
 history for ages past. The American mis- 
 sionaries were the first to go in among 
 them, and they entered as the husband- 
 man would into an unbroken forest. No 
 preparatory work had been done, except 
 merely that of conquest by a Christian 
 power, and it must be confessed that few 
 tangible results have yet been witnessed 
 in that mission. But there is no doubt 
 that the Mahratta people now stand dif- 
 ferently related to the Christian religion 
 from what they did in 1813. Much una- 
 voidable preliminary ground has been gone 
 over; the truth stands nearer to the na- 
 tive intellect and heart ; the spiritual con- 
 quest of the country is far easier than it 
 was then. 
 
 Among the Tamul people, found in the 
 northern district of Ceylon and in South- 
 ern India, there was some degree of prep- 
 aration when the mission to that people 
 was commenced in 1816 ; in Ceylon, by 
 means of the Portuguese and the Dutch; 
 and on the Continent, by means of the cel- 
 ebrated missionary Schwartz and his asso- 
 ciates. Hence, through the blessing of God, 
 the obvious results have been greater there 
 than among the Mahrattas. The syste- 
 matic measures which were early adopt- 
 ed by the Ceylon mission for training a 
 native agency, and the success attending 
 them, did much to give an early maturity 
 to the plans of the Board for raising up a 
 native ministry in connexion with all its 
 other missions, of which more will be said 
 in the sequel. The most efficient semi- 
 nary for educating heathen youths for help- 
 ers in the work of the Gospel, is believed 
 to be the one connected with the mission 
 in Ceylon. The number of pupils is 160, 
 all of whom are boarding scholars, and 
 about 100 of them are regarded as truly 
 pious. There is also a female seminary, 
 containing more than 100 boarding schol- 
 ars, where the educated native helpers of 
 the mission may obtain pious, educated 
 wives ; and there are free schools contain- 
 
302 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 ing "3000 pupils, which are a nursery for 
 the seminaries, and among the most ef- 
 fect've means of securing congregations 
 to hear the preached Gospel. In 1834, a 
 branch of this mission was formed at Ma- 
 dura, on the Continent, and in 1836 anoth- 
 er at Madras, with the special object of 
 printing books in the Tamul language on 
 a large scale. 
 
 The first mission sent by the Board to 
 Eastern Asia was to China in 1830. A 
 pious merchant in New- York city furnish- 
 ed many of the facts and arguments which 
 justified its commencement, and then he 
 gave two missionaries their passage to 
 Canton and their support for a year. One 
 of these missionaries subsequently visited 
 Siam, and opened the way for a mission 
 to that country ; as he did also to Singa- 
 pore, and to Netherlands India. The mis- 
 sion to Singapore has not answered the 
 expectations of the Board, and has been 
 almost discontinued. The operations in 
 Netherlands India have been much em- 
 barrassed hitherto by the restrictive poli- 
 cy of the Dutch Colonial Government. 
 The mission in Siam has had a prosper- 
 ous commencement ; but its prospects 
 have not that cheering certainty which 
 animates the labour of missionaries under 
 such a government as now rules in Brit- 
 ish India. 
 
 Turning our attention to Western Asia, 
 we find a number of interesting missions 
 under the care of this Board. The Greek 
 mission, commenced in the year 1829, 
 grew out of the sympathy which was felt 
 for the Greek people throughout the Chris- 
 tian world, in their struggle for independ- 
 ence from the Turkish yoke. Dr. King, 
 who commenced it, had previously been 
 connected with the Palestine mission. It 
 was to the Holy Land, in fact, that the 
 first mission in the series was sent, in the 
 year 1821. Messrs. Fiske and Parsons 
 were the pioneers in the enterprise. In 
 1828, after their decease, war, and the hos- 
 tilities of the Maronites towards the mis- 
 sion, compelled the surviving missionaries 
 to retire from Syria for a season ; and it 
 is to this occurrence, in the developments 
 of Providence, we trace the establishment 
 of the mission among the Armenians of 
 Constantinople and Asia Minor, which has 
 been so signally useful to that people. 
 Two missionaries of the Board had, indeed, 
 gone to Asia Minor as early as 1826, but 
 their mission was to the Greeks. In the 
 year 1830, Messrs. Smith and Dwight 
 were sent on an exploring tour into Arme- 
 nia, and were instructed to visit the Nes- 
 torians in the Persian province of Ader- 
 baijan. This visit brought that remnant 
 of the most noted missionary church of 
 ancient times to light, and induced the 
 Board to send a mission to restore the 
 blessings of the Go.spcl to that people. 
 
 The mission was commenced on the plain 
 of Ooroomiah, and has recently been ex- 
 tended to the independent Nestorian tribes 
 among the Koordish Mountains. The lead- 
 ing object of the mission is to educate 
 the clergy, and by reviving among them, 
 through the blessing of God, the spirit of 
 the Gospel, to induce them to resume the 
 preaching of it with more than their an- 
 cient zeal. The press has been intro- 
 I duced. More than 400 Nestorians are in 
 i free schools, supported by the mission, and 
 I taught by eighteen priests and sixteen dea- 
 I cons ; and upward of sixty are boarding 
 ' scholars in seminaries. There is also a 
 class of about a dozen in theology, instruct- 
 ed by the missionaries. We already begin 
 to witness the gradual reviving of preach- 
 ing among the ecclesiastics. The great 
 thing wanting among this people is spiritu- 
 al life. They number about 100,000 souls. 
 The Syrian mission has for some years 
 past been cultivating an acquaintance with 
 the Druzes of Mount Lebanon. These 
 are about as numerous as the Nestorians,. 
 and resemble them in the mountaineer 
 traits of courage and enterprise. The Dru- 
 zes are a sort of heretical Mohammedans. 
 Recently those inhabiting the mountains 
 of Lebanon have, as a community, placed 
 themselves under the religious instruction 
 of the missionaries. Their motive may 
 be the improvement of their civil condi- 
 tion, by becoming Protestant Christians,. 
 but the fact of their permitting the mission 
 to open a seminary at the seat of their 
 government, and to preach the Gospel, 
 and introduce schools freely among them, 
 should be acknowledged with gratitude to 
 God. 
 
 The Armenian Church has proved to be 
 scarcely less interesting as a field for mis- 
 sionary labours than the Nestorian. It 
 has even afforded more abundant spiritual 
 fruit. An evangelical influence is strongly 
 developed among the Armenian clergy ; 
 and in many instances, where they have 
 had no personal communication with mem- 
 bers of the mission, but only with the Holy 
 Scriptures, or with some of the books pub- 
 lished by the mission, there are hundreds 
 of Armenians, it is thought, whose minds, 
 rejecting the corruptions and superstitions 
 of their church, have come imder the salu- 
 tary influence of a Gospel that looks for 
 justification only through faith in Christ. 
 In short, the grand principles by means of 
 which the Spirit of grace wrought out the 
 Reformation in Europe, are seen to be op- 
 erating in Western Asia, and their progress 
 ought to engage the prayerful interest of 
 all Christians. 
 
 A mission was sent to South Africa in 
 1836, and high hopes were entertained of 
 a prosperous issue. But these hopes have 
 been in great measure blasted by the sin- 
 gular immigration of the Dutch Boers from 
 
Chap. III.] 
 
 BOARDS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 303 
 
 the English colony, and their consequent 
 wars upon the Zulus. The mission to 
 Western Africa, though commenced in 
 1834, has not yet advanced beyond Cape 
 Palmas, where it has a very interesting 
 seminary for Grebo youth ; but its ultimate 
 destination, as soon as the way is opened 
 up the Niger, is to the populous and health- 
 ful countries of the interior. Along the 
 coast, however, eastward of Cape Palmas, 
 there is work for many missionaries. 
 
 The results of the mission of the Board 
 in the Sandwich Islands, a group of islands 
 in the North Pacific Ocean, constitute one 
 of the great moral wonders of the age. 
 The first missionaries landed on those 
 islands in the year 1820. At that time the 
 natives were savage and pagan, without 
 letters, without a ray of Gospel light ; 
 though they had just before strangely 
 burned their idols — a fact unknown in the 
 United States when the missionaries em- 
 barked on their errand of mercy. In 1840, 
 after the lapse of only twenty years, this 
 same people might properly have claimed 
 the title of a Christian people. Though 
 necessarily destitute in great measure, 
 owing to their poverty, of the more impo- 
 sing insignia of civilization, they then had 
 the elements and basis of it in Christian 
 institutions, schools, a written language, 
 the press, and books, and in the extensive 
 prevalence of pious dispositions and habits. 
 Within this space of time their language 
 had been reduced to writing, and about 
 100,000,000 of pages had been printed by 
 the mission in the native language. As 
 the alphabet contains but twelve letters, 
 and each letter has but a single sound, it 
 is easy learning to read. One third of the 
 population can read. The children of the 
 chiefs are educated by a member of the 
 mission in a boarding-school designed for 
 them alone, which the chiefs support : this 
 is at Honolulu, in the island of Oahu. At 
 Lahainaluna, on the island of Maui, there 
 is a seminary, for which a large stone ed- 
 ifice has been erected, containing nearly 
 100 boarding pupils ; and at Wailuku, on 
 the same island, there is a corresponding 
 female institution', containing about fifty. 
 At Waialua, on Oahu, there is a manual 
 labour or self-supporting school. Two 
 other boarding-schools are at Hilo, on the 
 island of Hawaii, which are supported 
 chiefly by the natives. The free schools 
 number about 14,000 pupils. Laws have 
 been passed by the government defining 
 and securing the rights of property to the 
 people, and taking the power of imposing 
 taxes from the individual chiefs, and vest- 
 ing it exclusively in the National Council, 
 which is to assemble annually. But the 
 most remarkable fact of all, is the extra- 
 ordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 
 the years 1838 and 1839, in consequence 
 of which many thousands of the natives 
 
 were hopefully converted to God. The 
 number of church members (who are ad- 
 mitted to that relation only after a cred- 
 ible profession of real piety) increased in 
 that space of time from 5000 to more 
 than 18,000. The natives have erected 
 many houses for public worship, and a 
 still greater number of schoolhouses, and 
 on the Sabbath-day, which is generally 
 observed by abstaining from labour and 
 amusements, the sound of the church-go- 
 ing bell is heard in not a few of their val- 
 leys. 
 
 The Board has very properly spent a 
 portion of its funds in missions to the 
 more important and influential tribes of 
 the North American Indians. It be- 
 gan with the Cherokees and Choctas, ia 
 1816-18, who then inhabited a tract of 
 country within the chartered limits of 
 some of the Southwestern States. These 
 two missions, for more than ten years, had 
 great success. The poor Indians were 
 then driven almost to desperation by those 
 who wished for their lands, and were bent 
 on inducing them to remove beyond the 
 Mississippi River. These efforts had a 
 cruel success. The missionaries have fol- 
 lowed the two tribes above mentioned in 
 their exile. Missions were also instituted 
 at diff'erent times among the Creeks and 
 Chickasas, eastward of the Mississippi, 
 and among the Osages westward ; but 
 they have been discontinued. Subsequent 
 to the year 1830, missionaries were sent 
 to the savage, wandering Ojibwas, Sioux,^ 
 and Pawnees, in the vast territory north- 
 west of the United States ; and in 1835 
 they were sent across the continent, be- 
 yond the Rocky Mountains, to the Indians 
 in the Oregon Territory. There are sev- 
 eral missions among the feeble remnants 
 of the once powerful Six Nations, found 
 on the borders of Lake Erie, in the State 
 of New- York. 
 
 The following is a summary view of 
 what, through the Divine favour, has been 
 accomplished by this Board. The amount 
 received into the treasury of the Board du- 
 ring the year ending on the 3 1st of July, 
 1843, was $244,224 43 ; and the amount 
 of payments was $257,247 25 ; leaving 
 the treasury indebted to the amount of 
 $13,022 82. 
 
 The number of missions sustained du- 
 ring the year was 26 ; connected with 
 which are 86 stations, at which were la- 
 bouring 131 ordained missionaries, eight 
 of whom were physicians, eight otlier phy- 
 sicians, 15 teachers, 10 printers and book- 
 binders, six other male, and 178 female as- 
 sistant missionaries — making the whole 
 number of missionary labourers sent from 
 this country and sustained by the Board 
 348, which is eight less than the number 
 last year. If to these be added 14 native 
 preachers and 116 other native helpers. 
 
304 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 the whole number of missionary labourers 
 connected with the missions, and sustained 
 from the treasury of the Board, will be 
 478, which is 10 less than were reported 
 last year. Of these missionary labourers, 
 four ordained missionaries, and two male 
 and nine female assistant missionaries, in 
 all 15, were sent forth during the last year, 
 being the least number of preachers, and 
 the least number, including all classes of 
 labourers, that has been sent forth during 
 any year since 1831. 
 
 Organized by these missions, and under 
 their pastoral care, are 62 churches, to 
 which have been received during the last 
 year 2690 converts, and which now em- 
 brace, in regular standing, 20,797 mem- 
 bers. This number does not include some 
 hundreds of hopeful converts among the 
 Armenians, Nestorians, and other commu- 
 nities in Western Asia. 
 
 The number of printing establishments 
 connected with the missions is 16, with 
 four type foundries, 43 founts of type, and 
 30 presses. Printing has been executed 
 for the missions in 33 languages, exclusive 
 of the English, 15 of which were first re- 
 duced to a written form by the missiona- 
 ries of this Board. The copies of works 
 printed at the mission presses during the 
 past year exceed 600,000, and the number 
 of pages is about 56,383,000 ; making the 
 total number of pages printed for the 
 missions since they commenced about 
 442,056,185. 
 
 In the department of education the mis- 
 sionaries have under their care seven sem- 
 inaries for educating preachers and teach- 
 ers, in which are 524 pupils, besides 22 
 other boarding-schools, in which are 699 
 pupils, more than 400 of whom are girls. 
 Of free schools the number is 610, contain- 
 ing 30,778 pupils ; making the whole num- 
 ber of pupils under the care of the mis- 
 sions 32,000. 
 
 Of the 32,000 youth in the mission 
 schools of this Board, somewhat more 
 than 1200 are boarding scholars, in schools 
 where the leading object is to train up a 
 native ministry. Five hundred and twen- 
 ty-four are in seminaries designed exclu- 
 sively for males, where the course of study 
 is as extensive as it can be, wliile the lan- 
 guages of the several countries where they 
 exist are no better furnished with works of 
 sound literature and science. In general, 
 the text-books for all the schools havp to 
 be prepared by the missionaries, and a very 
 great progress, on the whole, has been 
 made in this department, especially in ge- 
 ography, arithmetic, geometry, sacred his- 
 tory, and the first principles of religion and 
 morals. 
 
 About 442,000,000 of pages have been 
 printed at the sixteen printing establish- 
 ments connected with the missions of this 
 Board. These establishments have printed 
 
 books and tracts in thirty-three different 
 languages, spoken by more than 450,000,000, 
 exclusive of the English. These langua- 
 ges are the Zulu, Grebo, Italian, Greek, 
 Armenian, Turkish (in the Armenian char- 
 acter), Arabic, Mahratta, Portuguese, Goo- 
 jurattee, Hindosthanee, Latin, Tamul, Te- 
 loogoo, Siamese, Chinese, Japanese, Ma- 
 lay, Bugis, Hawaiian, Cherokee, Choctaw, 
 Seneca, Abenaquis, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Creek, 
 Osage, Sioux, Pawnee, and Nez Perces ; 
 fifteen of which were first reduced to wri- 
 ting by missionaries of the Board. 
 
 The sixty-tWo churches which have been 
 gathered among the heathen are formed 
 as nearly on the Congregational or Pres- 
 byterian model ¥6r such ecclesiastical or- 
 ganizations as the nature of the case would 
 permit. None but converts who have been 
 received as members of the church, after 
 giving credible evidence of piety, are al- 
 lowed to partake of the Lord's Supper. 
 The spiritual fruits of the missions to the 
 Oriental churches are, of course, not in- 
 cluded in this number, such not having 
 been gathered into distinct and separate 
 churches, the effort there having been to 
 infuse the spirit of the Gospel into those 
 religious communities as they now are. 
 
 Theory of the Missions of the Board. 
 — The Board does not regard any of its 
 missions as being permanent institutions. 
 Their object is, through the grace of God, 
 to impart the spirit and plant the institu- 
 tions of the Gospel where they do not 
 exist, and then to leave them to the con- 
 servative influences that shall have been 
 gathered about them. This is true theo- 
 retically, and it will come out in fact as 
 soon as the means are furnished for pros- 
 ecuting the work with becoming vigour. 
 The missionary is emphatically, in the es-. 
 sential principle of his calling, a sojourner, 
 pilgrim, stranger, having no continuing city. 
 The leading object of its missions, 
 therefore, is the training and employment 
 of a native ministry, as the only way in 
 which the Gospel can soon become indi- 
 genous to the soil, and the Gospel institu- 
 tions acquire a self-supporting, self-propa- 
 gating energy. And the fact is important 
 to be noted, that the ciders, or pastors, 
 whom the apostles ordained over the 
 churches they gathered among the hea- 
 then, were generally, if not always, natives 
 of the counlry. While the apostles had 
 not the facilities of the present day for 
 training men for this office by education, 
 they had not the necessity for so doing. 
 Among their converts at Ephesus, Berea, 
 Corinth, Home, and elsewhere, they had 
 no difficulty in finding men who only re- 
 quired some instruction in theology, and 
 scarcely that when endowed with miracu- 
 lous gifts, to be prepared for the pastoral 
 oflice. How they did, or would have done, 
 beyond the Roman Empire and the bounds 
 
€hap. VIII.] 
 
 BOARDS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS. 
 
 305 
 
 jf civilization, we are not informed ; but 
 in the use tliey made of a native ministry, 
 we recognisf! one of the grand principles 
 •of their missions, and also the true theory 
 of missions — simple, economical, practical, 
 Scriptural, mighty through God. 
 
 The manner ia which the Board is en- 
 deavouring to carry out this theory in prac- 
 tice has perhaps been sufficiently indicated. 
 But the subject is one of so much impor- 
 tance, that it will be worth while to quote 
 part of an article upon it, which was sub- 
 mitted by the Prudential Committee of the 
 Board, at the annual meeting in the year 
 1841. 
 
 I. On the manner of ralnng up a native 
 ministry. 
 
 "1. This must be by means of semina- 
 ries, schools of the prophets, such as, in 
 some form or other, the Church has al- 
 ways found necessary. There should be 
 one such seminary in each considerable 
 mission. It is an essential feature of the 
 plan that the pupils be taken young, board 
 in the mission, be kept separate from hea- 
 thenism, under Christian superintendence 
 night and day. In general, the course of 
 study should embrace a period of from 
 eight to ten or twelve years, and even a 
 longer time in special cases. Pupils can 
 be obtained for such a course of education 
 in most of the missions ; but, as a nursery 
 for them, it is expedient to have a certain 
 number of free schools, which also greatly 
 aid in getting audiences for the preachers. 
 
 " 2. There will be but partial success in 
 rearing a native ministry, unless the semi- 
 nary be in the midst of a select and strong 
 body of missionaries, whose holy lives, 
 conversation, and preaching shall cause 
 the light of the Gospel to blaze intensely 
 and constantly upon and around the insti- 
 tution. Experience shows that in such 
 circumstances we are warranted to expect 
 a considerable proportion of the students 
 to become pious. 
 
 "3. The student, while in the seminary, 
 should be trained practically to habits of 
 usefulness. But this requires caution, and 
 must not be attempted too soon. Those 
 set apart for the sacred ministry might 
 remain as a class in theology at the semi- 
 nary, after completing the regular course 
 of study ; or, according to the old fashion 
 in this country, which has some special 
 advantages, they might pursue their theo- 
 logical studies with individual missiona- 
 ries, and, under such superintendence, ex- 
 ercise their gifts before much responsibil- 
 ity is thrown upon them. 
 
 " 4. The contemporaneous establishment 
 of female boarding-schools, where the na- 
 tive ministers and other educated helpers 
 in the mission may obtain pious and intel- 
 ligent partners for life, is an essential fea- 
 ture in this system. A native pastor, with 
 an ignorant, heathen wife, would be great- 
 U 
 
 ly embarrassed and hindered in his work. 
 In this manner Christian families are 
 formed, and at length Christian communi- 
 ties, and there is a race of children with 
 Christian ideas and associations, from 
 among whom we may select our future 
 pupils and candidates for the ministry." 
 
 II. On the employment of this native min- 
 istry. 
 
 " The pupils in the seminaries will have 
 different gifts, and the same gifts in very- 
 different degrees. All the pious students 
 will not do for preachers. Some may be 
 retained as tutors in the seminary, others 
 may be employed as school teachers, oth- 
 ers as printers, bookbinders, etc. Those 
 set apart for the ministry, while they are 
 taught the way of the Lord more perfectly, 
 can be employed as catechists, tract dis- 
 tributers, readers, or superintendents of 
 schools, and thus gain experience and try 
 their characters. In due time they may be 
 licensed to preach, and, after proper trial, 
 receive ordination as evangelists or pastors. 
 
 " While care should be taken to lay hands 
 suddenly on no man, there is believed to 
 be danger of requiring too much of native 
 converts before we are willing to intrust 
 them with the ministry of the word. Gen- 
 erations must pass before a community, 
 emerging from the depths of heathenism, 
 can be expected to furnish a body of min- 
 isters equal to that in our country. 
 
 " Could the present native church mem- 
 bers at the Sandwich Islands be divided into 
 companies of 180 each, 100 churches would 
 be constituted. Native pastors should be 
 in training for these churches, and evan- 
 gelists for the numerous districts where 
 churches are not yet formed, and where 
 the people are consequently exposed to the 
 inroads of the enemy. In the other mis- 
 sions the chief employment, at present, 
 must be that of evangelists. In the Tamul 
 missions hundreds might find ample em- 
 ployment ; and in the Oriental churches, 
 our leading object should be to bring for- 
 ward an able evangelical native ministry 
 with the least possible delay." 
 
 III. On the power and economy of the plan. 
 
 " In most of our missions we are oppo- 
 sed by these formidable obstacles, namely, 
 distance, expense, and climate. England was 
 opposed by the same obstacles in her con- 
 quest of India. And how did she overcome 
 them ? By employing native troops ; and 
 it is chiefly by means of them she now 
 holds that great populous country in sub- 
 jection. We, too, must have native troops 
 in our spiritual warfare. Why not have 
 an army of them ? Why not have as nu- 
 merous a body of native evangelists as can 
 be directed and employed? 
 
 " Such a measure would effect a great 
 saving oUime. Indeed, we can never leave 
 our fields of labour till this is done. Our 
 mission churches must have native pastors, 
 
306 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book Vllf. 
 
 and pastors of some experience, who can 
 stand alone, before we can leave them. Be- 
 sides, we should make far greater progress 
 than we do had we more of such helpers. 
 
 " And what economy of money there 
 would be in the operation of this plan ! 
 The cost of a ten years' course of educa- 
 tion for five natives of India would not be 
 more than the outfit and passage of one 
 married missionary to that country. And 
 when a company of missionaries is upon 
 the ground, it costs at least five times as 
 much to support them as it would to sup- 
 port the same number of native preachers. 
 The former could not live, like the latter, 
 upon rice alone, with a piece of cotton cloth 
 wrapped about their bodies for clothing, 
 and a mud-walled, grass-covered cottage, 
 without furniture, for a dwelling ; nor could 
 they travel on foot under a tropical sun. 
 They could not do this, and at the same 
 time preserve health and life. 
 
 " The cost of educating 1000 youth in 
 India, from whom preachers might be ob- 
 tained, and afterward of supporting 200 na- 
 tive preachers and their families, would be 
 only about 25,000 dollars, which is but little 
 more than the average expense in that coun- 
 try of twenty-five missionaries and fami- 
 lies. Now, if the preaching of two well- 
 educated native preachers, labouring under 
 judicious superintendence, may be expect- 
 ed to do as much good as that of one mis- 
 sionary, we have in these 200 native preach- 
 ers the equivalent, in instrumental preach- 
 ing power, for 100 missionaries, and at an 
 expenditure less by nearly 75,000 dollars a 
 year. And then, too, the native preacher 
 is at home in the country and climate, not 
 subject to a premature breaking down of 
 his constitution, not compelled to resort 
 for health to the United States, or to send 
 his children thither for education. Besides, 
 the native churches and converts might 
 gradually be brought to assume a part or 
 the whole of the support of the native min- 
 istry; while it is very doubtful whether it 
 will ever be expedient for the missionary 
 to receive his support from that quarter. 
 
 " One hundred thousand dollars a year 
 would board and educate 4000 native youth. 
 That sum would support 500 or GOO native 
 ministers with their families ; and if the 
 value of this amount of native preaching 
 talent equalled that of only 200 missiona- 
 ries, the annual saving of expense would 
 be at least 125,000 dollars. But it would 
 in the end be worth much more ; so that 
 we see, in this view, how our eff"ective force 
 among the heathen may, in a few years, be 
 rendered manifold greater than it is at pres- 
 ent, without even doubling our annual ex- 
 penditure. Some progress has even now 
 been made towards this result. We al- 
 ready have 500 male youth in our seven 
 seminaries ; and a still greater number, 
 male and female, in our other twenty-sev- 
 
 en boarding-schools. But the scheme, how- 
 ever promising and indispensable, cannot 
 be carried into eff"ect without a large addi- 
 tion of first-rate men to the company of our 
 missionaries." 
 
 It is interesting to observe how the at- 
 tention of Protestant missionaries from 
 Europe, as well as the United States, has 
 been drawn of late to the importance of a 
 native ministry as a means of carrying on 
 the work of missions among the heathen. 
 There can, however, be no doubt that 
 this Board has taken the lead of all other 
 missionary societies in giving that subject 
 the prominence practically which it de- 
 serves in the great system of missionarj' 
 operations. 
 
 The Annual Meetings of the Board. — 
 The annual meetings of the Board must 
 receive a brief notice. They are held in 
 the month of September, in some one of the 
 more important cities of the Eastern or 
 Middle States, and occupy three days. 
 The session is for deliberation and busi- 
 ness. The annual meeting for the year 1841 
 is a fair specimen of the usual attendance 
 of members. There were 56 corporate, 
 and 102 honorary members present. Of 
 the corporate members five were heads of 
 colleges (there are thrice that number be- 
 longing to the corporation) ; thirty-one 
 were pastors of churches, or otherwise 
 employed in the Christian ministry ; ten 
 were civilians ; and the remaining ten en- 
 gaged in mercantile or medical pursuits. 
 
 The first day of the session is employed 
 in bringing forward the business of the 
 meetings, so far as the Prudential Com- 
 mittee is concerned, which is done in wri- 
 ting. This, including the different parts 
 of the annual report, is usually referred to 
 some fifteen or more committees, who re- 
 port during the session. Their reports 
 often give rise to friendly discussions,, 
 which are always interesting, and often 
 eloquent. All the meetings are open to 
 the public, and are usually held in a 
 church, that there may be room for those 
 friends and patrons who Avish to attend. 
 In the evening of the first day a sermon is 
 preached before the Board by a member 
 appointed to the service at the previous 
 meeting, and the members unite in cele- 
 brating the Lord's Supper during the ses- 
 sion. A meeting for popular addresses is 
 held in the evening of the second or third 
 day. The last day of the session is gen- 
 erally the great day of the feast in point 
 of interest ; and it may truly be said tliat 
 the annual meeting of this Board, as a. 
 whole, has for several years past exerted 
 a great and good influence on the commu- 
 nity, its proceedings being more exten- 
 sively and carefully reported in the reli- 
 gious newspapers than those of any other 
 religious or charitable institution in tlicv 
 country. 
 
Chap. IV.] 
 
 BOARD FOR PRESBYTERIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 307 
 
 Publications. — The publications i.ssued 
 by the Board directly are, 1. The " Mis- 
 sionary Herald," published monthly in about 
 24,000 copies ; 2. The " Day Spring," a 
 monthly publication just commenced in 
 the form of a small newspaper; 3. The 
 '• Annual Report," a document of about 
 200 pages, of which 4000 or 5000 copies 
 are issued annually ; and, 4. The " Annual 
 Sermon," and occasional missionary pa- 
 pers of various descriptions. 
 
 Among the numerous works which have 
 been occasioned more or less directly by 
 its missions, though not published by it or 
 at its expense, the following may be men- 
 tioned : 
 
 Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Newell, by 
 Rev. Leonard Woods, D.D., 1815. Memoir 
 of the Rev. Levi Parsons, by Rev. Daniel 
 O. Morton, 1824. Memoir of the Rev. 
 Pliny Fisk, by Rev. Alvan Bond. 1828. 
 Memoir of Catharine Brown, a Christian 
 Indian of the Cherokee nation, by Rev. 
 Rufus Anderson, 1824. Memoir of Rev. 
 Gordon Hall, by Rev. Horatio Bardwell, 
 1834. Memoir of Mrs. Harriet L. Wins- 
 low, by Rev. Miron Winslow, 1835. Me- 
 moir of Mrs. Myra W. Allen, by Rev. Cy- 
 rus Mann, 1834. The Little Osage Cap- 
 tive, by Rev. Elias Cornelius, 1822. Me- 
 moir of Mrs. Sarah Lanman Smith, by 
 Rev. Edward W. Hooker, D.D., 1839, Syr- 
 ian Mission. Memoir of Mrs. Elizabeth D. 
 Dwight and Mrs. Judith S. Grant, 1840. 
 The Christian Brahmin, ot Memoirs of the 
 Life, Writings, and Character of the Con- 
 verted Brahmin, Babajee, by Rev. HoUis 
 Read, 2 vols., 1836. Memoirs of Ameri- 
 can Missionaries, formerly connected with 
 the Society of Inquiry respecting Missions 
 in the Andover Theological Seminary, 
 1832. Tour around Hawaii (one of the 
 Sandwich Islands), by Rev. William Ellis, 
 1826. A Residence in the Sandwich Isl- 
 ands, by Rev. Charles Samuel Stewart, 
 1828. History of the Sandwich Islands' 
 Mission, by Rev. Sheldon Dibble, 1839. 
 Observations on the Peloponnesus and 
 Greek Islands, by Rev. Rufus Anderson, 
 1830. Researches in Armenia, by Rev. E. 
 Smith and Rev. H. G. O. Dwight, 1833. 
 Residence at Constantinople, by Rev. Jo- 
 siah Brewer, 1830. The Nestorians,or the 
 Lost Tribes, by Asahel Grant, M.D., 1841. 
 Missionary Sermons and Addresses, by 
 Rev. Eli Smith, 1833. Journal of a Mis- 
 sionary Tour in India, by Rev. Wilham 
 Ramsey, 1836. Journal of a Residence in 
 China and the Neighbouring Countries, by 
 Rev. David Abeel, 1834. The Missionary 
 Convention at Jerusalem, or an Exhibition 
 of the Claims of the World to the Gospel, 
 by Rev. David Abeel, 1838. Journal of 
 an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky 
 Mountains, by Rev. Samuel Parker, 1838. 
 Essays on the Present Crisis in the Con- 
 dition of the American Indians, first pub- 
 
 lished in the National Intelligencer under 
 the signature of William Penn, 1829, by 
 Jeremiah Evarts. Speeches on the Pas- 
 sage of the Bill for the Removal of the In- 
 dians, delivered in the Congress of the 
 United States, 1830. History of the Amer- 
 ican Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 Missions, by Rev. Joseph Tracy, 1840. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBV- 
 TERI.iN CHURCH. 
 
 We have gone into considerable detail 
 in the preceding chapter in order to exhibit, 
 once for all, the grand principles of our 
 American missions — the establishment of 
 schools for the Christian instruction of 
 youth, and especially for raising a native 
 ministry among the heathen themselves, 
 and the employment of that most impor- 
 tant auxiliary, the press. The views of 
 the American Board of Commissioners for 
 Foreign Missions on these points are held, 
 I believe, without exception, by all our 
 other missionary associations, so that we 
 may dispense with going into the recon- 
 sideration of them in the notices that are 
 to follow. 
 
 We turn next to the Presbyterian 
 Church's Board for Foreign Missions, not 
 because next in point of date or extent of 
 operations, but simply because it derives 
 its support from a member of the same 
 great Presbyterian family of churches, of 
 certain other branches of which the Amer- 
 ican Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 Missions is the missionary organ. The 
 two societies, in fact, comprise nearly all 
 that is now done for the conversion of hea- 
 thens, Mohammedans, and Jews, by Pres- 
 byterians of all shades, in the United States. 
 
 The Board of which we have now to 
 speak was constituted only in 1837, the 
 congregations which it represents having 
 before that combined with others in sup- 
 porting the American Board, and many of 
 them, indeed, with a truly liberal spirit, 
 now support both. The latter of the two 
 Boards arose from a conviction which had 
 long been gaining ground, that the Presby- 
 terians as a Church, and by the medium of 
 their supreme ecclesiastical judicature, 
 ought, like the Church of Scotland, to 
 undertake foreign as well as domestic 
 missions. 
 
 As the Old School Presbyterian Church, 
 which appointed and supports this Board, 
 numbers 1409 pastors and 2088 churches, 
 and as nearly all these have it in their 
 power to aid the cause, there is every 
 prospect of its becoming in a few years a 
 very efficient association. Its receipts for 
 the year ending May 1st, 1843, wore 64,734 
 dollars, and it had expended about 65 dol- 
 lars more than this. In this statement are 
 
303 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 included the sum of 3000 dollars from the 
 American Bible Society for tlie printing 
 and circulation of the Scriptures, and 2200 
 from the American Tract Society for the 
 publication of tracts. It has the following 
 missions : 
 
 Iowa, or Sac Indians in tlie Indian ter- 
 ritory westward of the Missouri. Here it 
 employs a minister, a teacher, and a farm- 
 er, and their wives, with an encouraging 
 prospect of good being done by preaching, 
 and still more by schools. Intemperance 
 is found the greatest bar to the progress of 
 the Gospel among the Indians. 
 
 Chippewa and Ottawa tribes. — One 
 missionary and a teacher, with their wives, 
 are labouring with considerable and en- 
 couraging success among these two tribes, 
 which are still in the western part of Mich- 
 igan, not having been yet removed to the 
 west of the Mississippi. 
 
 Creek Indians. — These form a powerful 
 tribe of above 21,000 souls, in the Indian 
 territory to the west of the States of Ar- 
 kansas and Missouri. Until of late, they 
 have been averse to receiving missionaries, 
 but the Board has now taken measures, 
 with the consent of their chiefs, for sus- 
 taining a mission among them, and a min- 
 ister, with his wife, have entered upon 
 their work. 
 
 Texas. — One missionary and his wife 
 have been stationed on the western border 
 of Texas, but as this mission is intended for 
 the benefit of Mexico, they remain where 
 they are only until the- door is opened for 
 their admission into the latter country. 
 
 Western Africa. — The Board has four 
 missionaries, with their wives, and one 
 coloured female teacher, sent from the 
 United States, and two male native teach- 
 ers, at Cape Palmas, the site of a colony 
 of coloured people from America. The 
 mission bids fair to be eminently useful. 
 
 The Chinese. — This mission was at first 
 established at Singapore. Two mission- 
 aries, one of whom is married, and a phy- 
 sician and his wife, were employed in 
 preaching and in the education of youth 
 among the Chinese, who either permanent- 
 ly reside at that port or occasionally visit it. 
 But now that the door is open for the en- 
 trance of the Gospel into that great empire, 
 the Board has lost no time in turning their 
 attention to it. Last year they sent two 
 ordained ministers, one physician, and one 
 teacher to this important field. 
 
 SiAM. — In this kingdom the Board main- 
 tains one missionary and his wife, who are 
 preparing themselves for their future work 
 by acquiring the language of the country, 
 and making themselves useful, in the mean 
 time, by an abundant distributionof portions 
 of the Holy Scriptures and Tracts. 
 
 Northern India. — Here it is that the 
 Board has its most extensive missions, 
 having at its different stations at Lodiana, 
 
 Sabathu, Saharunpur, Allahabad, and Fut- 
 tegurh, no fewer than fifteen ordained mis- 
 sionaries, most of whom are married, one 
 printer, three teachers, one physician, and 
 one catechist, all Americans, besides two 
 native catechists, and one native assist- 
 ant. This mission has been remarkably- 
 successful, considering how lately it was 
 commenced. Schools have been estab- 
 lished at the different stations, and a con- 
 siderable number of publications, including 
 parts of the Bible, have been issued in the 
 Hindustani, Persian, Panjabi or Gurmukhi, 
 and Hindi languages. To this, preaching 
 in the native languages at the different 
 stations is now added, and in English, also, 
 at one or more of these, for the benefit of 
 the British officers and other foreign resi- 
 dents, some of whom, we rejoice to say, 
 have shown much kindness to the mis- 
 sionaries, and have liberally contributed 
 to the support of the schools. 
 
 The missionaries in this quarter have 
 lately formed themselves into three Pres- 
 byteries, and these have been organized as 
 the Si/nod of Northern India by the General 
 Assembly in America, to which it is sub- 
 ordinate. 
 
 The Board takes a deep interest in China, 
 and looks forward to the day when the 
 truth may find an effectual entrance into 
 that populous empire. It has, at a great 
 expense, had 3326 matrices made in Paris 
 for the casting of as many different types, 
 which, by their combinations, can produce 
 above 14,000 different characters : a num- 
 ber, according to the report for 1841, amply 
 sufficient for missionary purposes. Hence 
 it would seem that the question, how far 
 the Chinese language may be printed with 
 movable type, is about to be resolved by 
 this Board ; and it is a striking fact, that 
 solely to its liberality the ingenious French 
 printer, M. Marcellin-Legrand, under the 
 direction of M. Ponthieu, who discovered 
 this method of printing Chinese, and of 
 Walter Lowrie, Esq., Secretary to the 
 Board, and himself an excellent Chinese 
 scholar, owes his having been enabled to 
 make so much progress in preparing a 
 complete fount of type in that important 
 but difficult tongue. 
 
 The Board is annually appointed by the 
 General Assembly, and to that body it 
 makes its report. The business, however, 
 is mainly conducted by a very efficient 
 committee subject to its supervision, and 
 through this committee as its organ it is- 
 sues a monthly publication, called The 
 Foreign Missionary Chronicle, presenting 
 not only full accounts of its own missions, 
 but summaries also of what is done by 
 other missionary societies. From 5000 to 
 6000 copies of this valuable periodical are 
 circulated through the churches. 
 
 The Board has now under its direction, 
 sent out by the Church that appoints it, 
 
Chap. V.] 
 
 BOARD FOR BAPTIST MISSIONS. 
 
 309 
 
 more than seventy labourers at foreign 
 stations, of whom twenty-eight are minis- 
 ters of the Gospel. It has, besides, eight 
 native assistants, some of whom are learn- 
 ed persons, and all of them hopefully pi- 
 ous, and in different stages of trial and 
 preparation for labouring among their be- 
 nighted fellow-countrymen. Through the 
 stations occupied by these missionaries, 
 the Presbyterian Church is brought into 
 contact with five different heathen nations, 
 estimated to comprise two thirds of the 
 whole human race. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MISSIONARY BOARD OF THE BAPTIST CHURCHES. 
 
 The operations of this Board now ex- 
 tend over thirty years. It was first con- 
 stituted in 1814, by the Baptist General 
 Convention for Foreign Missions, which 
 meets triennially, and is, in fact, a mission- 
 ary society. To it the Board makes a 
 regular Report of its proceedings. 
 
 This association has from small begin- 
 nings advanced from year to year in re- 
 sources and efficiency, until, through God's 
 blessing, it embraces all the four great con- 
 tinents within the sphere of its operations. 
 These have been conducted with singular 
 wisdom, zeal, and perseverance, and have 
 been crowned with remarkable success. 
 
 Its history shows how wonderfully God, 
 in his providence, orders and overrules 
 events while enlisting new agencies for 
 the accomplishment of his purposes. In 
 1812, the American Board of Commission- 
 ers for Foreign Missions, a Paedobaptist 
 society, sent several missionaries to Ben- 
 gal. On their voyage thither, two of these, 
 the Rev. Messrs. Judson and Rice and their 
 wives, changed their views and became 
 Baptists ; an event that not only gave 
 much distress to the other members of the 
 mission, but produced, perhaps, for a time, 
 other feelings besides disappointment in 
 the minds of the members of the Board 
 that had sent them out. On their arrival, 
 they found that the British East India 
 Company would not permit them to labour 
 within its territories ; so that after a few 
 weeks' stay they had to leave Calcutta. 
 Messrs. Judson and Rice, however, with 
 their wives, were received with great kind- 
 ness by the excellent Dr. Carey and his 
 associates. Baptist missionaries from Eng- 
 land, settled at Serampore, a small Danish 
 possession not many miles above Calcutta. 
 There was no Baptist Foreign Missionary 
 Society at that time in the United States, 
 but as Messrs. Judson and Rice had be- 
 come Baptists, were now in India, and 
 wished to remain and preach the Gospel 
 there to the heathen, their case drew the 
 attention of the Baptist churches in Amer- 
 ica, and a society was organized for their 
 
 support. Meanwhile, Mr. Judson withdrew 
 into the Burmese territory, and there com- 
 menced a mission which has been signally 
 blessed. The society, which they were the 
 means of originating, is now a great insti- 
 tution, with no fewer than nineteen mis- 
 sions in various parts of the world. How * 
 wonderful are the ways of God ! bringing 
 good from what seems to man, for a time 
 at least, to be evil. Had not the two mis- 
 sionaries become Baptists, where would 
 have been the blessed mission to Burmah, 
 and how many years might have elapsed 
 before the American Baptists entered on 
 the prosecution of foreign missions 1 And 
 had not the Governor-general of India ex- 
 cluded American missionaries from Ben- 
 gal, where would have been the promising 
 American missions in Ceylon, in the south- 
 ern part of Hindostan, and on the western 
 side of the Indian Peninsula] 
 
 Such was the origin of the Baptist Board 
 of Foreign Missions ; let us now glance at 
 its various enterprises as reported for 1843. 
 Missions in North America. — These are 
 eight in number, and embrace the follow- 
 ing tribes : the Ojibwas, Ottawas,' Oneidas, 
 and Tuscaroras, Otoes, Shawanoes, and 
 others, Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctas, 
 the last three residing on the Indian Ter- 
 ritory. Among these various tribes the 
 Board has eighteen stations and out-sta- 
 tions, thirty-two American missionaries 
 and assistants, and eight Indian assistants. 
 In Europe. — In France, the Board has 
 seven stations and six out-stations, one 
 missionary and his wife, and ten native 
 preachers and assistants. In Germany 
 and Denmark it has nine stations, and thir- 
 teen native preachers and assistants. In 
 Greece, two stations, two preachers, three 
 female assistants, and one native assistant. 
 In West Africa, the Board has two sta- 
 tions, three preachers, one printer, one fe- 
 male assistant, one native assistant, and 
 fifteen churches among the Bassas, a na- 
 tive tribe near the colony of Liberia. 
 
 In Asia, the Board has missions among 
 the Karens on the borders of Burmah, in 
 Siam, in China, in Arracan, in Assam, and 
 at Madras and Nellore and Briti-sh India. 
 These, forming eight distinct missions, 
 comprehended in 1843 thirty-five stations 
 and out- stations, fifty-six missionaries and 
 assistant missionaries, and about seventy 
 native assistants. 
 
 The total numbers, including all the mis- 
 sions, were, according to the Report for 
 1843, as follows : 
 
 19 Missions. 
 
 80 Siations and out-stations. 
 103 Missionaries and assistant missionaries (Amer- 
 
 cans), of whom 4i are ordained. 
 115 Native preachers and assistants. 
 77 Churches, comprehending more than 2000 mem- 
 bers. 
 898 Baptisms in the course of the year reported on. 
 4000 Members in native churches. 
 
310 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 The receipts for that year had amounted 
 to 47,151 dollars, and the disbursements to 
 55,138 dollars. In addition to its regular 
 receipts, the Board had received 6000 dol- 
 lars from the American and Foreign Bible 
 Society for the publication of the Scrip- 
 tures ; 2300 dollars from the American 
 Tract Society for the publication of Tracts ; 
 and 4400 dollars from the United States 
 Government towards the support of schools 
 among the Indians.* 
 
 This brief notice will give the reader 
 some idea of this excellent society's opera- 
 tions, and of the good that it is doing. A 
 detailed account of its missions, particu- 
 larly of those among the Burmans and the 
 Karens, would be interesting, but would 
 far exceed the limits of this work. It is 
 delightful to see how much interest in the 
 cause of missions has sprung up in this 
 numerous and important branch of the 
 Church in the United States. May God 
 grant that it and every other may soon 
 come up to the full measure of their ability 
 and duty in this great work. 
 
 Let me add, in conclusion, that the Mis- 
 sionary Magazine, an able and interesting 
 monthly pubhcation, has long been the or- 
 gan of the Society, and has a wide circula- 
 tion among the Baptist denomination. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCO- 
 PAL CHURCH. 
 
 The Missionary Society of the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church was formed in 1819, 
 under the auspices of the General Confer- 
 ence, but for many years its efforts were 
 chiefly directed to domestic missions, in- 
 cluding those to the slaves in the Southern 
 States, and to the aboriginal tribes within, 
 or adjacent to, the western frontier of the 
 United States. It afterward directed its 
 attention to the colonies of free coloured 
 Americans on the Western coast of Afri- 
 ca, and, at a still later period, it established 
 missions on the territory to the west of the 
 Oregon Mountains, and at some important 
 points in South America. The German im- 
 migrants found swarming in our principal 
 cities, at the same time engaged much of 
 its attention. Its efforts in behalf of these 
 and of the slaves, as properly falling under 
 the head of home missions, we have al- 
 ready noticed, and will now give some ac- 
 count of what are, properly speaking, its 
 foreign missions. 
 
 North American Indians.— The Society 
 in 1843 had twenty-five missionaries la- 
 
 * After the account for the year was closed, $2000 
 additional were received from the American and For- 
 eign Bible Society, and an equal sum from the Amer- 
 ican Tract Society. To this must be added £500 
 from the Committee of the English Baptist Mission- 
 ary Society, as an expression of fraternal interest. i 
 
 bouring within or beyond the western 
 frontier of the United States among the 
 following tribes, or remnants of tribes : the 
 Wyandots, Oneidas, Shawnees, Delawares, 
 Kickapoos, Pottawottamies, Chippewas, 
 Choctas, Cherokees, &c., &c. The Re- 
 port for that year states the Indian mem- 
 bers of the mission churches gathered from 
 these tribes to have amounted to 3851. 
 
 Texas Mission. — The Society had no 
 fewer than thirty-six missionaries station- 
 ed in the Republic of Texas in 1843 ; these 
 had laboured with much success ; and they 
 now form an Animal Conference, which, 
 by conducting its own affairs, will probably 
 do away with the necessity of having any 
 independent mission in that country. This 
 conference comprehends three Presiding 
 Elders' districts, thirty-six travelling min- 
 isters, forty local preachers, 3698 mem- 
 bers, of whom 536 are coloured people. A 
 college, also, has been established under its 
 auspices. 
 
 Liberia Mission, at and in the vicinity 
 of the American colony on the west coast 
 of Africa, was commenced in 1833 by the 
 late Rev. Melville B. Cox, an excellent man, 
 who fell a victim to the climate a few 
 months after his arrival. With his dying 
 breath he exclaimed, " Though a thousand 
 fall, Africa must not be given up." He 
 was succeeded by others, and they, too, 
 sank under a climate so fatal to white 
 men. At length the Rev. John Seys was 
 sent out, and he, through God's blessing, 
 has been preserved to this day. He was 
 greatly successful in putting the affairs of 
 the mission in order, and superintending 
 the labours of coloured preachers from the 
 United States, the Society having to de- 
 pend chiefly on these. Last year he was 
 succeeded "by the Rev. Mr. Chase. The 
 mission now includes an Annual Confer- 
 ence, consisting of twenty preachers, all 
 coloured, with the exception of the super- 
 intendent and one other. 
 
 Of the church members, about 900 in 
 all, 150 are native Africans, who, within 
 the last four years, were worshipping gods 
 of wood, stone, leather, anything, in short, 
 that their imagination could fashion into a 
 god! 
 
 South American Mission. — In 1841 the 
 Society had five missionaries at Rio Ja- 
 neiro, Monte Video, and Buenos Ayres, 
 labouring, not unsuccessfully, to introduce 
 the Gospel to those cities, now so ignorant 
 of the truth. These worthy men, how- 
 ever, the pressure of the times obliged the 
 Society to recall. Within a few months 
 the Society has resumed its labours at 
 Buenos Ayres, and their faithful mission- 
 ary is at his post again. 
 
 Oregon Mission. — Both in its origin and 
 its success this has been one of the most 
 remarkable of all the missions of the Amer- 
 ican Churches. About the year 1838, the 
 
Chap. VII.] BOARD FOR PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL MISSIONS. 
 
 311 
 
 tribe of Indians called Flat Heads, living 
 to the west of the Oregon Mountains, 
 prompted, probably, by what they had seen 
 and heard of the Christian religion among 
 the trappers of the American and Hud- 
 son's Bay Fur Companies, sent some of 
 their chiefs into the United States to in- 
 quire as to the various forms of religious 
 worship observed here, and to decide upon 
 which to recommend. After a long and 
 painful journey they reached St. Louis, 
 and stated the object of their coming to 
 the late General Clarke,* then Govern- 
 ment Agent for Indian Affairs in that dis- 
 trict, by whom it was communicated to 
 the ministers of the Gospel in the place. 
 A great sensation was naturally produced. 
 The Methodist Missionary Society was the 
 first that took the matter up, and, desiring 
 to act with prudence, sent two judicious 
 -and experienced persons across the Ore- 
 gon Mountains to visit the Indians, ascer- 
 tain their present position, and choose a 
 proper situation for a mission. On their 
 arrival they found the way wonderfully 
 prepared by the Lord's providential dis- 
 pensations, so that after their return, a 
 mission on a large scale left New- York 
 for the Oregon country. After a journey 
 of some months it reached the place of its 
 destination, and was welcomed by the In- 
 dians and the Agents of the Hudson's Bay 
 Company stationed in that region. 
 
 This mission, which from the first has 
 been remarkably blessed, consisted, in 
 1841, of no fewer than sixty-eight persons, 
 including teachers, farmers, mechanics of 
 all kinds, women, and children, all, of 
 course, connected with the society. It is 
 designed, in fact, to be in a great measure 
 a self-supporting mission. Its object part- 
 ly is, by exhibiting the advantages of civ- 
 ilization, to induce the Indians to engage 
 in tillage, and to adopt the other arts and 
 usages of civilized life, in all which the 
 mission has succeeded much beyond ex- 
 pectation. Its spiritual success was still 
 more remarkable, for the Indian converts 
 amounted, two years ago, to no fewer 
 than 1000. The mission, upon the wliole, 
 is an experiment of the most interesting 
 kind. 
 
 The total number of this society's for- 
 eign missionaries amounted in 1843 to 115, 
 of whom probably eighty were oi'dained. 
 The number of members in the mission 
 churches was 8936. Its total income for 
 that year was $109,452 ; its disbursements 
 $145,035, of which probably 90,000 were 
 for home, and 55,035 for foreign mis- 
 sions.! 
 
 * The name of this gentleman is well known in 
 connexion with that of the late Governor Lewis, 
 from the Exploring Tour they made in company 
 across the Oregon Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, 
 during Mr. Jeflerson's presidency. 
 
 t It is Drobable that 1 have not apportioned with 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE PROTESTANT EPIS- 
 COPAL CHURCH. 
 
 This Board was constituted in 1835. Its 
 domestic operations we have noticed in 
 another place, and have now to speak of 
 its foreign missions, which extend to vari- 
 ous parts of the world. 
 
 Western Africa. — It has a very flour- 
 ishing mission at Cape Palmas, and at two 
 or three stations a few miles distant in the 
 interior. In 1843 it comprised five ordain- 
 ed ministers, together with three white 
 and ten coloured teachers and assistants. 
 The place has been well chosen, for Cape 
 Palmas is one of the healthiest spots on 
 that notoriously unhealthy coast. Several 
 American ladies have resided there in the 
 enjoyment of good health for some years. 
 Attached to the mission there are several 
 schools, partly for the colonists, partly for 
 the natives, and attended by above 100 
 scholars, youths and adults. The preach- 
 ing of the missionaries is well attended, 
 and has been blessed to the salvation of 
 souls. 
 
 China. — The Board has commenced a 
 mission under favourable auspices in Chi- 
 na. It has one labourer on this field, and 
 is about to send others. 
 
 Greece. — The Board has a mission at 
 Athens. There the Rev. Mr. Hill, with his 
 wife (who is a remarkably efficient per- 
 son), are stationed, and several American 
 ladies as teachers, besides whom there are 
 about twelve native teachers. Mr. Hill 
 has been very successful in raising and 
 supporting schools for infants, for boys 
 and for girls, attended by about 800 schol- 
 ars. He preaches, also, on the Sabbath 
 and other occasions, in Greek, to a con- 
 gregation of young and old. Yet, owing 
 to the perpetual jealousy of the Greek cler- 
 gy, and their influence with the govern- 
 ment, the missionaries find themselves ex- 
 posed to many difficulties. 
 
 Crete. — In this island, also, there is a 
 mission conducted by one ordained mis- 
 sionary, assisted by his wife and one or 
 two natives engaged as teachers. This 
 mission has succeeded as well as its friends 
 and projectors had hoped. 
 
 Mission in the East. — The Board sus- 
 tained a mission for some years at Con- 
 stantinople. But it seems probable that it 
 will be removed to Mardin or Mosul, in 
 order to reach more effectuallj^ the Syrian 
 churches, in whose behalf the Society has 
 taken much interest. The Rev. Mr. South- 
 
 perfect exactness the disbursements of the Society. 
 The Report does not separate the domestic from 
 the foreign expenditures. The whole number of 
 missionaries, domestic and foreign, employed by the 
 Society in 1843, was 325, ordained and unordained, 
 and the members in the churches gathered weie 
 39,684. 
 
312 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VJIL 
 
 gate, who has travelled much in Asia Mi- 
 nor and the adjacent parts of the East, 
 and has given the results of his observa- 
 tions in his interesting journals, is the So- 
 ciety's missionary in this field. Two oth- 
 ers have been appointed to join him. 
 
 Texas. — In this Republic the Board last 
 year employed three missionaries, who 
 "were labouring with some success at Hous- 
 ton, Matagorda, and Galveston. 
 
 It hence appears that the whole num- 
 ber of the Board's ordained missionaries 
 amounted, in 1843, to eleven, labouring in 
 seven distinct missions, besides whom 
 there were several American ladies, chief- 
 Jy engaged in teaching, and no fewer than 
 twenty native teachers. The receipts, ex- 
 clusive of $200 from the American Tract 
 Society, amounted, last year, to $35,197 ; 
 the disbursements exceeded the receipts 
 by $4494. The Board issues an interest- 
 ing publication entitled " The Spirit of Mis- 
 sions," for the diffusion of missionary in- 
 telligence among the churches. 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 foreign missions of other denominations. 
 
 Missions of the Free-Will Baptist 
 Churches. — The Free-Will Baptist Foreign 
 Missionary Society was organized in 1833, 
 and originated in the correspondence of 
 the Rev. Mr. Sutton, of the English Gen- 
 eral Baptist Mission, with Elder Buzzel, a 
 Free-Will Baptist minister in the United 
 States. Mr. Sutton wrote in 1831, repre- 
 senting the deplorable state of the heathen 
 in India, and calling on his American breth- 
 ren to come up to the help of the Lord 
 against the mighty. Returning to Eng- 
 land in 1833, Mr. Sutton went from that 
 to America, there spent several months 
 preaching to the churches ; then, after an- 
 other short visit to his native land, he made 
 an extensive tour in 1834 through the Free- 
 Will Baptist churches in the United States, 
 preaching to them on the subject of mis- 
 sions, and acting as the corresponding sec- 
 retary of a missionary society which had 
 been formed the preceding year. Having 
 succeeded in rousing these churches to a 
 sense of their duty, he sailed in 1835 for In- 
 dia with the Rev. Messrs. Noyes and Phil- 
 lips and their wives, being the first mission- 
 aries from the new society. On their ar- 
 rival they went with Mr. Sutton to Orissa, 
 a province lying on the western shore of 
 the Bay of Hengal, some hundred miles 
 southwest from Calcutta. They have been 
 labouring chiefly at Balasore with much 
 faithfulness and success. The Rev. Messrs. 
 Bachelor and Uow have since joined these 
 brethren, and are zealously prosecuting 
 their work. The Society owes much, we 
 understand, to subscriptions and collections 
 
 at monthly prayer-meetings. The Rev. Lu- 
 ther Palmer, of Norwalk, Ohio, a Free-Will 
 Baptist pastor, some time ago gave himself 
 and all his property, valued at $5000, to the 
 Society, wishing the latter to be applied ta 
 the support of the press in India. Such 
 liberality reminds us of Pentecostal days. 
 The receipts of the Society were, in 1843^. 
 $3502 ; its expenditures were $2679. 
 
 Foreign Missionary Society of the Lu- 
 theran Church in the United States. — 
 This society, which dates from 1837, origi- 
 nated in an appeal from the German mis- 
 sionaries in India, Mr. Rhenius and his as- 
 sociates, to their brethren in the United 
 States, for the assistance they required iiji 
 consequence of their separation from the 
 Church Missionary Society of England, on 
 account of certain of its views and meas- 
 ures which they disapproved, after having- 
 laboured for several years in its service. 
 In answer to their appeal, a convention of 
 Lutheran ministers and lay members was 
 held at Hagerstown, in Maryland, and the 
 society was organized. But these mission- 
 aries having renewed their connexion with 
 the English Church Missionary Society, 
 the American Lutherans have resolved to 
 send out missionaries from their own 
 churches, and now have two labouring in 
 India. 
 
 Foreign Missions of the Moravians, or 
 United Brethren. — The Moravian Breth- 
 ren in the United States formed a society 
 for propagating the Gospel among the hea- 
 then in 1787 ; an act for incorporating it 
 was passed by the State of Pennsylvania ; 
 and it has been actively employed ever 
 since in promoting missions. This socie- 
 ty sustains two missions among the In- 
 dians (the one among the Delawares, the 
 other among the Cherokees), and eight 
 missionaries. Its receipts last year were 
 8364 dollars. Some years ago it received 
 a handsome legacy from a gentleman at. 
 Philadelphia. Its organ is " The United 
 Brethren's Missionary Intelligencer, and 
 Religious Miscellany." 
 
 Foreign Missions of the Scottisii; 
 Churches. — The reader has remarked 
 that in our notices of the Associate, As- 
 sociate Reformed, and Reformed Presby- 
 terian Churches, we mentioned that they 
 have undertaken foreign missions, either 
 in connexion with the Board of the Old 
 School Presbyterians or independently,, 
 within the last few years. 
 
 Such are the societies in the United 
 States which have been expressly formed 
 for the propagation of the Gospel in pagaui 
 countries, althougli some of them have 
 missions in countries nominally Christian. 
 
 Let me add, that the American Bible So- 
 ciety, and the American and Foreign Bible 
 Society supported by the Baptists, have 
 been making large yearly donations to- 
 wards the circulation of the Holy Scrip- 
 
Chap. X.] 
 
 FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 313 
 
 tures in foreign, and especially pagan 
 lands. Some, also, of the State and other 
 local Bible Societies, such as those of Mas- 
 sachusetts and Philadelphia, have done 
 something in this way. The American 
 Tract Society has likewise made yearly 
 grants of from 10,000 to 40,000 dollars for 
 the publication and distribution of religious 
 tracts in foreign, and chiefly in heathen 
 lands. The American vSunday-school 
 Union, too, has granted both books and 
 money for promoting its objects abroad. 
 I am unable to state the yearly amount of 
 all these donations with perfect accuracy, 
 but believe that, taking the average of the 
 last ten years, they have exceeded 50,000 
 dollars. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AMKRICAN SOCIETY FOR AMELIORATING THE 
 CONDITION OF THE JEWS. 
 
 This society was formed in 1820, for 
 the purpose of providing an asylum, and 
 the means of earning a comfortable live- 
 lihood in America, for Jews whose con- 
 version to Christianity exposed them to 
 persecution and the loss of the means of 
 living. A farm, accordingly, of about 500 
 acres was purchased, on which it was pro- 
 posed to have a colony of converted Jews, 
 who, by tillage and other useful arts, might 
 support themselves and their families. 
 Somehow or other this project did not an- 
 swer the expectations of its projectors, 
 and so much did the Society lose the con- 
 fidence of the Christian public, that for a 
 while it seemed quite lost sight of. A 
 year or two ago, however, the impulse giv- 
 en in Scotland and other European coun- 
 tries to the work of converting the Jews, 
 led some of the old friends of the Ameri- 
 can Society to think of reviving it, and di- 
 recting its efforts to the emploj'ment of mis- 
 sionaries among the Jews, either in Ameri- 
 ca or elsewhere. As the Society is incor- 
 porated, and has property to the amount, I 
 believe, of from 15,000 to 20,000 dollars, 
 it may commence its operations immedi- 
 ately among the Jewish people, of whom 
 there are said to be about 50,000 in the 
 United States, whose conversion has nev- 
 er, it must be confessed, called forth the 
 interest and the efforts that it ought to 
 have done. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FOREIGN EVANGELICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNI- 
 TED STATES. 
 
 This, which is the latest in its origin of 
 all the foreign missionary societies, was 
 formed in 1839, for promoting evangelical 
 religion in all nominally Christian coun- 
 
 tries, and was suggested by the growing- 
 conviction of many persons in the United 
 States, that until pure Christianity be re- 
 stored in nominal Christendom, the con- 
 version of the heathen world can hardly 
 be looked for. There are millions of Prot- 
 estants, and tens of millions of Romanists, 
 so manifestly ignorant of the great doc- 
 trines of the Gospel, as to prove by their 
 lives that they are little better than bap- 
 tized heathen. Hundreds of thousands 
 professing Christianity may be found in 
 some countries who have actually never 
 read a page of the book which God intend- 
 ed should be emphatically the people's 
 Book, but which those who put themselves 
 forward as their guides have kept from, 
 them, either from ignorance of its value, 
 or from a dread of its influence when read. 
 
 Now, while many societies seek to pro- 
 mote true religion in the United States,. 
 and many also to send the Gospel to the 
 heathen, the Foreign Evangelical Society 
 makes it its peculiar province to cultivate 
 that great intermediate field, presented by 
 professedly Christian countries in which, 
 whatever may be their civilization, the 
 Gospel is really almost as little known as 
 it is to the very heathen ; some being 
 buried in the darkness of Romanism, and 
 others in the still worse darkness of Ra- 
 tionalism. In many such countries God, 
 in his holy Providence, has been evident- 
 ly opening the way for the admission of 
 the long-excluded hght. Stupendous rev- 
 olutions have in the course of the last fif- 
 ty years shaken, for a time at least, the 
 spiritual despotism that had reigned so 
 long over a great part of Christendom, 
 both in Europe and America; and the bit- 
 ter fruits of infidelity, in all its forms, have 
 disposed many, in countries where it had 
 sapped the foundations of faith, to return 
 to the simple truths of the Gospel, unper- 
 verted by human speculation and " philos- 
 ophy falsely so called." The last revolu- 
 tions in France and Belgium, in particu- 
 lar, seemed to lay those countries more 
 open to evangelical effort ; and it was 
 hoped that, at no distant day, Spain and 
 Portugal also would be found accessible 
 to the Word of God. 
 
 After much inquiry, partly conducted by 
 an agent sent expressly to France and oth- 
 er countries of Europe, an association was 
 formed in 1836, which, three years after, 
 took the form of a regular society ; not, 
 however, for sending missionaries from 
 America to Europe, but for assisting the 
 friends of evangelical religion in France, 
 Belgium, and other countries similarly cir- 
 cumstanced. It has accordingly aided the 
 evangelical societies of France and Gene- 
 va, and, though not to the same extent',, 
 some other, and more local associations. 
 Gradually extending the range of its ef- 
 forts, it has also promoted the same cause 
 
^14 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIII. 
 
 by the distribution of tracts in Germany, 
 and has even aided the friends of the truth 
 in Sweden in what they are doing to com- 
 municate the blessings of the Gospel more 
 effectually to the Laplanders. As the So- 
 ciety's Executive Committee is not re- 
 stricted to any particular method of effect- 
 ing its objects, it has turned its attention 
 to a variety of ways of procedure. 
 
 While making these efforts in Europe, 
 the Society has found among the Roman 
 Catholic population of Lower Canada, 
 which is almost wholly of French ori- 
 gin, an important and providentially-pre- 
 pared field, which is now occupied by a 
 very prosperous mission. As this mission 
 originated with some friends of the Gos- 
 pel in Switzerland, it is supported to a cer- 
 tain extent by an association at Lausanne. 
 Attached to it there is a large mission- 
 house, in which above twenty Canadian 
 converts are preparing for future labours 
 as teachers, colporteurs, evangelists, preach- 
 ers, &c. There are no fewer than eight or 
 nine missionaries, all but one or two of 
 whom are natives of France or Switzer- 
 land ; all have been accustomed to tlie 
 French tongue from childhood, and several 
 speaking no other. No one can foresee 
 what may be the results of this auspi- 
 cious commencement among a people with 
 whom all previous attempts of a like kind 
 had failed. 
 
 The society contemplates commencing 
 operations at several points of South 
 America, as soon as persons fitted for the 
 work can be found. 
 
 The receipts of this society for the year 
 ending on the 1st 'of May last (1843) were 
 about 15,000 dollars; and the number of 
 labourers, in various fields, whom it sup- 
 ported, was about eighty. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 
 
 Finally, we propose to say a few words 
 respecting the American Colonization So- 
 ciety, because of its connexion with mis- 
 sions in Western Africa, and its bearings 
 upon the general interests of humanity, 
 though not a missionary society itself. 
 
 Though originating in a sincere desire 
 to promote the benefit of the African race, 
 on the part of some of the best men that 
 America has ever seen, this society has 
 for many years past been much decried in 
 America, and misrepresented to some ex- 
 tent in Europe. The three persons who 
 may be regarded as its founders have all 
 passed from the present scene to their re- 
 ward above. These were the late Rev. 
 iJr. Finlay, of Ncw-Jorscy, the Rev. Sam- 
 uel J. Mills, of Connecticut, and the Hon. 
 Elias B. Caldwell, of Washington City, 
 
 Clerk to the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. The Society was organized in 
 1817, and its objects are expressed as fol- 
 lows, in the second article of its constitu- 
 tion : " To promote and execute a plan of 
 colonizing (with their consent) the free 
 people of colour residing in our country, 
 in Africa, or such other place as Congress 
 shall deem most expedient." Theprimaiy 
 motive of its founders was to place the 
 coloured man in circumstances in which 
 he might acquire that real independence 
 of station and character, and, consequently, 
 that equality in social life which they sup- 
 posed that he cannot reach in the midst of 
 a white population. 
 
 Soon after the Society was constituted, 
 the Rev. Messrs. Mills and Burgess were 
 sent as commissioners to explore the west 
 coast of Africa, and select a site for the 
 proposed colony. The first expedition 
 was sent over in 1820, under the Rev. 
 Samuel Bacon, who was appointed gov- 
 ernor; but he and many of the colonists 
 were cut off by the fever of the country^ 
 in attempting to form a settlement at Sher- 
 bro, which consequently failed. Another 
 attempt followed a year or two afterward, 
 and thougli the site was not so good as 
 might have been found, it proved far better 
 than the former, and is now called Liberia, 
 lying between the 8th and 11th degrees of 
 north latitude. No great extent of coun- 
 try was bought at first, but other parcels 
 have been added since, and the Society 
 hopes before long to obtain the entire coast 
 from Cape Mount on the north to Cape 
 Palmas on the south, and extending to 
 about 300 miles in length. Its chief pos- 
 sessions at present are about Cape Messu- 
 rado in the north, and Cape Palmas in the 
 south ; a large part of the intervening 
 coast is now in the possession of native 
 chieftains, and on purchasing it, which the 
 Society hopes soon to be able to do, it pro- 
 poses to plant colonies at different points, 
 for the double purpose of extending the 
 present settlements and of abolishing the 
 slave-trade, still vigorously prosecuted at 
 two or three points on this part of the 
 coast. 
 
 Monrovia, the chief town in the northern 
 cluster of colonies, has a convenient port, 
 and is of considerable extent. There the 
 Governor of Liberia resides. There are 
 eight or ten villages, also, to the north and 
 south, and in the interior, settlements hav- 
 ing been made on the Stockton and St. 
 Paul's Rivers, as well as at other points to 
 the distance of eight or ten miles from 
 Monrovia. A colony planted at Cape Pal- 
 mas by the Maryland Auxiliary Coloniza- 
 tion Society, consists of about 550 or 600 
 colonists from America.* Many natives, 
 
 * It is an interesting fact, that the governor at 
 Cape Palmas, Mr. Rushworin, is a gentleman of col- 
 our, brought up in America as a printer, and who 
 
Chap. XI.] 
 
 AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. 
 
 315 
 
 however, live both there and in Liberia on 
 lands of their own, but within the limits of 
 the colony, and subject to its laws ; in fact, 
 they form an integral part of the popula- 
 tion. 
 
 These colonies have been of slow growth, 
 for the Society, unaided by the General 
 Government, has been unable to conduct 
 the enterprise on a large scale. Incxperi- 
 ■ence, too, has led to several blunders in the 
 first years, to which must be added want 
 of union and energy on the part of the Na- 
 tional Society, and the loss of the confi- 
 dence of part of the public, particularly of 
 the members of the Anti-slavery and Abo- 
 lition Societies. Notwithstanding all this, 
 the Society has been gradually advancing. 
 Its yearly income has for some time past 
 been about 50,000 dollars,* and its colonies, 
 now supposed to number about 4000 emi- 
 grants, are in a tolerably thriving state. 
 Fatal as the cUmate of Liberia is to white 
 men, the coloured find it so much other- 
 wise, that the mortality among them has 
 not been greater than was to be expected 
 — not more than what was experienced by 
 the first settlers in Virginia and Massachu- 
 setts. Cape Palmas, from its elevated po- 
 sition, has been found remarkably healthy, 
 and not oppressive even to the missiona- 
 ries, though whites. 
 
 It has been well ascertained that, at the 
 distance of from .afteen to twenty miles 
 the country rises in the interior, and at no 
 great distance farther becomes even mount- 
 ainous. Hence it is inferred that the cli- 
 mate there is salubrious. A few more 
 years of success will enable the colonies to 
 purchase the lands east of the " back set- 
 tlements,"' and to open a way to the hilly 
 country. Already, in fact, they are ma- 
 king a road from Monrovia into the interi- 
 or, so as to have a highway for trade in 
 camwood and other productions of the 
 country. The soil is almost everywhere 
 fertile, and vegetation luxuriant, so that a 
 large population miglit be abundantly pro- 
 vided for. Instead of a single crop in a 
 year, as in colder climates, two may be had 
 of many vegetable productions. The sweet 
 potato, rice, sugar-cane, the coflee plant, 
 and other tropical produce, can be raised 
 ■with ease. The grand difficulty in agri- 
 culture lies in the want of good fences, and 
 the destruction of posts and rails by insects. 
 This must be overcome by making hedges 
 of the sour orange, or by employing shep- 
 herds, herdsmen, and boys. 
 
 Many of the colonists have now their 
 
 ably conducted for several years the Liberia Herald, 
 a newspaper of respectable character, esfablished at 
 Monrovia ten or twelve years ago. 
 
 * But this is exclusive of that of some State soci- 
 eties which manage their own aflfairs, like that of 
 Maryland, to which the state of that name granted 
 200,000 dollars, payable in ten yearly instalments. 
 The colony established by that society, it will be seen, 
 is at Cape Palmas. 
 
 little farms. Others, and perhaps too many, 
 are more occupied in trading with the na- 
 tives. They keep a quantity of small craft 
 for trading along the coast, and carry on a 
 brisk barter with numerous vessels, Amer- 
 ican, British, «fcc., &c., touching from time 
 to time at Monrovia. 
 
 It appears from the testimony of impar- 
 tial men, with good opportunities of infor- 
 mation, that these colonies have had a ben- 
 eficial influence on that coast, and have 
 tended to repress the slave-trade. Such 
 was that of Captains Bell and Paine of the 
 United States navy, who were there in 
 1840, and who both vindicate the colonies 
 from many charges equally false and ab- 
 surd: among others, that of conniving at 
 that infamous trade. That plantations 
 mainly composed of liberated slaves should 
 be altogether immaculate, no man of sense 
 would expect or require. But that they 
 are, as communities, thriving well, and that 
 they are also exerting a happy influence 
 on the natives, is what I for one must be- 
 lieve, from the abundant testimony of cred- 
 ible witnesses ; among others, of several 
 excellent missionaries, with whom I have 
 been long and intimately acquainted.* 
 
 I have remarked that the Society has 
 been much opposed, especially by the 
 friends of the anti-slavery societies in the 
 United States. This opposition has arisen 
 from the manner in which the Society has 
 been advocated. Its friends have been apt 
 to recommend it as presenting the sole 
 method of ridding the United States of sla- 
 very. This is absurd. It has diverted the 
 minds of slaveholders in the South from 
 the duty of universally emancipating their 
 slaves, whether they shall remain in the 
 country or not ; and in this way has done 
 mischief. Its friends have said too much, 
 also, about the impossibility of the coloured 
 population rising to respectability and po- 
 litical equality in the United States. The 
 difiiculties are indeed great, but good men 
 should never lend their aid in fostering the 
 unreasonable prejudices against the colour- 
 ed race, entertained by too large a part of 
 our people. 
 
 Notwithstanding these and some other 
 errors which might be mentioned, I cannot 
 but feel the deepest interest in the cause 
 of African colonization ; first, because it 
 may be advocated even before slavehold- 
 ers in such a way as to favour emancipa- 
 tion, a thing which cannot be done at pres- 
 ent by the agents of our '• Abolition" and 
 " Anti-slavery Societies ;" secondly, be- 
 cause it provides slaveholders who wish 
 to emancipate their slaves, and who, by 
 
 * This applies chiefly to Liberia. I regret to say, 
 that very recent information makes me fear that the 
 .Maryland colony at Cape Palmas is not acting so fa- 
 vourably on the mission there as it ought to do. It 
 is to be hoped that the society at home will see the 
 necessity of directing it to alter its policy. 
 
316 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 [Book VIIE 
 
 certain State laws, are obliged to remove 
 them out of the state when so emancipa- 
 ted, with an opportunity of sending them 
 to a country which docs afford the pros- 
 pect of their rising to independence and 
 comfort ; thirdly, because the colonization 
 of Africa, in one way or other, presents 
 the sole effectual method of breaking up 
 the slave-trade : and, lastly, because it is 
 the surest way of introducing civilization 
 into Africa, and also furnishes a point (Tap- 
 pui for the prosecution of Christian mis- 
 sions. Such is the opinion of the Rev. 
 Dr. Philip, the distinguished and judicious 
 superintendent of the London Missionary 
 Society's missions in South Africa, as ably 
 maintained in a letter addressed by him, 
 eight or ten years ago, to the students at 
 the Theological Seminary at Princeton, 
 New-Jersey. 
 
 The Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopali- 
 ans, and Methodists have all, as we have 
 seen, flourishing missions in Ihese colo- 
 nies.* The numbers of evangelical preach- 
 ers, of all denominations, is no less than 
 forty. God has greatly blessed his Word 
 in these communities, which, considering 
 the recent servitude and ignorance of most 
 of the colonists, are said to exhibit an ex- 
 traoi'dinary prevalence of morality. 
 
 I know not how any person can read 
 without interest the following statement, 
 contained in the Report of the Methodist 
 Missionary Society, read at the annual 
 meeting in May, 1842 : 
 
 " The Liberia mission includes an Annu- 
 al Conference of seventeen preachers, all 
 coloured except the superintendent and 
 the two brethren lately sent out. It has a 
 membership of nearly one thousand indi- 
 viduals, of whom 150 are natives, who, 
 until the last two years, were worshipping 
 gods of wood, and stone, and clay. 
 
 " There are thirteen day-schools within 
 the bounds of the mission, in which from 
 550 to 600 children receive daily instruc- 
 tion ; fourteen churches, some of which 
 are very neat, and one built of stone, in 
 size forty by sixty feet. There are also 
 eiglit mission-houses or parsonages, four 
 school-houses, one of which (the academy) 
 is a stone building twenty by forty feet ; 
 and a large printing-office, also of stone, 
 with an excellent press. In the schools 
 there are upward of forty native children 
 and youth, who are preparing for future 
 usefulness. Many of them read the Scrip- 
 tures, and write well, and are burning with 
 zeal to carry the Gospel to regions yet be- 
 yond them. 
 
 " Tribes at a distance have sent for mis- 
 sionaries, and the board is anxious to push 
 
 ♦ The Roman Catholics have also commenced a 
 mission at Cape Pahnas, and will doubtless do the 
 same, ere long, at Liberia. The Right Rev. Dr. Bar- 
 ron and Patrick Kelly, priests, were sent in the year 
 1842 to Cape Pahnas. 
 
 the victories of the cross still farther into- 
 the interior. If means can be furnished, 
 the Board expect a vast amount of native 
 agency will be called into operation. If 
 the society were able to thrust forth but a 
 few scores of such young men of Africa as 
 Simon Peter,* who recently visited this 
 country, the Liberia mission of the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church would be rendered 
 a blessing to thousands of the African race 
 yet unborn. In view of the success which 
 has attended this mission, the report ex- 
 horted the church to adhere to the motto of 
 the dying and lamented Cox : ' Though a 
 thousand fall, Africa must not be given up.' "^ 
 
 The chairman introduced the Rev. John 
 Seys, superintendent of the African mis- 
 sion, who rose and spoke substantially as 
 follows : 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, I hold in my hand a res- 
 olution given to me for presentation to 
 the Society, with a request that I would 
 make some remarks in sustaining it." 
 
 He then read the following resolution r 
 '• ' Resolved, That the Liberia mission, inclu- 
 ding as it does a portion of the interior of 
 Western Africa, constitutes one of the most 
 promising fields for missionary enterprise ; 
 and that the touching appeals from the half- 
 awakened natives of different tribes which 
 have reached us through our missionaries, 
 while they proclaim the ripeness of the har- 
 vest, imperatively call upon the Church for 
 the requisite supply of efficient labourers.' 
 
 " I presume this resolution was assigned 
 to me on account of my connexion with 
 the Liberia mission. I can say it affords 
 me much pleasure to present such a reso- 
 lution. Years have now elapsed since I 
 stood among you — since I was sent by you 
 as an almoner of the Gospel to poor, long- 
 neglected Africa. 
 
 " The resolution speaks of Africa as one 
 of the most promising fields of missionary 
 enterprise. Is it so ? Yes, sir, it is so. And 
 if the missionary sickle be but applied, the 
 field will yield a rich and noble harvest to 
 the Church. Out of 1000 church members, 
 150 are native converts. But two years 
 ago I found them bowing down to images 
 of wood, and clay, and stone, and leather,, 
 and everything which their fancy could 
 make into a god. These idols they placed 
 about their persons, put them in their 
 houses, and carried about with them wher- 
 ever they went. 
 
 " Soon after a number of them had been 
 converted, they appointed a day for meet- 
 ing, when they were admitted to the Church. 
 And what a scene ! Bonfires were kindled 
 in the town of Heddington, and the praises 
 of Immanuel ascended with the smoke of 
 tlie burning idols. At the same time, the 
 hearts of these young converts were burn- 
 ing with desire to carry the Gospel to the 
 
 tribes beyond them^ 
 
 *~Since dead. 
 
■Chap. XII.] 
 
 THE SUMMARY. 
 
 317 
 
 " Western Africa is a most promising 
 field, because her native converts are eager 
 to carry the Gospel to the country in the 
 interior. The boys at the love-feasts tell 
 the tale of their conversion, pray God to 
 keep them good, to make them grow up 
 men, and be missionaries to ' the tolher 
 people.'' The natives will prove themselves 
 doubly qualified for the missionary work, 
 as they have less fear of the peculiar dis- 
 eases of the climate, can be supported with 
 less means, and understand the language 
 of the country." 
 
 Nor is the interest which the converted 
 colonists and natives feel in missions un- 
 fruitful, if we may judge from the fact men- 
 tioned in the " Africa's Luminary," the val- 
 uable and well-conducted journal of the 
 colony, that the sum of 208 dollars has 
 been collected at a meeting of the mission- 
 ary society of the Conference. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SUMMARY. 
 
 Thus it will be perceived that almost eve- 
 ry evangelical church in the United States 
 is doing more or less for the propagation 
 of the Gospel in foreign, and especially in 
 heathen lands. I know not, indeed, that 
 there is a single exception, unless it be 
 among some of the smaller German de- 
 nominations, or some branches of the Meth- 
 odist and Presbyterian churches. Even 
 these, however, seem almost all to con- 
 tribute towards this great object through 
 societies or boards, either belonging to 
 other denominations, or common to sev- 
 eral. Thus the Reformed Presbyterians or 
 Covenanters support a missionary in the 
 East Indies, in connexion, I believe, with 
 the Presbyterian Church's Board of Mis- 
 sions ; the Associate Reformed churches 
 so far aid the same board ; the Associate 
 churches have a mission in the island of 
 Trinidad, and one branch of the Covenant- 
 ers or Reformed Presbyterians are project- 
 ing a mission in the same quarter of the 
 ■world ; and some of the German Reform- 
 ed churches aid the American Board of 
 Commissioners for Foreign Missions, as 
 do, also, some of the Cumberland Presby- 
 terian chui'ches. 
 
 This is a gratifying fact, whether we re- 
 gard it as a sign of life, or an earnest of its 
 still farther increase in the churches. Not 
 that these have done all that their glorious 
 Lord may justly look for at their hands ; 
 but that what they have hitherto done is 
 but the promise of much greater things for 
 the future, we may reasonably infer from 
 the comparatively recent period that either 
 domestic or foreign missions began seri- 
 ously to interest the Christian public of the 
 United States. Previous to 1812, there 
 
 was not a single foreign missionary soci- 
 ety in the country, with the exception of 
 that of the Moravian Brethren, and not till 
 long after did the churches do anything 
 worth mention in that field. The last 
 twenty years, or, rather, the last ten years, 
 have witnessed much improvement in this 
 respect, and we pray that it may go on in 
 a far greater ratio until every church shall 
 have come up to the full demands of its 
 duty. 
 
 It is difllcult to present at one view the 
 statistics of all these missionary efforts 
 with perfect accuracy, at least if we would 
 include all the particulars upon which the 
 reader may think information desirable. 
 On the main points we may obtain pretty 
 accurate results. Including the missions 
 of the evangelical churches alone, and 
 those of the others are hardly of sufficient 
 importance to call for notice, the receipts 
 from all sources for propagating the Gos- 
 pel in foreign, and chiefly heathen lands, 
 for the year ending August 1st, 1843, may 
 safely be reckoned at $510,424.* This is 
 exclusive, also, of the income of the coloni- 
 zation societies, amounting, say, to $60,000, 
 these not being missionary societies. 
 
 The number of distinct missions prose- 
 cuted by the United States churches is at 
 least sixty-five ; that of stations and out- 
 stations exceeds 200. These employed in 
 1841-42 at least 375 preaching American 
 missionaries, who, with few exceptions, 
 were ordained ministers, and above seven- 
 ty American laymen, chiefly pliysicians, 
 printers, teachers, and catechists. 'I'he 
 American females, chiefly wives of mis- 
 sionaries and teachers, amounted to 420, 
 making a total of 875 persons from the 
 United States connected with these mis- 
 sions, and all labouring, in one way or an- 
 other, to promote the Gospel among the 
 heathen. The natives who assist as min- 
 isters, evangelists, teachers, distributors of 
 tracts, «fec., &c., amounted at least to 375. 
 
 * The following table gives the details on this point : 
 The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 
 Missions ....... $244,224 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
 
 Church 59,534 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions of tlie Baptist Churches 47,]5l 
 Foreign Missions of the Metliodist Episcopal Church 39,452 
 Foreign Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church 35,197 
 Foreign Missionary Society of the Free-VVill Bap- 
 tists (about) 3,502 
 
 Foreign Missionary Society of the Lutheran Church 
 
 (about) 3,000 
 
 Foreign Missionary Society of the United Brethren 
 
 (about) 8,364 
 
 Foreign Evangelical Society 15,000 
 
 Other Societies 5,000 
 
 Grants from American Bible Society, the American 
 and Foreign Bible Society, and the American 
 Tract Society, estimated to be at least . . 50,000 
 
 Total .... $510,424 
 Nor does this statement include the annual grant 
 of the general government of 10,000 dollars for the 
 support of schools among the Indian tribes, which 
 is laid out through the missionary societies. I have 
 not been alile to obtain the exact amount raised by- 
 two or three of the societies ; but the supposed sums 
 cannot be far from the truth. 
 
316 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In the foregoing pages I proposed to treat 
 of the origin, history, economy, action, and 
 influence of religion in the United States 
 of America, and in the execution of this 
 task I have endeavoured to omit nothing 
 that seemed requisite to a full elucidation 
 of the subject. The extent of ground ne- 
 cessarily traversed has rendered it indis- 
 pensable that I should lay before the read- 
 er very numerous details ; but these, I 
 trust, he has found at once pertinent and 
 interesting. Here the work properly ends ; 
 but I am desirous of recalling the attention 
 of the reader to a few of the most impor- 
 tant facts which it brings to light, and brief- 
 ly to remark upon them, in order, iC pos- 
 sible, to render them more useful to those 
 who may be led to contemplate them. I 
 wish, also, to make a reply to several 
 charges against my country, and especial- 
 ly against its religious institutions, which 
 I have heard in certain parts of Europe. 
 
 I. The progress of Religious Liberty 
 IN America. — On this subject so much has 
 been said in the second and third books of 
 this work, that I need do no more than be- 
 stow a very brief review upon it. In no 
 part of the world, I apprehend, can we 
 find any progress, in this respect, wli.uli 
 can be compared with what has taken 
 place in the United States. 
 
 In the year 1607, the plantation of the 
 Southern group of colonies was commen- 
 ced within the settlement of Jamestown. 
 In 1620, that of the Northern was begun in 
 the lauding of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. 
 Though originating in motives as widely 
 different, almost, as possible, and having 
 in view the diffusion of forms of Protest- 
 antism, so far as ecclesiastical organization 
 is concerned, as completely antipodal as 
 can be conceived, both were founded in 
 that spirit of intolerance which prevailed 
 at that day throughout the Old World, and 
 which, alas ! reigns even yet in so large a 
 portion of it. All that the Puritans who 
 settled in Massachusetts and Connecticut 
 expected to accomplish was the planting 
 of colonies in whicli they and their chil- 
 dren might profess and practise the reli- 
 gion which they preferred. The tolera- 
 tion of other doctrines and other forms of 
 worship formed no part of their desire or 
 design. Nor was there a better spirit in 
 Virginia. In both, the narrow bigotry of 
 Europe struck deep its roots, soon attained 
 a vigorous growth, and brought forth its 
 appropriate fruits. 
 
 In the year 1631, the colony of Mary- 
 land was founded, and two vears later, th.at 
 
 of Rhode Island, the one by Roman Cath- 
 olics, who enjoyed their religious rights at 
 that epoch in no Protestant country, and 
 the other by a sect of Protestants, who 
 could find no toleration either in Massa- 
 chusetts or Virginia. Nearly fifty j-ears 
 later, Pennsylvania was planted as an asy- 
 lum for persecuted Quakers, who, till then, 
 had no place of assured protection and re- 
 pose in the whole world. The influence of 
 these three asylum-colonies, one in the 
 north, one in the south, and one in the mid- 
 dle of the entire series of plantations, where 
 perfect religious liberty was established at 
 the very outset, and in two of which its 
 reign was never interrupted, though silent, 
 was powerful. The complete demonstra- 
 tion which they furnished — in the internal 
 tranquillity which prevailed, so far as reli- 
 gious questions were concerned, in the ab- 
 sence of all unhappy collisions between 
 the Church and the State, and of coiToding 
 jealousies and attritions between the vari- 
 ous sects — not only of the justice, but also 
 of the wisdom of giving to all men the 
 fullest possession of the rights of con- 
 science and of worship, could not be lost 
 upon the other colonies. 
 
 Its influence concurred with the many 
 long - protracted and severe discussions 
 which took place in them, to bring about 
 ultimately the triumph of better principles. 
 And what is now the state of things in 
 the United States, as regards religious 
 liberty 1 It is that of the universal enjoy- 
 ment of this liberty. The Christian — be 
 he Protestant or Catholic — the infidel, the 
 Mohammedan, the Jew, the Deist, has not 
 only all his rights as a citizen, but may 
 have his own form of worship, without the 
 possibility of any interference from any 
 policeman or magistrate, provided he do 
 not interrupt, in so doing, the peace and 
 tranquillity of the surrounding neighbour- 
 hood. Even the Atheist may have his 
 meetings in which to preach his doctrines, 
 if he can get anybody to hear them.* 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that the United 
 States and Texas are the only countries 
 
 * Even as it regards the holding of jiolitical offi- 
 ces, while the Constitutions of almost all the states, 
 •Ts we have shown in the third book, are founded on 
 Christianity, in a certain sense, and at present make 
 no distinction between Protestants and Koman Cath- 
 olics, the Jew is, with one exception, nowhere de- 
 l)arred from any civil privilege. There is, I am sor- 
 ry to say it, one state, that of North Carolina, where 
 the Israelite is still excluded from political privileges ; 
 and this, too, under her new Constitution. But it is 
 the only relic of tliis species of barbarism which re- 
 mains among us. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 319' 
 
 in all Christendom where perfect religious 
 liberty exists, and where the government 
 does nothing, by " favour" or otherwise, to 
 promote the interests of any one religion, 
 or of any one sect of religionists, more 
 than another. And I cannot but think 
 that the very freedom from a thousand 
 perplexing and agitating collisions, from 
 which one sees the governments of other 
 countries in the Christian world to be con- 
 tinually suffering, furnishes one of the 
 most powerful arguments which can be 
 conceived in favour of leaving religion to 
 its own resources, under the blessing of 
 its adorable Author. Whatever diversity 
 of opinion may exist among Christians in 
 America on other subjects, there is none 
 on this subject. They would all acknowl- 
 edge, without a moment's hesitation, the 
 views expressed in the following para- 
 graphs, which were uttered lately by a 
 gifted and elegant writer.* 
 
 " Almost every sect in turn, when tempt- 
 ed by the power, has resorted to the prac- 
 tice of religious persecution ; but to the 
 credit of Rome it must be said that the 
 baptism of fire is almost exclusively her 
 sacrament for heretics. Good men of al- 
 most all persuasions have been confined 
 in prison for conscience' sake. Bunyan 
 was the first person in the reign of Charles 
 II. punislied for the crime of nonconformi- 
 ty. Southey's own language has the word 
 punished ; it should have been persecuted 
 for the virtue ; for such it was in Bunyan ; 
 and any palliation which could be resorted 
 to for the purpose of justifying an English 
 hierarchy for shutting up John Bunyan in 
 prison, would also justify a Romish hie- 
 rarchy for burning Latimer and liidley at 
 the stake. Strange that the lesson of 
 religious toleration should be one of the 
 last and hardest, even for liberal minds, to 
 learn. It cost long time, instruction, and 
 discipline even for the disciples of Christ 
 to learn it ; and they never would have 
 learned it had not the infant Church been 
 cut loose from the State, and deprived of 
 all possibility of girding the secular arm 
 with thunder in its behalf. John had not 
 learned it when he would have called 
 down fire from heaven to destroy the Sa- 
 maritans ; nor John, nor his followers, 
 when they forbade a faithful saint (some 
 John Bunyan of those days, belike) from 
 casting out devils, because he followed 
 not them. And they never would have 
 learned it had the union of Church and 
 State been sanctioned by the Saviour. 
 Whenever one sect in particular is united 
 to the State, the lesson of religious tolera- 
 tion will not be perfectly learned ; nay, 
 who does not see that toleration itself, ap- 
 plied to religion, implies the assumption 
 
 * Rev. George B. Cheever, of New- York, in a 
 Lecture on Bunyan's Pilgrirn'.s Progress. 
 
 of a power that ought not to exist, that in. 
 itself is tyranny. It implies that you, an 
 earthly authority, an earthly power, say 
 to me, so condescendingly, I permit you 
 the exercise of your religion. You per- 
 mit me ■? And what authority have you to 
 permit me, any more than I to permit you ? 
 God permits me, God commands me, and 
 do you dare to say that you tolerate me ? 
 Who is he that shall come in between me 
 and God either to say yea or nay 1 Your 
 toleration itself is tyranny, for you have 
 no right to meddle with the matter. But 
 whenever Church and State are united, 
 then there will be meddling with the mat- 
 ter ; and even in this country, if one par- 
 ticular sect were to get the patronage of 
 the State, there would be an end to our 
 perfect religious freedom. 
 
 " In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the 
 poet Southwell, who wrote one of the 
 most exquisitely beautiful death-hymns in 
 our language, and who seems to have been 
 truly a devout man, was put to death vio- 
 lently and publicly, no other crime being 
 proved against him but what he honestly 
 and proudly avowed, that he had come 
 over into England simply and solely to 
 preach the Catholic religion. And he 
 ought to have been left at liberty to preach 
 it ; for if the Protestant religion cannot 
 stand against Catholic preaching, it ought 
 to go down. No religion is worth having,, 
 or worth supporting, that needs racks, or 
 Inquisitions, or fires and fagots, to sus- 
 tain it ; that dare not or cannot meet its ad- 
 versaries on the open battle-field of Truth ; 
 no religion is worth supporting that needs 
 anything but the truth and Spirit of God to 
 support it ; and no establishment ought to 
 be permitted to stand that stands by per- 
 secuting others, nor any church to exist 
 that exists by simply unchurching others. 
 So, if the English Church Establishment 
 dared not consider herself safe without 
 shutting up John Bunyan and sixty other 
 dissenters (several of whom were also, 
 like himself, clergymen) with him in pris- 
 on, the English Church Establishment was 
 not worthy to be safe ; the English Church 
 Establishment was a disgrace and an in- 
 jury to the Gospel, and a disgrace and an 
 injury to a free people. No church is 
 worth saving from destruction, if it has to 
 be saved by the destruction of other men's 
 religious liberties ; nay, if that be the case 
 with it, it ought to go down, and the soon- 
 er the better. No church is v/orthy to 
 stand that makes nonconformity to its 
 rites and usages a penal crime ; it becomes 
 a persecuting church the moment it does 
 this ; for. supposing that every man, wom- 
 an, and child m the kingdom is kept from 
 nonconformity simply by that threat, and 
 that, through the power of such terror, 
 there comes to be never the need to put 
 such penal laws in execution, and so never 
 
320 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 a single subject really molested or punish- 
 ed, still that church is a persecuting- church, 
 and that people a persecuted people, a ter- 
 rified people, a people cowed down, a peo- 
 ple in whose souls the sacred fire of liber- 
 ty is fast extinguishing, a people bound to 
 >God's service by the fear of men's racks. 
 Such a people can never be free ; their 
 cowardice will forge their fetters. A peo- 
 ple who will sell themselves to a church 
 through fear of punishment, will sell them- 
 selves to any tyrant through the same 
 fear; nay, a people who will serve God 
 through fear of punishment, when they 
 would not serve him otherwise, will serve 
 Satan in the same way. 
 
 " If you make nonconformity a crime, 
 you are therefore a persecuting church, 
 whether your name be Rome, or England, 
 or America, even though there be not a 
 single nonconformist found for you to ex- 
 ercise your wrath upon, not one against 
 whom you may draw the sword of your 
 penalty. But it is drawn, and drawn against 
 the liberty of conscience, and every man 
 whom in this way you keep from noncon- 
 formity, you make him a deceiver to his 
 God ; you make him barter his conscience 
 for an exemption from an earthly penalty ; 
 you make him put his conscience, not into 
 God's keeping, but into the keeping of 
 your sword ; you dry up the life-blood of 
 liberty in his soul ; you make him in his 
 inmost conscience an imprisoned slave, a 
 venal victim of your bribery and terror; 
 and though he may still walk God's earth 
 as others, it is with the iron in his soul, it 
 is with your chain about his neck, it is as 
 the shuffling fugitive from your penalties, 
 and not as a whole-souled man, who, fear- 
 ing God religiously, fears nothing else. 
 There may, indeed, be no chain visible, 
 but you have wound its invisible links 
 around the man's spirit ; you have bound 
 the man within the man ; you have fet- 
 tered him, and laid \\\n\ down in a cold, 
 dark dungeon, and until those fetters are 
 taken off, and he stands erect and looks 
 out from his prison to God, it is no man, 
 but a slave that you have in your service ; 
 it is no disciple, but a yimon Magus that 
 you have in your church." 
 
 But though with us " heresy" is no- 
 where considered to be " treason," and all 
 enjoy equal religious liberty, neither the 
 General Government, nor those of our in- 
 dividual states, are indifferent to religion. 
 One of the most striking proofs of this is 
 to be found in the fact, that every year — 
 almost without exception in the autumn — 
 he governors of a large majority of our 
 States recommend and name a day to be 
 observed as a Day of Thank.sgiving to Al- 
 mighty God for his mercies, and of sup- 
 plication for their continuance. And such 
 days are generally observed by Christians 
 of every name. Business is suspended, 
 
 the churches are open, at least in the fore- 
 noon, and sermons are preached through- 
 out the limits of the Commonwealth.* 
 
 II. Thk True Causes of Success. — But 
 our religious liberty, unbounded and pre- 
 cious as it is, is not the cause of the suc- 
 cess which has attended the Gospel in 
 America. It is only the accasion, if I may 
 so express myself, not the means, by which 
 the Church of Christ has made so great ad- 
 vances in the United States. It has won- 
 derfully opened the way for this blessed 
 prosperity ; it has removed hinderances, al- 
 layed prejudices, and placed the country 
 in a true position in regard to Christianity. 
 It has created an open field, in which Truth 
 may contend with Error, clad in her own 
 panoply, and relying on her own weapons. 
 
 Mucia as I love the perfect liberty of con- 
 science and of worship which we enjoy in 
 America, there are other things which, to 
 my mind, must be regarded as the causes 
 of the success which has attended the ef- 
 forts of God's people among us to promote 
 his kingdom. Let us notice these for a 
 few moments. 
 
 1. There is the grouping of our children, 
 rich and poor, in the Sunday-schools, ar- 
 ranging them in small classes, and bring- 
 ing their young minds and hearts into con- 
 tact with the Word of God. 
 
 2. There is the continuation of this good 
 work in the Bible- class. What a powerful 
 
 * The European reader of this work may be 
 pleased to see one of the proclamations issued on 
 such occasions ; we subjoin that of the Governor of 
 New-York for the year 1843. 
 
 " In obedience to that high sense of gratitude 
 due the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, I do hereby 
 designate Thursd.^v, thk fourteenth day op 
 December next, to be observed by the people ot 
 this state as a day of Prayer, Praise, and Thanks- 
 giving TO Almighty God for the numerous and 
 unmerited blessings of the year. 
 
 "I feel assured that this act of public duty is in 
 accordance with the wishes of the people, and will 
 meet with universal acquiescence. 
 
 " As a people, we have great reason to be thank- 
 ful, and to praise the Almighty Dispenser of all Good 
 for the continued smiles of His providence on our 
 state and nation. 
 
 " During the past year we have been permitted 
 to enjoy our religious and political privileges unmo- 
 lested. We liave been exempt from those ravages 
 of malignant disease which sometimes afflict a peo- 
 ple. The season has been highly propitious, and 
 seldom has the harvest been more abundant. As a 
 crowning blessing, the Spirit of the Lord has re- 
 vived the hearts of Christians, and brought to a sa- 
 ving knowledge many that knew not God. 
 
 '• For the distinguished hlessini^s we have enjoyed, 
 we should raise our hearts in humble adoration to 
 our Father in heaven, thereby presenting to the 
 world the imposing spectacle of the entire popula- 
 tion of a great stale altstaitiing from all secular en- 
 gagements on the day designated, and devoting them- 
 selves to the service of the Almighty. We should 
 always remember that ' righteousness exalteth a na- 
 tion.' 
 
 " Given under my hand, and the privy seal of the 
 state, at the city of Albany, this tenth day ot 
 [L. S.] November, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
 sand eight hundred and forty-three. 
 
 " Wm. C. Bouck." 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 321 
 
 means of doing good ! and how well cal- 
 culated to follow up, or prepare the way 
 for the uistruction around the family altar ! 
 
 3. There are our societies for educating 
 in a thorough manner young men of piety 
 and talents for the work of preaching the 
 Gospel. And many hundreds of young 
 men of promise, whom God's Spirit urges 
 to preach salvation to their dying fellow- 
 men, are thus every year brought forward 
 for the work. 
 
 4. Next come the Home Missionary Soci- 
 eties and Boards, which send forth these 
 young men, when prepared to preach, to 
 the new and destitute portions of the coun- 
 try, and help the people to sustain them. 
 
 5. In connexion with these, the Mater- 
 nal Associations, and other means for im- 
 pi'essing on parents the duty of bringing 
 up their children for the Lord, and for aid- 
 ing them in the attempt, must not be over- 
 looked ; nor those eiforts which are made 
 to disseminate the Sacred- Scriptures and 
 religious tracts and books. These are si- 
 lent but efficient means of co-operation in 
 this blessed work. 
 
 6. And, lastly and chiefly, there remains 
 the preaching of the Word, the most effect- 
 ive of all instrumentalities for the conver- 
 sion and sanctification of men. There is 
 nothing which may supplant this. And 
 here we have abundant occasion for thank- 
 fulness. We have a great many thousands 
 of pious and faithful preachers ; very many 
 of whom are able, skilful, and successful 
 labourers in the vineyard of the Lord. 
 
 Let the reader review what has been 
 said on all these points in the portions of 
 this work which treat of them, and he will 
 discover the true causes, under God, of the 
 progress which religion has made in Amer- 
 ica from the first, and especially within the 
 present century. 
 
 III. The True Source ok all Success. — 
 Still, these must all be considered as only 
 means ; the success is of God. " It is not 
 by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
 saith the Lord." Here is all our hope ; 
 even Truth itself is impotent to renovate 
 the heart of man, depraved and debased as 
 he is, without the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit. It is the province of this blessed 
 Agent to take the things of Christ and 
 show them unto men. It is He alone who 
 can open the blind eyes, and cause them 
 to see the beauty and fitness of the glori- 
 ous plan of salvation through the crucified 
 Son of God. It is he alone who can ren- 
 der the preaching of the Gospel " the pow- 
 er of God and the wisdom of God to the 
 salvation of men." And He, blessed be 
 God, can as easily render the same pres- 
 entation of the glorious Gospel effectual 
 to the salvation of many as of few — of 
 hundreds and thousands, as on the day of 
 Pentecost, as of one. 
 
 But, alas ! when shall the Spirit be ap- 
 
 preciated, honoured, sought by the Church 
 as He ought to be 1 Oh, when shall Chris- 
 tians awake to a proper sense of the desi- 
 rableness, yea, the absolute necessity of 
 His glorious eflTusion upon the world, in 
 order to its conversion, and which is the 
 subject of so many and so remarkable pre- 
 dictions] Many who profess the name of 
 Christ seem almost not to know whether 
 there be a Holy Ghost ! 
 
 Now, though the churches in America, 
 taken as a whole, are very far from a 
 proper appreciation of this subject; though 
 even the best of them are far from hav- 
 ing attained such views, and from having 
 put forth such action respecting it as they 
 ought to do, yet there is, in all evan- 
 gelical and truly converted Christians 
 among us, some sense of their dependance 
 upon the Spirit for success in their efforts 
 to grow in grace, as well as to turn sin- 
 ners unto righteousness. There is, also, 
 much earnest prayer for the outpouring of 
 the Spirit upon their souls, and upon all 
 those who hear or read the Gospel. 
 
 There is no one thing which has more 
 decidedly characterized the preaching of 
 our best and most successful divines, or 
 the feelings of our most devoted Chris- 
 tians, than the doctrine of the existence, 
 the personality, the offices, and the saving 
 operation of the Holy Spirit. It has been 
 the great dominant idea, if I may so term 
 it, which has pervaded and influenced the 
 Church of Christ in America during the 
 last hundred years. Hence the esteem in 
 which revivals of religion are held. 
 
 To this great subject I cannot but en- 
 treat the religious reader to direct his most 
 serious attention. It is one of vital impor- 
 tance. Surely God has led his people to 
 expect a great outpouring of his Spirit in 
 the latter days. And, surely, the world, as 
 well as the Church, has seen the need of 
 such an influence, if it is ever to be brought 
 under the renovating influences of the Gos- 
 pel to a degree corresponding with its ne- 
 cessities. And whatever importance the 
 author may attach to other portions of this 
 work, beyond all comparison he is desi- 
 rous that the portion of it which relates to 
 revivals may be most deeply pondered by 
 every reader. 
 
 IV. Grounds of Hope in relation to 
 THE Churches in America. — I know of no- 
 thing which is so well calculated to inspire 
 hope in relation to our American churches 
 as the extensive difl'usion of the spirit of 
 missions among them within tlic last few 
 years, for it is the spirit of Cln-ist. Let 
 us look at this fact for a moment. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago, with the excep- 
 tion of what was doing bv a Committee or 
 Board of the General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church, and the missionary 
 societies of some of the New-England 
 States— and this did not amount to very 
 
322 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 much — there was nothing doing in behalf 
 of domestic missions. But within that pe- 
 riod have been formed the American Home 
 Missionary Society, which unites all the 
 evangelical Congregational churches in 
 the land, together with the New School 
 Presbyterians ; the Board of Domestic 
 Missions of the Old School Presbyterians, 
 the Home Missionary Societies of the Bap- 
 tists, Methodists, and Free-Will Baptists ; 
 and the Boards for Domestic Missions of 
 the Reformed Dutch, Lutheran, German 
 Reformed, Associate, Associate Reformed, 
 Reformed Presbyterian, Protestant Episco- 
 pal, Cumberland Presbyterians, and Sev- 
 enth-day Baptist churches. No denomi- 
 nation is too insignificant to have its Soci- 
 ety or its Board of Domestic Missions. 
 And what do we see 1 Nearly two thou- 
 sand ordained ministers are labouring in 
 new and destitute neighbourhoods, in the 
 East and the West, to gather congrega- 
 tions and build up churches. What a 
 change ! And what a ground of hope ! 
 
 Moreover, tliirty-four years ago there 
 was not one Missionary Society in the 
 United States for the promotion of foreign 
 missions, save the small one of the Mora- 
 vians. But now the Old and New School 
 Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Metho- 
 dists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Reformed 
 Dutch, Lutherans, Free-Will Baptists, As- 
 sociate, Associate Reformed, and Reform- 
 ed Presbyterians, and perhaps some others, 
 as well as the United Brethren, have their 
 Foreign Missionary Societies or Boards, 
 and sustain a greater or less number of 
 men on the foreign field. It cannot be 
 said that they have done all that they 
 might. But it may be said that they have 
 made a good beginning, and that what they 
 have done is nothing in comparison with 
 what they will do, with God's blessing. 
 That they should have nearly 400 preach- 
 ers abroad, besides other labourers, and 
 raise more than half a million of dollars 
 for the extension of the Gospel in that direc- 
 tion, is a subject which calls for thanks to 
 God. It is the wide diffusion of the spirit 
 of missions through our churches, rather 
 than its positive and present results, which 
 I am here holding up as a ground of hope. 
 And in that light I am sure it may fairly be 
 regarded. It is the best omen for good 
 both to the Church and the nation. It is 
 our great palladium. It is also our best 
 pledge, and even our most certain means, 
 of prosperity to all the interests of Truth. 
 As long as the spirit of missions is exist- 
 ent and efficient in our churches of every 
 name, we may venture to hope that, what- 
 ever may go wrong in our political organ- 
 ization, or however wickedness may aug- 
 ment, God will regard us in mercy, and 
 say of us as a nation, " Spare it, for there 
 is a blessing in it." 
 
 V. Efficiency of the Voluntary Prin- 
 
 ciple IN America in raising up an adequate 
 Ministry. — That the Voluntary Principle 
 has not been inefficient in America, in this 
 respect, will readily appear from a simple 
 statement of facts. 
 
 If the reader will recur to chapter i. 
 of book iii., he will learn that, at the epoch 
 of the commencement of the Revolution 
 in 1775, the number of ministers of the 
 Gospel, of all denominations, including 
 even the Roman Catholic priests, did not 
 exceed 1441. Indeed, I am sure this esti- 
 mate is too high. But let us suppose it to 
 be correct. Now, if the population of the 
 country was then three milhons and a half, 
 there was one minister of the Gospel for 
 about 2428 souls. But if the population 
 then was only three millions, which I ap- 
 prehend to be an estimate nearer the truth, 
 then there was one minister, on an aver- 
 age, for nearly 2082 souls. On the other 
 hand, the population of the country at the 
 commencemem of 1844 maybe fairly es- 
 timated at 18,500,000 souls. And if th& 
 reader will refer to what we have said in 
 chapter xvii. of book vi., he will see that 
 the number of ordained evangelical or or- 
 thodox Protestant ministers alone, exclu- 
 sive of the local preachers of the Metho- 
 dist churches (not far, in all, from 8500),. 
 exclusive, also, of the German United 
 Brethren, and several other little German 
 sects, as well as two or three small Meth- 
 odist secessions, was, in the year 1843, 
 sixteen thousand three hundred. That is, 
 on an average, one evangelical Protestant 
 minister of the Gospel for rather less than 
 1135 souls. 
 
 It is not here asserted that all these 
 ministers are pastors, or that they alt 
 have congregations to which they statedly 
 preach. It is certain that a good many 
 are teachers and professors, secretaries 
 and agents of religious and benevolent so- 
 cieties, who, nevertheless, preach a great 
 deal ; and many, who are not pastors, 
 preach to churches which are for a time 
 destitute of pastors. But what is here 
 meant is simply to show the increase of 
 evangelical ministers of the Gospel, and 
 its decided gain upon the increase of tha 
 population. The fact is clear and striking ; 
 there is at present one evangelical Prot- 
 estant minister in the LInited States for 
 less than 1100 souls; in 1775 there was 
 one minister of the Gospel, of every name, 
 for about 2428 souls, or, at best, for 2082. 
 On the one supposition, the number of 
 evangelical ministers is more than twice 
 as great, in proportion to the population, 
 as was that of the ministers, both Protest- 
 ant and Catholic, in 1775, and, on the oth- 
 er, it is nearly twice as great.* 
 
 * If we were to include the Roman Catholic 
 priests, and the Unitarian, Universalist, and other 
 heterodox preachers, we should have at this time 
 one preacher for every 800 souls. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 323 
 
 1 do not design here to assert the sufR.- 
 cieucy of the evangehcal ministry in the 
 United States to meet the wants of the 
 population ; it will readily be admitted that 
 it is not sufficient. If the evangelical Pro- 
 testant ministers were twice as numer- 
 ous as they are ; if, in other words, there 
 was on an average one such minister for 
 every 500 souls, instead of one for 1135, it 
 would not be too many, when we consider 
 the sparseness of the population in certain 
 districts, which renders it impossible for 
 one minister to look after more than 500 
 or 600 souls ; the number of denominations, 
 which renders the number of ministers in 
 many places greater than the amount of 
 the population demands ; and the fact that 
 a goodly number will always be engaged 
 in our academies, colleges, and theological 
 seminaries as professors, and in our reli- 
 gious and benevolent societies as secre- 
 taries and agents. But if the Voluntary 
 Principle has been so efficient as to double 
 the number of evangelical Protestant min- 
 isters since the year 1775 (and the greater 
 portion of this success has accrued since 
 1815, and can in no sense be attributed to 
 the influence of the ancient establish- 
 ments),* there is every reason to expect 
 that it will, in the course of a far shorter 
 period, again cause the number of the 
 evangelical Protestant ministers to double 
 upon the population. If we may judge 
 from the progress of the last three years, 
 it will not be more than twenty-five or 
 thirty years until this desirable result will 
 have been reached. 
 
 VI. Efficiency of the Voluntary Prin- 
 ciple IN THE United States in supporting 
 THE Ministry of the Gospel. — In this re- 
 spect, the Voluntary Principle has not 
 been destitute of considerable efficiency 
 in America. It is not pretended that in a 
 new country, where wealth may indeed 
 be much more equally distributed than in 
 the old countries of Europe, but where its 
 aggregate is not to be compared with that 
 of England, Scotland, Holland, Germany, 
 or France, the sum raised upon the vol- 
 untary plan is likely to be as large as that 
 which is raised in Great Britain, and some 
 countries on the Continent, from tithes, 
 united with the revenues of ancient reli- 
 gious foundations. We have as yet few 
 such foundations,! and must, therefore, 
 depend upon the voluntary off'erings of the 
 
 ■ With the exception of Connecticut and Massa 
 chusetts, the union of Church and State, which 
 once existed in many of the states, came to an end 
 durin" or shortly after the Revolution ; and in Con- 
 necticut it terminated in 1816. In Massachusetts it 
 lasted, as we have elsewhere stated, till 1833. 
 
 t By far the most important of all such founda- 
 tions, with us, is that of Trinity Church (belonging 
 to the Episcopal denomination) in the city of New- 
 York, which is said to be as much as fifteen or 
 twenty millions of dollars, and has furnished the 
 means of building many Episcopal churches in that 
 state. 
 
 people. I say voluntary oflferings, for, 
 whatever may be the mode of raising the 
 salaries of our ministers, they are, in real- 
 ity, derived from the spontaneous contribu- 
 tions of the people. No man is compelled 
 to pay a cent for the maintenance of reli- 
 gious worship. Whatever he gives is deci- 
 dedly by his own will. Every one is free to 
 go to church or stay away ; and if he goes, 
 he may, in many of our churches, avoid giv- 
 ing all his life ; this is true especially of 
 those churches whose sittings are public, 
 that is, do not belong to particular individ- 
 uals. Whatever a man engages to pay 
 towards the support of the institutions of 
 the Gospel he is expected to pay, and 
 may be required, according to law, to pay. 
 Seldom indeed, however, is there a resort 
 to legal enforcement of the payment of 
 pew-rents and subscriptions. But let us 
 see what the voluntary principle does ac- 
 complish. 
 
 The total amount of money raised in the 
 United States for the support of the minis- 
 try in the evangelical denominations may 
 be calculated as follows : 
 I. Episcopal ministers, as stated in 
 chap, xvii., book vi. ... 1203 
 Deduct for missionaries and 
 
 professors, say 48 
 
 1155 
 Total salaries of 1155 ministers, say 
 at an average of $500 each . . . $577,500 
 II. Ministers of the Presbyterian family 
 of churches, including Congrega- 
 tionalists, Lutherans, &c., as in the 
 summary above referred to . 5756 
 Deduct foreign missiona- 
 ries 171 
 
 Deduct professors in col- 
 leges 141— J12 
 
 5444 
 Total salaries of 5444 ministers, say 
 at an average salary of $400 . . 2,177,600 
 
 III. The Baptist ministers, according to 
 
 the same summary, amount to 4850 
 
 Deduct for missionaries and 
 
 professors, say 133 
 
 4720 
 
 As a considerable number of the Bap- 
 tist ministers receive small sala- 
 ries, and some none at all, we can 
 allow S250 only as the average of 
 their salaries. This gives . . . 1,100,000 
 
 IV. Ministers of the Methodist group, ex- 
 
 clusive of local preachers, amount, 
 
 according to the summary, to 4870 
 Deduct for missionaries and 
 
 professors 116 
 
 4752 
 Supposing their salaries to be on an 
 
 average $300 each,* the result is 1,425,600 
 
 * In some parts of the country it is certain that 
 the Methodist ministers do not receive as great a 
 salary as that mentioned in the text; but, on the 
 other hand, the salaries of their ministers in many 
 parts of the country exceed it. In the Conferences 
 of the states of New-England and of that of New- 
 York, they are probably, as a body, better supported 
 than those of any other denomination. In those 
 parts of the land their salaries, including perquisites 
 of all sorts, exceed, on an average, 500 dollars. 
 The Episcopal ministers, being stationed chiefly in 
 our cities and large towns, receive, as a body, larger 
 
324 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 This gives us a grand total of 5,280,700 
 dollars, as the amount paid for the ferson- 
 nel, as the French would call it, of our pub- 
 lic worship. It is possible that I have es- 
 timated the average of the salaries of the 
 Baptist ministers a little too high. Some 
 may think that 200 dollars would be nearer 
 the truth. I do not think so myself, from 
 what I know of the whole country. As to 
 the other denominations, I am quite sure 
 that I have not placed them too high, 
 especially if, as ought to be done, all the 
 perquisites which may attach to the minis- 
 terial and pastoral office among them be 
 taken into the account. We have, then, 
 the sum of 5,280,700 dollars as contributed 
 by the evangelical denominations alone to 
 support the ministry. And I am of opinion 
 that if we were to add the amount con- 
 tributed by the omitted small Methodist 
 branches, the Orthodox Quakers, and some 
 little German denominations, we might 
 ■well give the sum of 5,500,000 dollars as 
 a quite moderate estimate of the support 
 given to the evangelical ministry of the 
 United States. 
 
 VII. Efficiency of the Voluntary Prin- 
 ciPLK IN THE United States in the erec- 
 tion OF Church Edifices. — Tlie church 
 edifices which are annually erected in the 
 United States, according to the best infor- 
 mation which I have been able to obtain, 
 from much personal observation and in- 
 quiry, may be stated at about 920, rating 
 them as follows : 
 
 Among the Episcopal Methodists, according' to a good 
 authority, " from 250 to 300"— say 250 
 
 The Baptists fully as many as the Methodists (their 
 owu reports some years show between 2ti'J and 270), 
 say 250 
 
 The Presbyterians and Congregationalists together 
 build at "least 200 (the Old School Presbyterians 
 alone reported more than eighty last year) 200 
 
 The Lutheran Almanac mentions 76 new churches 
 elected in the year 1841. An imperfect report for 
 1840 mentions 47, say 
 
 The German Reformed may be fairly estimated at.... 
 
 The Protestant Methodists at 
 
 The Episcopalians at 
 
 The Cumberland Presbyterians at 
 
 The Reformed Dutch at 
 
 The Scotch Presbyterians, of all kinds, at 
 
 Total of new churches annually erected among the 
 above mentioned denominations 920 
 
 It may be that the last mentioned but 
 one, and possibly that also, may be too 
 high ; but the new churches of tlie Cum- 
 berland Presbyterians, Protestant Metho- 
 dists, and the Episcopalians, if not all the 
 rest, are, it is probable, understated. I am 
 of opinion that, if we should include the 
 churches annually erected by the omitted 
 small evangelical denominations, a per- 
 fectly accurate summary of the meeting- 
 houses or church edifices of every descrip- 
 tion built by all the ortliodox Protestant 
 communion in the United States, every 
 year, would at the present time not fall 
 short of 950. 
 
 salaries thnn those of any other Church. I am per- 
 suaded that they average considerably more than 
 the amount named in the test. 
 
 It is impossible to calculate with exact- 
 ness to what extent this yearly increase of 
 church edifices meets the demands of a 
 yearly increase of the population, now 
 amounting to nearly, if not quite, half a 
 million of souls, of whom 400,000, if not 
 420,000, are of an age to go more or less 
 frequently to church, and for whom church 
 accommodation ought therefore to be pro- 
 vided. The whole population of the coun- 
 try that is supposed to be more or less 
 under the influence of the evangelical de- 
 nominations, estimated at 15,500,000, being 
 divided into about 49,424 congregations, 
 the average number of souls in a congre- 
 gation must be about 314 ; and as the num- 
 ber of church edifices already erected can- 
 not be short of 29,000 in all, the new ones 
 must consist partly of those required for 
 existing evangelical congregations not pre- 
 viously supplied, partly of those required 
 for accessions to the evangelical churches 
 from 300,000 of souls not previously attach- 
 ed to such congregations, and for the grad- 
 ual increase of those congregations from 
 births and immigration. If we suppose 
 the evangelical proportion of the yearly in- 
 crease of the population of an age to go to 
 church (say 420,000) to be as 15,500,000 to 
 3,000,000, or about 338,725 souls, and this 
 proportion to be divided into congregations 
 of 310 souls each, the result would be an an- 
 nual increase of about 1093 congregations, 
 requiring the same number of churches. 
 
 Such a result, however, is by no means 
 probable ; for many of these would no 
 doubt join and be merged in existing con- 
 gregations, and many would be found liv- 
 ing in remote places, rendering it impossi- 
 ble for them to be gathered into congrega- 
 tions requiring church edifices. 
 
 Neither is it easy to calculate the cost 
 of these 920 or 950 church edifices, of 
 which we have been speaking. A consid- 
 erable number, perhaps forty or fifty, are 
 annually built in our large cities, at an ex- 
 pense of from 10,000 to 60,000 dollars, and 
 a few of them cost even more. Many are 
 large buildings which will hold 700, 800, 
 1000, 1200, 1500, and a few even more ; 
 while a great many in the country are 
 small, and cost only a few hundred dollars. 
 But if we include under this head all the 
 expenses of our churches for light, fuel, 
 sexton's wages, choirs, etc., etc. — in a word, 
 what may be called the materiel, if I may 
 so term it, of our public worship, I am 
 quite sure that it will reach two millions 
 and a half of dollars. I speak now of the 
 evangelical churches alone. 
 
 If we were to include the churches or 
 meeting-liouses built by the Roman Catho- 
 lics, Unitarians, Christ-ians, Universalists, 
 and other non-evangelical sects, we should 
 increase the number from 950 to 1100 at 
 least. 
 
 VIII. The total cost of Pl'blic Wo:i- 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 325 
 
 SHIP IN THE United States. — It may be 
 worth while to bring together the various 
 estimates which we have made respecting 
 the sums raised by the evangehcal church- 
 es for the sustentation of religion at home, 
 and its extension abroad, and add to them 
 the amounts raised by the non-evangeUcal 
 denominations : 
 
 1. If we include all that certain omitted 
 local associations do, in addition to the 
 sums raised by the various religious socie- 
 ties mentioned in book iv., whose object 
 is to promote religion at home, we shall 
 have a total amount of about $1,000,000 
 
 2. The amount contributed by 
 
 the various religious so- 
 cieties last year, according 
 to the summary given in 
 chap. xii. of book viii., is 510,424 
 
 3. The amount annually rais- 
 
 ed for the support of the 
 evangelical ministry, as 
 we have seen, may be es- 
 timated at 5,500,000 
 
 4. The amount annually rais- 
 
 ed for building and keep- 
 ing in repair the church 
 edifices, and for other 
 expenses connected with 
 the maintenance of public 
 worship, may be given at 2,500,000 
 
 Making a total of . $9,510,424 
 
 From this statement, it appears that the 
 sums raised by the evangelical churches for 
 the promotion of religion, in one way and 
 another, at home and abroad, amount to 
 more thanmVie millions and a half of dollars. 
 
 If we add to this the sums given annual- 
 ly by Christians to build and endow acad- 
 emies, colleges, and theological semina- 
 ries, with a view to promote religion, and 
 also the amount raised among the non- 
 evangelical denominations for the same 
 objects, we shall increase this sum to at 
 least eleven millions of dollars, as the amount 
 raised annually at present in the United 
 States, on the voluntary principle,* for the 
 sustentation and promotion of religion at 
 home and abroad. f 
 
 Nor have I included in the statements 
 which I have made on this subject all that 
 
 * I say on the voluntary principle, for the sums 
 raised from permanent endowments (which are 
 themselves the fruit of the voluntary principle, and 
 not of governmental gift or taxation) are not suffi- 
 ciently great to deserve to be excepted. 
 
 t If we were to add to the above-mentioned sum 
 of eleven millions of dollars to promote Religion in 
 America, the amount which education costs in all 
 its gradations, we must at least double it. The sin- 
 gle state of Massachusetts bestows little short of a 
 million of dollars annually upon the education of 
 her youths in all classes of her literary institutions, 
 though her population falls short of 800,000 souls. 
 So that the sum of at least twenty-two millions of 
 dollars is annually raised in the United States for 
 the promotion of Religion and Education — a sum 
 about equal, at this time, to the whole revenue of 
 the National Government ! 
 
 the voluntary principle does in reference to 
 rehgion. For instance, provision is made 
 in some denominations, by incorporated 
 associations or otherwise, for the main- 
 tenance of the widows and children of 
 ministers, and of superannuated preachers. 
 The sums thus raised are to be considered 
 a part of the sustentation which is given 
 to the institutions of the Gospel among us, 
 and they all owe their origin directly or 
 indirectly to the voluntary principle. 
 
 It is not pretended that the voluntary 
 principle raises as much money in Ameri- 
 ca for the support of religion as do the 
 legal provisions of some countries, where 
 Christianity has created those opulent and. 
 time-honoured establishments which over- 
 shadow them. In many cases, alas ! these 
 establishments were founded in the ages 
 of superstition, iind owe their origin to the 
 influence of a cunning and overreaching 
 priesthood, exerted over an ignorant and 
 debased people. But it is maintained that 
 it cannot be said with truth that Christian- 
 ity, left to its own resources in America, is 
 likely to go down, or that it does not lead 
 to efforts for its propagation which corre- 
 spond in a good measure with the wants 
 of the country. Whatever men may think 
 on the subject of the best means of sup- 
 porting the Gospel, it cannot be denied that 
 the voluntary principle in America has 
 demonstrated that it is not inefficient : a 
 fact which was well established in the first 
 three centuries of the progress of Christi- 
 anity in the world. 
 
 IX. Alleged Church Destitution in 
 THE United States. — From the year 1837 
 to that of 1840 inclusive, for an annual in- 
 crease of the population to the extent of 
 about 450,000 souls, that of the evangelical 
 ministry of all denominations was not 
 much, if at all, short of 700 per annum. 
 The number of church edifices erected in 
 1841 was fully 880. The nett annual in- 
 crease of evangelical ministers of all de- 
 nominations is about 750 ; while that of 
 church edifices, of all descriptions, as we 
 have stated elsewhere, is not less than 
 950. As the annual increase of the popu- 
 lation is at present about 500,000, the 
 increase of evangelical ministers bears 
 the ratio of 1 to 660 of the whole, or of 
 I to about 560 of those who are of an 
 age to go to church ; and the increase 
 of church edifices is about as 1 to 525 
 souls. But it must have been seen from 
 the tables in the summary of evangelical 
 churches, ministers, communicants, and 
 population, that partly from the very scat- 
 tered condition of the inhabitants covering 
 so vast a territory, partly from the pres- 
 ence of several denominations at one spot, 
 often leading to a plurality of churches and 
 ministers where one might suffice, this in- 
 crease of ministers and churches is not so 
 adequate to the wants of the country as 
 
326 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 might at first sight appear ; still, it is so 
 inconsistent with what many of our read- 
 ers may have heard of the " moral wastes" 
 in the United States as to require some 
 explanation. 
 
 First, then, let it be remembered that, at 
 the Revolution, the number of ministers of 
 every name was only one for 2440 souls, or, 
 at most, one for 2000 ; and that the war of 
 independence itself, and many other cir- 
 cumstances, concurred to prevent much 
 from being done to overtake this great 
 and accumulating arrear in the religious 
 institutions of the country. This destitu- 
 tion continued to increase rather than di- 
 minish, it is believed, from 1775 till 1815; 
 so that, notwithstanding the more recent 
 extension of the churches, and of institu- 
 tions for training of ministers for assisting 
 feeble congregations, no .wonder that a 
 great deal has yet to be done in recov- 
 ering what may be called former moral 
 wastes. 
 
 Second. Churches and ministers not be- 
 ing provided beforehand for new settle- 
 ments, and a certain amount of population 
 within a given district being required be- 
 fore means can well be taken for forming 
 a church and obtaining a minister, some 
 time must elapse during which " moral 
 wastes" may be found in newly-settled 
 districts. The same remark apphes to 
 the mountainous district embracing the 
 Alleghany range and its skirts. From 
 the interior of Pennsylvania, down through 
 Virginia, the eastern parts of Kentucky, 
 and North Carolina, there is a considera- 
 ble destitution of the regular ministrations 
 of the Gospel. The sandy, thinly-settled 
 zone of country, covered with pines, stretch- 
 ing along the seacoast, from New-Jersey 
 to Louisiana, and embracing the whole 
 peninsula of Florida, may be placed in the 
 same category. From such regions the 
 cry of the man of Macedonia, " Come 
 over and help us," is continually sounded 
 in the ears of the churches in more fa- 
 voured districts ; nor is it heard in vain. 
 Much has been done for them by the 
 Home Missionary Societies, and Mission- 
 ary Boards of the different churches, and 
 much, no doubt, will yet be done. 
 
 In the third place, there has been a large 
 immigration from Germany, Alsace, and 
 Switzerland, for whose spiritual wants it 
 has not been easy to provide. The letters 
 from these people to their friends in the 
 Old World have in some cases given rise 
 to the opinion that the moral destitution 
 of the whole country is almost boundless. 
 For a long time after the Revolution, the 
 augmentation of German ministers from 
 an indigenous source was very slow, 
 while but few of a proper stamp came 
 from Europe. Blessed be God, the pros- 
 pect for our German immigrants is becom- 
 ing more cheering. There are no less than 
 
 two colleges and five theological schools, 
 in which there is a goodly number of pious 
 young men who are training up for the 
 work of preaching Christ, under the in- 
 structions of right men. 
 
 It has been more difficult still for us to 
 provide for the spiritual wants of the 
 French who have come to our shores, or 
 have fallen to us by the purchase of Lou- 
 isiana. But the increase of evangehcal 
 religion in France will, I doubt not, give 
 us the labourers we need to look after 
 their interests. As to the Spaniards, Poles, 
 Norwegians, Italians, etc., who come to us, 
 their number is not great ; but the difficulty 
 of preaching the Gospel to them has been 
 almost insurmountable, owing to their not 
 knowing the English tongue. 
 
 In the fourth place, the representations 
 made on this subject by some of our so- 
 cieties are often calculated, though unde- 
 signedly, to mislead a stranger. That 
 there is much real destitution to warrant 
 strong appeals is no doubt true ; but one 
 is apt to forget that there is much that is 
 hypothetical in what is said of the danger 
 that threatens, if this destitution be not 
 supplied. This danger is imminent ; still 
 it is, as yet, but a contingency. If the re- 
 quired efforts be not made, error and irre- 
 ligion will overspread the country ; if the 
 Protestants be not on the alert, Romanism 
 will conquer it for itself. But it is to pre- 
 vent such results that these appeals are 
 made. 
 
 Lastly, it is not to be denied that the 
 agents and missionaries of our Domestic 
 Missionary Societies and Boards have un- 
 intentionally and unwittingly promoted er- 
 roneous impressions respecting the reli- 
 gious destitution of the country. When 
 these societies were formed, some fifteen 
 or twenty years ago, the first missionaries 
 and agents sent into the West found many 
 districts, and even whole counties, deplora- 
 bly destitute ; and in their published re- 
 ports and letters they gave most affecting 
 accounts of the want of shepherds to col- 
 lect the sheep scattered over these moral 
 wildernesses. Sometimes they thought 
 that, like Elijah of old, they were " left 
 alone ;" not being aware, or if aware, not 
 rightly estimating the fact, that men of 
 other denominations were labouring in the 
 same regions, as itinerating, if not as set- 
 tled ministers. Such misrepresentations 
 led the Methodist and Baptist churches to 
 publish statements, proving that the al- 
 leged destitution had been greatly exag- 
 gerated. Hence, of late years, it has 
 been usual to give the names of places 
 requiring ministers and churches, of the 
 denomination to which the writer belongs, 
 acknowledging, at the same time, the ser- 
 vices of ministers of other denominations, 
 where they are to be found. Exaggerated 
 statements may often be traced, also, to 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 327 
 
 the warm feelings of extempore speakers 
 at public meetings, leading them to com- 
 mit themselves to expressions that have 
 not been duly weighed, and to these find- 
 ing their way, often with additional exag- 
 gerations, into newspapers. Within the 
 last fortnight, I have read in one of the 
 best religious newspapers in the United 
 States, the notes of a minister from the 
 East, as he passed through Pennsylvania 
 to the "far West." The writer did not 
 see a single church in any but a few of 
 the numerous towns and villages through 
 which he passed from Philadelphia to 
 Pittsburgh ! Yet I, who have been along 
 the same route no fewer than twelve 
 times, and who know every town and vil- 
 lage upon it, having travelled it, not only 
 as he did, in stages, but by railroad, in pri- 
 vate carriages, on horseback, and even on 
 foot, hesitate not to say that there is no 
 town, or even village of any considerable 
 size, that has not at least one church be- 
 longing to some communion or other. 
 These, however, are not the prominent 
 churches, steeple-houses, as our Quaker 
 friends might call them, to be seen in the 
 Eastern States. Many are plain, humble 
 buildings, standing in some retired street, 
 and if visible at all to the writer as he 
 whirled along, were hardly to be distin- 
 guished from a warehouse or respectable 
 barn. And if such misstatements are hon- 
 estly made at times by our own country- 
 men, how much more apt must foreigners 
 be to form equally hasty and erroneous 
 conclusions ^ 
 
 X. Individual Instances of Liberality 
 
 IN SUPPORTING and EXTENDING THE INSTITU- 
 TIONS OF THE Gospel.— It is one of the 
 happy fruits of the voluntary principle that 
 it cultivates a spirit of benevolence and 
 self-reliance among Christians. It teach- 
 es men the true value and utility of wealth, 
 in showing them that there are objects infi- 
 nitely more worthy of living for than mere 
 self-gratification. Pious men of no coun- 
 try have an adequate conception of the 
 amount of good which they can do until 
 they have made the experiment. We sub- 
 join a few instances of individual liberali- 
 ty, not because the authors of them were 
 rich* men, but because of the systematic 
 as well as delightful spirit which they dis- 
 played. In the course of this work many 
 others have been mentioned, which are 
 well worthy of imitation. 
 
 One of the most remarkable instances 
 of liberality in the middle walks of life is 
 recorded in the memoirs of the late Nor- 
 mand Smith, of Hartford, Connecticut. Mr. 
 
 * Had 1 been disposed to speak of what some (1 
 am sorry to say loo few) of our rich men have done, 
 I might mention one man— a merchant— who has in 
 the course of 30 years given to rehgious and benevo- 
 lent objects eight hundred thousand dollars, and of 
 one who gives from forty to sixty thousand annually. 
 
 Smith was born in 1800, of pious parents, 
 and seems to have become decided in his 
 religious character at the age of twelve, 
 during a revival. He learned the trade of 
 a saddler, and commenced business him- 
 self at the age of twenty-two, on a small 
 capital lent him by his father. He was 
 remarkably prosperous in business from 
 the first, so that he was soon able to repay 
 this debt. But he did not allow his busi- 
 ness to engross his time and thoughts. He 
 frequently visited the poor with the view 
 of inquiring into and relieving their neces- 
 sities, was a constant Sabbath-school teach- 
 er, and for a long time was superintendent 
 of a Sabbath-school for Africans. In short, 
 he was the foremost to encourage and sup- 
 port every good undertaking. But we 
 must let the memoir* speak for itself. 
 
 " In the early part of 1829 he had great 
 doubts whether it was not his duty to re- 
 linquish his business, in part at least, that 
 he might have more time to do good. At 
 that time he called to converse on this 
 subject with the writer. He said that he 
 found his business engrossed too much of 
 his time and attention ; he wished to be in 
 a situation more favourable for the culti- 
 vation of personal religion and doing good 
 to others ; and, as he had acquired proper- 
 ty enough for himself and family, he felt a 
 desire to retire, that he might enjoy more 
 quiet and leisure. In reply, it was said to 
 him, ' The Lord has plainly indicated how 
 you are to glorify him in the world. He 
 has greatly prospered you in your busi- 
 ness ; the channels of wealth are open, and 
 their streams are flowing in upon you, 
 and it would be wrong for you to obstruct 
 or diminish them. Let them rather flow 
 wider and deeper. Only resolve that you 
 will pursue your business from a sense of 
 duty, and use all that God may give you 
 for his glory and the good of your fellow- 
 men, and your business, like reading the 
 Bible, or worship on the Sabbath, will be 
 to you a means of grace ; instead of hin- 
 dering, it will help you in the divine hfe, 
 and greatly increase your means of use- 
 fulness.' The eff'ect of the conversation 
 v/as not known at the time, but from an 
 entry made in a journal which he began to 
 keep about that period, it appears that the 
 purpose was then formed to continue his 
 business, and to conduct it on the princi- 
 ple recommended. 
 
 " From that time it was observable by 
 all who knew him that he made rapid 
 progress in religion. One subject seemed 
 to engross his mind, that of doing good ; 
 and much good did God enable him to do. 
 Besides many large donations m aid ol va- 
 rious objects previous to his death, he be- 
 queathed at his decease ne ^arlyjO^OOOdol- 
 * Written by his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Hawes, of 
 the First Congregational Church, Hartford, Connec- 
 I ticut. 
 
328 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 lars to the various benevolent societies of 
 the day. The amount designated for these 
 societies in his will was 13,200 dollars. 
 But they were also made residuary lega- 
 tees of property which he would have dis- 
 tributed while living, had it been practica- 
 ble, without loss, to withdraw it from his 
 business. 
 
 " On his deathbed he said to a brother, 
 ' Do good with your substance while liv- 
 ing, and as you have opportunity ; other- 
 wise, when you come to die, you will be 
 at a loss to know what distriljution it is 
 best to make of it. The trouble and care 
 of such a distribution in a dying hour,' he 
 thought, ' should be avoided by every Chris- 
 tian, by disposing of his property while in 
 life and health, as the Lord should prosper 
 him, and present to him opportunities of 
 doing good.' 
 
 " From the period above referred to, it 
 became his established rule to use for be- 
 nevolent distribution all the means which 
 he could take from his business, and still 
 prosecute it successfully and to the best 
 advantage. He was usually secret with 
 regard to donations of a private or person- 
 al nature. A memorandum which he kept 
 three or four years before his death, ' lest 
 he should think that he gave more than he 
 did,' shows that his gifts were numerous 
 and large — sufficiently so to prove that he 
 adhered to his principle of holding all as 
 consecrated to the Lord. A slip of paper, 
 taken from his vest pocket after his death, 
 mentions the amount of his contributions 
 at the monthly prayer-meeting for mis- 
 sions among the heathen to have been 
 thirty dollars, or 360 dollars a year. 
 
 " In personal and domestic expenditure 
 he studied Christian economy. While he 
 denied himself no reasonable comfort, it 
 was his habit to consider what things he 
 might dispense with, that he might have 
 the more to give for charitable purposes. 
 Modest and unassuming in his natural 
 character, he thought it not consistent 
 with the simplicity of the Gospel for one 
 professing godliness to follow the customs 
 and fashions of the world. While oth- 
 ers were enlarging their expenditures, he 
 studied retrenchment in all things. 
 
 " When he set out in the world, it was 
 with the purpose to be rich. But grace 
 opened his heart, and taught him that the 
 only valuable use of money is to do good 
 Avith it ; a lesson which he emphatically 
 exemplified in his practice, and which 
 made him an instrument of good, the ex- 
 tent of which can never be known till it is 
 revealed at the last day." 
 
 Another instance is that of a cotempo- 
 rary of Mr. Smith, Mr. Nathaniel Ripley 
 Cobb, at Boston, who died only seven 
 months after him. I\Ir. Cobb was a mer- 
 chant in that city, and a member of one of 
 its Baptist churches. At the age of nine- 
 
 teen he publicly professed his faith in- 
 Christ, devoting himself to the service of 
 God in the sphere in which Providence 
 had placed him, considering himself under 
 the same obligation to employ his business 
 talent for the glory of his Saviour that de- 
 volved on the minister of the Gospel to 
 consecrate the talents intrusted to him for 
 the same great end. 
 
 At the age of twenty-three he drew up 
 and subscribed the following remarkable 
 document : 
 
 " By the grace of God, I will never be 
 worth more than 50,000 dollars. 
 
 " By the grace of God, I will give one 
 fourth of the nett profit of my business ta 
 charitable and religious uses. 
 
 " If I am ever worth 20,000 dollars, I 
 will give one half of my nett profits ; and 
 if I am ever worth 30,000 dollars, I will 
 give three fourths ; and the whole after 
 50,000. So help me God, or give to a 
 more faithful steward and set me aside." 
 
 " To this covenant," says his memoir, 
 " he adhered with conscientious fidelity. 
 He distributed the profits of his business 
 with an increasing ratio, from year to 
 year, till he reached the point which he- 
 had fixed as a limit to his property, and 
 then gave to the cause of God all the- 
 money which he earned. At one time, 
 finding that his property had increased be- 
 yond 50,000 dollars, he at once devoted 
 the surplus, 7500 dollars, as a foundation 
 for a professorship in the Newton Theo- 
 logical Institution. 
 
 " On his deathbed he said to a friend, in 
 allusion to the resolutions quoted above,. 
 ' By the grace of God — nothing else — by 
 the grace of God, I have been enabled, un- 
 der the influence of these resolutions, to 
 give away more than 40,000 dollars. How 
 good the Lord has been to me !' " 
 
 Mr. Cobb — such is the testimony of those 
 who, like myself, knew him well — was 
 also an active, humble, and devoted Chris- 
 tian, seeking the prosperity of feeble 
 churches ; labouring to promote the be- 
 nevolent institutions of the day ; punctual 
 in his attendance at prayer-meetings, and 
 anxious to aid the inquiring sinner ; watcli- 
 ful for the eternal interests of those under 
 his charge : mild and amiable in his de- 
 portment ; and, in the general tcnour of his 
 life and character, an example of consist- 
 ent piety. 
 
 His last sickness and death were peace- 
 ful, yea, triumphant. *' It is a glorious 
 thing," said he, " to die. I have been ac- 
 tive and busy in the world — I have enjoyed 
 as much as any one — God has prospered, 
 me — I have everything to bind me here — I 
 am happy in my family — I have property 
 enough — but how small and mean does 
 this world appear when we are on a sick- 
 ])ed! Nothing can equal my enjoyment 
 in the near view of heaven. My hope in 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 329 
 
 Christ is worth infinitely more than all 
 other things. The blood of Christ — the 
 blood of Christ — none but Christ ! O how 
 thankful I feel that God has provided a 
 way that I, sinful as I am, may look for- 
 ward with joy to another world, through 
 his dear Son." 
 
 But I know no instance of more syste- 
 matic and long-continued benevolence, nor 
 one that produced equal fruit from similar 
 resources, than that of the late Mr. Solo- 
 mon Goodell, of Vermont, who died when 
 about seventy. Mr. Goodell was a farmer. 
 The following notice of him, though long, 
 will be read with interest. It is from a 
 source worthy of all confidence. 
 
 " About the year 1809, the writer of these 
 lines observed a donation of 100 dollars to 
 the Connecticut Missionary Society, pub- 
 lished in the annual accounts as from Mr. 
 Goodell. Such donations were, at that 
 time, very uncommon in this country, and 
 with regard to that society, nearly or quite 
 unprecedented. The thought occurred, 
 that doubtless some gentleman of inde- 
 pendent fortune had thought proper to take 
 up his residence in the interior of Vermont, 
 and that he considered the society just na- 
 med a good channel for his pious benefi- 
 cence. This conclusion was strengthened 
 by seeing a similar donation from the same 
 source at the return of each successive 
 year for a considerable period. 
 
 " When the American Board of Foreign 
 Missions began its operations, Mr. Goodell 
 did not wait for an agent to visit him, but 
 sent a message (or came himself) more 
 than fifty miles, to a member, of the Board, 
 saying that he wished to subscribe 500 dol- 
 lars for immediate use, and a thousand for 
 the permanent fund. He sent $50 as ear- 
 nest-money, and said he would forward the 
 remaining $450 as soon as he could raise 
 that sum ; and would pay the interest an- 
 nually upon the 1000 dollars until the prin- 
 cipal should be paid. This engagement he 
 punctually complied with, paying the in- 
 terest, and just before his death transfer- 
 ring notes and bonds secured by mortga- 
 ges, which (including the thousand dollars 
 above mentioned) amounted to 1708 dol- 
 lars, 37 cts. ; that is, a new donation was 
 made of 708 dollars, 37 cts., to which was 
 afterward added another bond and mort- 
 gage of 350 dollars. 
 
 " Before this last transaction, he had 
 made repeated intermediate donations. At 
 one time he brought to the Rev. Dr. Ly- 
 man, of Hatfield (the member of the Board 
 above referred to), the sum of 465 dollars. 
 After the money was counted. Dr. Lyman 
 said to him, ' I presume, sir, you wish this 
 sum endorsed upon your note of 1000 dol- 
 lars.' ' Oh, no,' was his reply ; ' I believe 
 that note is good yet. This is a separate 
 matter.' He then expressed his wish that 
 the money might be remitted towards re- 
 
 pairing the loss sustained by the Baptist- 
 missionaries at Serampore. He regretted 
 that he had not been able to make the sum 
 500 dollars ; consoled himself with the 
 thought that he might do it still, at some 
 period not very far distant ; and said that, if 
 any of the bank-notes proved less valuable 
 than specie, he would make up the deficien- 
 cy. 
 
 " Mr. Goodell had made what he thought 
 suitable provision for his children as he 
 passed through life. After consulting his 
 wife, he left her such portion of his estates 
 as was satisfactory to iier, gave several 
 small legacies, and made the Board his 
 residuary legatee. He supposed that the 
 property left to the Board by will would 
 not be less than 1000 dollars ; but, as some 
 part of it was, and still is unsaleable, the 
 exact amount cannot be stated.* 
 
 " On visiting Mr. Goodell at his house, 
 you would find no gentleman with an inde- 
 pendent fortune, but a plain man in mod- 
 erate circumstances, on one of the rudest 
 spots in the neighbourhood of the Green 
 Mountains, every dollar of whose proper- 
 ty was either gained by severe personal 
 labour, or saved by strict frugality, or re- 
 ceived as interest on small sums lent to his 
 neighbours. His house was comfortable,, 
 but, with the farm on which it stood, was 
 worth only between 700 and 1000 dollars. 
 His income was derived principally from 
 a dairy. 
 
 " Besides the donations above mention- 
 ed, Mr. Goodell made many smaller ones 
 to missionary societies formed to send the 
 Gospel to new settlements. He paid fifty 
 dollars or more, at one time, to a mission- 
 ary whom he employed to preach in the 
 destitute towns near him. He aided in the 
 education of pious young men for the min- 
 istry, by furnishing them with money 
 for their necessary expenses. He discov- 
 ered no ostentation, so far as we have been 
 able to learn, in his religious charities. 
 Certain it is that he always appeared to 
 consider himself as the obliged party, and 
 as obtaining a favour from societies which 
 he made the almoners of his bounty. Far- 
 thest of all was he from supposing that his 
 charitable exertions could make any atone- 
 ment for sin, or authorize any claims upon 
 the divine mercy. He held to the most 
 entire self-renunciation, and to depcndance 
 upon Christ alone." 
 
 A very lovely example of benevolence 
 is to be found in one of our large cities. 
 It is the case of a comparatively young 
 man, who was born of parents belonging 
 to the Episcopal Church, and was taught 
 the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed 
 by his pious mother ; he was instructed in 
 
 * In the summary view of -Mr. GoodcH's donations 
 in aid of missions to the heathen, we find that, from 
 the 12th of February, 1812, to the lOtli of November, 
 1816, they amounted to 3885 dollars, 10 cts. 
 
330 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 a Presbyterian Sunday-school, learned his 
 occupation (that of an apothecary) with a 
 Baptist, and was brought to a saving knowl- 
 edge of Christ under the preaching of the 
 Methodists. After having gained enough 
 to furnish a comfortable competency to 
 those of his family who are dependant upon 
 him, he now gives all his nett profits to the 
 promotion of the cause of his Lord and 
 Master. Nor does he confine his charities 
 to any one channel, or to any one denomi- 
 nation of Christians. On the contrary, his 
 dehght is to aid every good work, no mat- 
 ter by whom it may be prosecuted. It is 
 astonishing to learn what this devoted and 
 excellent young man has been able to do 
 during the period of ten years. 
 
 One of the most remarkable instances of 
 benevolence I have known was that of a 
 coloured woman, who gave sixty dollars 
 on one occasion to educate pious but poor 
 young men for the ministry. She sup- 
 ported herself by her labour as a servant. 
 "When she offered the above sum, the agent 
 refused to receive it all until pressed by 
 the humble donor, who said that she had 
 reserved five dollars ; that she had no one 
 dependant on her, and that she hoped to 
 earn enough to provide for her wants in 
 her last sickness, and for her funeral : nor 
 in this was she disappointed. She often 
 gave large sums, for one in her circum- 
 stances, and rejoiced to have it in her power 
 to do anything for Christ and his cause. 
 
 Would that I could say that such benev- 
 olence is universal among the Christians 
 of the United States. Alas ! all that is 
 done by too many of our merchants and 
 others, who profess to love Him who died 
 to save the world, is in reality nothing in 
 comparison with the means which they 
 have, or have had. Too many have in- 
 dulged in a luxurious and expensive style 
 of living, while they knew that men were 
 dying in their sins, and ignorant of the 
 Gospel. It is for this sin, with others, 
 that God has caused so many of our rich 
 Christians to lose their riches in the com- 
 mercial and financial distress with which 
 the country has been visited during the 
 last few years. Nevertheless, it is cer- 
 tainly true that the spirit of benevolence 
 is extending itself more and more among 
 the Christian portion of the community. 
 May God hasten the day when Christian 
 men, in all spheres, will deliberately act 
 on the principle of glorifying God in their 
 business, and live for the promotion of His 
 cause, labouring as diligently to make 
 money for this high purpose as they now 
 do for their own gratification. Such a day 
 must come, or I see not how the world is 
 ever to be converted to Christ. 
 
 XI. Misconception and Misrepresenta- 
 tions ABROAD. — To notice all the miscon- 
 ceptions and misrepresentations which are 
 prevalent in some, if not in all portions 
 
 of Europe, respecting the religious and 
 moral condition of America, is wholly im- 
 possible in a work like this ; we must, 
 therefore, confine our attention to but a 
 few of them. 
 
 1. One of the most common objections 
 against the religious institutions of this 
 country is, that they have not prevented 
 the bankniptcies and other species of dis- 
 honesty which have here occurred, especi- 
 ally of late years. But is it reasonable to 
 make the religious institutions of a coun- 
 try responsible for the occurrence of such 
 things ] Must the churches in America be 
 blamed for the unwise legislation of the 
 country, as well general as local, which 
 has been the primary cause of the over- 
 trading and inordinate speculation which 
 prevailed a few years ago, and which was 
 so disastrous in its reaction ? Must they 
 be accountable for the avidity with which 
 the foreign merchant, manufacturer, and 
 money-lender encouraged the adventurous 
 American merchant and trader to purchase 
 their goods on credit, and invest their 
 money in American stocks, often with lit- 
 tle or no effort to make a proper discrimi- 
 nation between them ? Must they be ex- 
 pected not only to prevent our own people, 
 whether in an individual or a corporate 
 capacity, from committing acts of rascal- 
 ity, but also to exert a similar influence 
 upon the foreign adventurers Avho come 
 among us from all parts of the Old World 
 (and their number is not small), the real 
 object of many of whom is to swindle the 
 American creditor out of all they can, and 
 then escape to Europe ] Take our mer- 
 chants who are engaged in foreign com- 
 merce in the mass, and I hesitate not to 
 say that, as a body, they have acted with 
 as much good faith as any men in similar 
 circumstances have ever done, during the 
 last seven or eight years of commercial 
 and financial difficulty through which the 
 country has passed. Many of them ruined 
 themselves in endeavouring to meet their 
 engagements abroad, by paying an exor- 
 bitant interest on the loans which they 
 made for that purpose. I speak here of 
 them as a body ; that there have been in- 
 stances of dishonesty among them will not 
 be denied, nor will any one be astonished 
 at it. 
 
 Our General Government has not failed 
 to meet its engagements, nor is it likely 
 to do so. And as to our twenty-nine 
 states and territories, more than one third 
 of them have no debts whatever ; more 
 than another third have not failed for 
 a single day to meet their engagements ; 
 and of the others who have for a time 
 failed to do so, only one has avowed and 
 acted upon the doctrine of " repudiation," 
 and that in the case of a loan which the 
 Legislature of that state believed to have 
 been fraudulently contracted. But this 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 331 
 
 doctrine of repudiation is itself repudiated 
 with scorn in all other parts of the Union, 
 and will be so in the state in which it had 
 its origin. Some of our states are not at 
 present able to meet the engagements 
 which they made a few years ago in the 
 enormous loans which they contracted at 
 home and abroad, in order to accomplish 
 the extensive lines of canals and railroads 
 which they undertook during the years of 
 unbounded, and, I must say, unnatural pros- 
 perity which the country enjoyed. But 
 they will ultimately, I doubt not, fulfil all 
 these engagements faithfully. They feel 
 unable to do so now, but they have not 
 repudiated. On this subject, the following 
 extract from a sermon preached in the 
 city of Philadelphia,* on a public occasion, 
 expresses the opinions and feelings of 
 every Christian minister in the land. 
 
 " The doctrine of repudiation, upon which 
 the changes have been rung throughout Eu- 
 rope to our great discredit, has, 1 am hap- 
 py to believe, but few advocates in our 
 Commonwealth. There is a vast differ- 
 ence in point of honour and morality in ad- 
 mitting the justice of a claim, but inability 
 to meet it, and denying that any such claim 
 exists. Men, whose honesty is above sus- 
 picion, sometimes become involved and are 
 utterly unable to meet their engagements. 
 It maybe so with a community, a state, or 
 a nation. It is deeply to be lamented that 
 such an exigency should ever occur. The 
 effect is eminently disastrous in impairing 
 public confidence, and weakening the ties 
 which should bind men together as a great 
 common brotherhood. But poverty is not 
 necessarily a crime in a government any 
 more than it is in an individual. Public en- 
 gagements may not be met at the time, and 
 yet the public faith may eventually be pre- 
 served inviolate. I have nothing to say in 
 defence of those who advocate the doctrine 
 of repudiation in any form or under any cir- 
 cumstances. They deserve all the obloquy 
 and reproach which is heaped upon them. 
 It is nothing better than public swindling, 
 where the means of redress are placed be- 
 yond the reach of those who are wronged. 
 It matters not a particle that the money bor- 
 rowed has been misapplied, or squandered 
 in projects which yield no profit. This is 
 our misfortune, or, it may be, our fault. 
 But it does not make void a solemn com- 
 pact, in which the public faith has been 
 pledged. I cannot believe that the mis- 
 chievous, disgraceful sentiments which 
 have been promulgated by a few on this 
 subject, will meet with anything like gen- 
 eral favour. Our resources, our love of 
 justice, and our honour abroad and at home, 
 all forbid such a resort to relieve ourselves 
 from a pecuniary pressure. It is better to 
 submit to any personal sacrifices than to 
 
 * By the Rev. Mr. Rood. 
 
 bear the stigma of making loud professions 
 and solemn promises to swindle honest and 
 unsuspecting creditors. Our debts to the 
 last cent must be paid, whatever struggles 
 the effort may cost. On this point there 
 must be no shuffling or evasion, but an hon- 
 est acknowledgment of our responsibili- 
 ties, and a steady and honest aim to meet 
 them. With this disposition prevalent, and 
 proved by corresponding action, the voice 
 of vituperation and abuse will be hushed, 
 and our enemies abroad and at home will 
 confess that they have been too hasty and 
 rash in their opinions of our national integ- 
 rity." 
 
 We are willing that religion should be 
 held accountable for a great deal ; but we 
 are not willing that the church in America 
 should be blamed for not preventing what 
 the churches in no other countries have 
 been able to prevent. The members prop- 
 er of all our churches, evangelical and un- 
 evangelical, do not exceed a fifth part of 
 our population ; and though the influence 
 which they exert is unquestionably as sal- 
 utary as that of any other body of equal 
 number in the world, yet it is obvious they 
 cannot control circumstances such as I 
 have alluded to. Would the churches in 
 Great Britain, France, Holland, Germany, 
 or any other country, like to be held re- 
 sponsible for all the acts of legislation, do- 
 mestic and foreign, of their respective 
 countries, and all the villanies which have 
 been and are annually perpetrated in them ? 
 I think not ; nor should they apply to their 
 brethren in America a rule by which they 
 would not like to be measured them- 
 selves.* 
 
 •2. The Political disturbances which oc- 
 cur in America are not unfrequently spo- 
 ken of in Europe in a way that conveys a 
 reflection upon the churches of this land, 
 as if they ought to prevent these things. 
 That these disturbances do take place, no 
 one will deny. There is not a good man 
 in the United Stales who has not lament- 
 ed what are called the " Abolition Riots," 
 and other disgraceful scenes which have 
 occurred within the last few years. These 
 disturbances, however, have been greatly 
 exaggerated as to their frequency and 
 their extent, in the reports which reach 
 Europe. Our newsmongers, in their ea- 
 
 * A good deal has been said in Europe, by men 
 who have travelled in America, respecting the im- 
 positions which they have suffered in this country. 
 There is no Christian man in the United States who 
 is not distressed when he hears of such things. But 
 is it just to blame the whole people of the land and 
 their religious institutions for such occurrences? 
 The author of this book has travelled much in ahnost 
 every country in Europe, and he can ailirm, with 
 truth, that he has suffered impositions, and some of 
 them very gross, in them all ; but he would deem 
 himself utterly destitute of common sense, as well 
 as of that charity svhich his religion requires, if he 
 were to judge the people of any of those countries by- 
 such instances. 
 
332 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 gerness to concoct a piquant article of 
 news for those for whom they cater, often 
 give the most astounding exaggerations 
 of what was a dispute or open quarrel be- 
 tween some firemen, or between the blacks 
 and whites in the suburbs of our cities, 
 or the interruption which some lecturer on 
 slavery has encountered in some of our vil- 
 lages.* These representations go abroad, 
 are circulated there, and lead many peo- 
 ple to think that our whole country is in 
 a continual state of disorder. But every 
 American knows how to appreciate these 
 reports, and is no way concerned about 
 them, except to regret their occurrence. 
 Indeed, neither their frequency nor their 
 nature is such as to give him any seri- 
 ous apprehensions. For these things are 
 local, unfrequent, and wholly insignificant 
 in comparison with the bruit which our 
 newspapers make about them. And they 
 no more affect the peace of the country 
 than the passing cloud ruffles the bosom 
 of our beautiful lakes. 
 
 Within the last seven or eight years 
 there have been some disgraceful instan- 
 ces of summary punishment, without the 
 intervention of a proper trial before the 
 courts of law, of some gamblers, swindlers, 
 and negroes (who had committed shock- 
 ing crimes) in some of our Southwestern 
 States and Territories. But these instan- 
 ces have hardly exceeded in number that 
 of the ten years in which they have oc- 
 curred. They took place, too, in a part 
 of the country which is new, and very 
 thinly settled ; where religious institutions 
 have scarcely taken root, and where the 
 forms in which the administration of jus- 
 tice is carried on have hardly begun to 
 exist. However much every well-inform- 
 ed, good man in America must lament 
 these things, he cannot but be less aston- 
 ished at their occurrence than at the in- 
 frequency of them.f No man can look at 
 the great extent of even the settled por- 
 tion of the United States, the long line of 
 
 * A great deal has been said in Europe about the 
 prejudice which exists in America against Ifce col- 
 oured people, and the difficulty of the two races 
 living together. But it is a singular and indisputa- 
 ble fact, that almost all the disturbances (which, af- 
 ter all, do not amount to much) that occur between 
 the blacks and whites in the suburbs of Philadel- 
 phia, New- York, and other cities, take place be- 
 tween the former atid the Germans and Irish wWh 
 live in those districts. 
 
 t When we speak of the instances of disorders 
 which sometimes occur in ihe Southwestern and 
 Western districts of the country, it is worth while 
 to notice the remarkable instances of the triumph of 
 order which are also sometimes witnessed in them, 
 amid very peculiar circumstances. A few years ago, 
 a man committed murder at the lead mines of Du- 
 buque, in what is now Iowa Territory, before there 
 was any sort of political government established 
 there. The people assembled of their own accord, ar- 
 rested the murderer, chose judges, constituted a 
 court, and gave him a fair trial before a jury. He was 
 condemned after such a trial, and peaceably executed ! 
 
 seacoast which bounds the country on the- 
 east and south, of wilderness frontier on 
 the west, the mountain ranges in the cen- 
 tre, and the forests which abound almost 
 everywhere, which furnish innumerable 
 facilities for the commission of crime and 
 escape from punishment, without being 
 surprised that we have had so few disturb- 
 ances of a serious character, especially 
 when we have had the element of slavery, 
 with all its concomitant evils, to augment 
 the difficulty of our position. It would re- 
 quire the army of the Czar of all the 
 Russias to keep up a strong armed police, 
 which some upbraid us for not having, and 
 which would be necessary, if it were not 
 that the moral influence which pervades 
 the country — and which owes it existence 
 to our religious institutions — furnishes a 
 substitute which is infinitely better. We 
 have had three attempts, one in Pennsyl- 
 vania, one in South Carolina, and one in 
 Rhode Island, not to overthrow the political 
 institutions of the country, but to obtain, 
 redress of grievances, real or imaginary, in 
 an extra-constitutional way ; and yet ali 
 three were suppressed without the loss of 
 one life taken away either in battle or hy 
 the administration of law. To what was 
 this owing 1 To the patience, the concili- 
 ation, and the due use of argument which 
 the Christianity of the country could alone 
 inspire and teach.* 
 
 A few other facts may be stated to show 
 the happy influence which Christianity ex- 
 erts in the United States in securing the 
 maintenance of order in a nation of eigh- 
 teen and a half millions. 
 
 Notwithstanding the unbounded facilities- 
 for highway robberies in almost all sec- 
 tions of the country, who has ever heard 
 of the existence of hordes of banditti 
 either in our mountains or our forests ! 
 And how few highway robberies and mur- 
 ders, comparatively, have ever taken place 
 in this country ! In many of the Western 
 States, a solitary man, or even a boy, may 
 be seen carrying the mail on horseback 
 through unbroken forests, from town to 
 
 * That the political institutions of the United 
 States rest upon a pretty sure basis, and are deeply 
 planted in the afl'ections of the people, is most cer- 
 tain, whatever inferences foreigners may sometimes 
 make from the language uttered in moments of ir^ 
 ritation and despondency by the organs of our politi- 
 cal parties in the hour of defeat or disappointment. 
 In proof of this, the fact might be cited that two 
 newspapers have been published for several years iu 
 the city of New-York, one in French and the other 
 in English, which ably advocate the principles of 
 monarchy as it e.^ists in France and P^ngland, and 
 incessantly attack and vilify the political institutions 
 and the measures of the country which furnishes 
 them hospitality and protection. And what is the 
 effect? These, perhaps, are read by the foreigners 
 among us — for whom they are in fact published — 
 and by some of our own people. But no American 
 has the slightest regard for what they say, nor does 
 the government for a moment trouble itself about 
 them. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 333 
 
 town, in perfect security. With such a 
 [population as is to be found in most coun- 
 tries in Europe, coul'd such a thing be done 
 with safety ] 
 
 There have been seasons of great excite- 
 ment, when the nation was agitated to its 
 centre. For instance, during the recent 
 miparalleled commercial distress, when so 
 many banks, and so many of our best mer- 
 chants and traders, our enterprising me- 
 clianics and manufacturers — and, indeed, 
 so many men in all the walks of industry, 
 and in every station of life — were ruined. 
 How was all this borne ■? Was there the 
 slightest attempt to seek redress by revo- 
 lution 1 No. The government was se- 
 verely blamed ; all these evils were be- 
 lieved, by probably a majority of the peo- 
 ple, to have been occasioned by unwise 
 legislation, obstinately persevered in ; and 
 yet not a gun was seized, not a sword was 
 drawn, and not one human life was lost 
 during the long and dreadful crisis. The 
 only resort was to the ballot-box, as our 
 elections are often termed. 
 
 Take another instance. The autumn of 
 1840 witnessed the greatest political strug- 
 gle which the coinitry has ever seen. The 
 question was that of maintaining or of 
 overthrowing the party in power, in the 
 election of a President. Nearly two mill- 
 ions and a half of men resorted to their 
 respective places of voting, and gave their 
 votes for one or the other of the two can- 
 didates. The excitement was almost un- 
 paralleled. At every poll, or place of 
 holding the election, crowds of people as- 
 sembled on the day which was to decide 
 the question ; and yet not one person was 
 either killed or injured, so far as I have 
 heard, in this great political contest. Could 
 such a thing have occurred in the British 
 realms, or in France, or any other country 
 in the world 1 I believe not.* 
 
 In the British realm, if we suppose the 
 population to be 26 millions (we speak of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, and the islands 
 adjacent), there is one regular soldier for 
 about 260 individuals ; in France, the army 
 of the line is 400,000, by which if we divide 
 the population of the kingdom, now thirty- 
 four millions, we have one soldier for 85 
 inhabitants ; while in the United States, 
 whose standing army was for the period 
 of more than 20 years which immediately 
 succeeded 1815, but 6000 men, and is now 
 only 8000, there is one soldier to 2312 in- 
 dividuals in the population. And yet there 
 has been many a single year in which more 
 people have been killed in broils and emeutf.i 
 
 * Within the last five years there have been more 
 serious broils and more lives lost in the political strug- 
 gles in Canada, on our borders, though under the 
 strong government of England, and in presence of a 
 standing army of 15 or 20 thousand men, than have 
 taken place in the United States from the first. And 
 yet Canada has not more than eleven or twelve hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants. 
 
 (insurrections) in both France and the 
 British realm, than have lost their lives in 
 all the " mobs" and " riots"— political, reli- 
 gious, anti-abolitional, anti-gambling, etc. 
 —that have occurred in the United States 
 since the independence of the country was 
 estabhshed, sixty years ago. What a refu- 
 tation does this fact furnish of all the 
 miserable charges which are heard in Eu- 
 rope respecting the " riots," " disorders," 
 etc., alleged to be continually occurring in 
 America ! 
 
 Nothing strikes the observation more of 
 one who comes from the Old World, where 
 he cannot turn the corner of a street in the 
 principal cities and towns, especially on 
 the Continent, without meeting a soldier, 
 upon his landing in the United States, than 
 the almost complete absence of all mili- 
 tary force. How is it that such force can 
 be dispensed with 1 Only because of the 
 widespread and salutary influence of Chris- 
 tianity. If we have " disturbances" and 
 " riots" sometimes — which will not be de- 
 nied — we have fewer of them than any 
 other country of equal population in the 
 world.* 
 
 3. The American people have been rep- 
 resented sometimes by foreigners as being 
 an immoral people. Now, although 1 know 
 it is not easy to reply to such charges in 
 a satisfactory manner in the very restrict- 
 ed space which I must allow to them, 
 nevertheless, I will say a few words upon 
 this topic. 
 
 That there are vices and crimes in 
 America, and in no inconsiderable amount, 
 is without hesitation acknowledged. But 
 that they exist to such an extent as to jus- 
 tify the assertion that the American peo- 
 ple are par excellence an immoral nation, is 
 denied. 
 
 It is certainly not extraordinary, as has 
 been well remarked by a writer in a late 
 number of the Westminster Review, that 
 there should be in the United States swin- 
 dlers, counterfeiters, thieves, bigamists, 
 murderers, and other criminals, since, in 
 addition to those of indigenous growth, 
 they receive so many from the Old World. 
 This is a correct view of the subject. For 
 it is a fact, that while there are cases in 
 which foreign criminals, especially those 
 who have committed crimes which most 
 deeply affect the conscience and heart, 
 
 *■ It is sometimes amusing to a well-informed 
 American to hear in Europe the reports which are 
 circulated there respecting the riots in our American 
 cities. Take one for a sample. Two or three years 
 ago a "dreadful abolition riot" occurred in Philadel- 
 phia, in which it was said that there was much fight- 
 ing in the streets, with guns and other deadly weap- 
 ons ; and yet, wonderful to be told, no person was 
 killed, or even very seriously wounded, I believe! 
 And this was said to occur in a country where so 
 large a portion of ihe people possess lire-aims, and 
 know how to use them better than the people of any 
 other land I Verily, it requires strong credulity to be- 
 lieve that such riots can be very dreadful. 
 
334 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 who have come to our shores and changed 
 their names, reform and do well in a land 
 where their past history is unknown (and 
 certainly the friends of humanity must re- 
 joice that it is so), there are very many 
 in which it is otherwise. A man who has 
 been a thief, a robber, a counterfeiter, a 
 bigamist, in Europe, is not likely to reform 
 in America, unless arrested by God's grace. 
 There is more hope of a man who has 
 committed manslaughter, or even murder, 
 than of him. 
 
 A few general statements will, however, 
 best express all- that I have to say on this 
 subject. 
 
 With the exception, perhaps, of Scot- 
 land, there is no country in Christendom 
 where the Sabbath is as well observed as 
 it is in the United States. Of this any one 
 who has extensively travelled in the Old 
 World cannot fail to be convinced when 
 he lands at any of our cities, I care not 
 which, excepting New-Orleans, which is 
 more of a foreign city than any other. It 
 is the capital of a French state, where 
 American influence, though fast gaining 
 ground, is still far inferior to that of the 
 French and the Spanish who remain in it. 
 But the Protestant religion, when it gains 
 the ascendancy, will produce there the 
 same good eflfects in this respect which it 
 does elsewhere.* 
 
 Although thieves and robbers are not 
 wanting in our large cities and towns, 
 where all the world over such people most 
 congregate and find the greatest facilities 
 for their nefarious vocation, yet, taking the 
 country at large, it will be difficult to name 
 another where property is more safe, or 
 where people live in greater security. 
 
 As to murder, the most horrible of all 
 crimes, the most exact enumeration has 
 never been able to show that more than one 
 hundred cases have occurred, and of late 
 years not much more than one half that 
 number, in any one year. This number is 
 sufficient to excite deep distress in the heart 
 of every good man ; but it is less than that 
 which takes place in many other countries 
 between which and ours comparisons on this 
 
 * As to travelling on the Sabbath, there is every 
 prospect that the establishment of railroad and steam- 
 boat lines, taken in connexion with the just senti- 
 ments which prevail among the pious and strictly 
 moral portion of the population, will, in time, almost 
 wholly put an end to it, especially on the long and 
 important routes. Railroad and steamboat compa- 
 nies already know that they gain nothing by running 
 their cars and their boats on the Sabbaih, owing to 
 the comparative fewness of the travellers on that 
 day. By stopping their cars and their boats on that 
 day, they will save one seventh part of their expen- 
 ses, give tlieir labourers and agents the rest they 
 need, and be sure of having on Monday the persons 
 whom they Vkfould otherwise have carried on Sun- 
 day. Indeed, if it were not for the carrying of the 
 mail on the part of the government, there would be 
 no great difficulty in causing the cars and steam- 
 boats to cease on the principal routes. 
 
 point as well as others are sometimes in- 
 stituted. For instance, in England and 
 Wales alone since the year 1812, the num- 
 ber of convictions for murder has varied 
 from 60 to 75, while the executions have 
 been in the proportion of about one to four 
 of the convictions. Were the comparison 
 to be made between the United States and 
 Great Britain and Ireland, it would be most 
 decidedly in favour of the former. The 
 murders in France are not only more fre- 
 quent than those of the United States, but 
 often more diabolically savage and shock- 
 ing, as the records of her criminal coui-ts 
 clearly show.* 
 
 And though there is a considerable- 
 amount of prostitution in some of our large 
 cities on the seaboard — as, for instance, 
 New-York,f Philadelphia, Baltimore, and = 
 New-Orleans — and something of it in the 
 largest interior cities, yet, take the nation 
 as a whole, there is far less of this sin than 
 is to be found in most countries in Europe. 
 In many of our cities and towns of ten and 
 twenty thousand inhabitants, public prosti- 
 tution is almost unknown. Scarcely any- 
 thing of the kind is seen in Boston, and 
 other chief places in New-England. In no 
 nation in the world, I am sure, is there a 
 greater amount of virtue among ladies, both 
 married and unmarried, taken as a body. 
 Foreigners are shocked at the familiarity 
 which subsists between the youth of both' 
 sexes with us ; but foreigners, if they knew 
 well the domestic life of our people, would^ 
 know that this familiarity seldom leads to 
 evil consequences in neighbourhoods where 
 the Gospel exerts its powerful influences.. 
 The youth of our religious families are 
 brought up under a strong moral influence,, 
 and are taught to have confidence in each, 
 other, and in themselves ; above all, they 
 are taught to fear God. From their earli- 
 est years the children of both sexes frequent 
 
 * A very large proportion of the murders which 
 are committed in the United States are committed 
 by worthless foreigners. The same thing is true of 
 the robberies and other great crimes which occur 
 among us. Almost ail the riots which take place in. 
 our Atlantic States are made by Irish and Germans ■ 
 congregated in the suburbs of our cities, or working 
 on our railroads and canals. Indeed, it is this for- 
 eign element which gives us the greatest difficulty in 
 almost everything. Not only are very many of our 
 criminals foreigners, but they form a large proportion! 
 — in some places a majority — of the persons in our 
 hospitals. This is not stated as a reproach, but as a 
 fact. 
 
 t I have read, with great astonishment, some re- 
 marks of Mr. Tait, of Edinburgh, on prostitution in 
 New-York, to be found m his recent work on Mag- 
 dalenism (p. 5), and referred to by the Rev. Dr. 
 Wardlaw in his excellent Lectures on Prostitution. 
 The sum of Mr. T.'s statement is, that " that city 
 furnishes a prostitute for every six or seven adults 
 of its male population." I have lived much in New- 
 York, and know something of its moral stale; and I 
 affirm that this statement, founded on an exaggera- 
 ted report published by the Magdalen Society of 
 that city, some nine or ten years ago, is quite incor- 
 rect, and in no way approximates to the truth. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 335 
 
 the same common schools. Even until 
 quite grown up, in many districts they go 
 to school together in the winter season. 
 And yet, how seldom has any evil resulted. 
 There ai'e countries in Europe — it would 
 be invidious to mention them — where such 
 a thing could not be done with safety to 
 their morals, and even where it is thought 
 dangerous to allow large girls to be taught 
 by a male teaciier. 
 
 We have, indeed, enough of the sin of 
 uncleanness to mourn over ; and yet, in 
 comparison with the state of many other 
 countries, we have great reason to bless 
 God for the hallowed influences which His 
 Gospel diffuses among us.* If we have 
 many, too many, alas! among us who have 
 not submitted their hearts to these influen- 
 ces, there are, on the other hand, a great 
 many who have, and who are the " salt of 
 the earth," and the " hght of the world." 
 
 We may be charged, as a people, with 
 being rude, and wanting in habitual polite- 
 ness in our manners. Witlings who visit 
 us to find subjects on which to employ 
 their pens, and with which to garnish their 
 worthless pages, may accomplish their 
 ends, and carry home portfolios laden with 
 stories respecting the oddities and awk- 
 wardness which they may have remarked 
 among certain classes ; but beneath the 
 rough and unpolished exterior of our peo- 
 ple there will be found much sincere be- 
 nevolence, as well as many of those other 
 enduring virtues which conduce to social 
 happiness. t We are, comparatively, a new 
 
 * I have sometimes been amazed to hear the re- 
 marks of foreigners who have undertaken to be cen- 
 sors of American morals. A. certain visitant from 
 Europe, who has written three or four volumes 
 about America, and has undertaken to represent the 
 American cities as remarkable for the prevalence of 
 prostitution, did, nevertheless, when at the dinner- 
 table of a gentleman in the city of Philadelphia, boast 
 of his having visited half of the houses of infamy in the 
 city of New- York, and declared his intention to visit 
 all the rest upon his return to that city — as a matter 
 of curiosity, as he said ! 
 
 A young gentleman, who resides in a city not one 
 hundred miles from that in which this work was 
 written, lately visited America, and spent two years 
 there. On his return home, he spoke disparagingly 
 of the religious state of the country, and charged the 
 merchants of Philadelphia, and especially those of 
 the respectable body of Friends, with being extreme- 
 ly loose in their morals, and unfaithful to their con- 
 jugal relations. And yet this same young man boasts 
 of his having given, when among a tribe of Indians 
 on our borders, a rifle to a chief in exchange for his 
 daughter ; and that, after he had lived with her as 
 his wife for three months, he abandoned her ! The 
 wickedness of such persons is not so wonderful as 
 their intolerable insolence in undertaking to misrep- 
 resent and slander a whole people. But so it ever 
 will be : bad men seek to hide their ovi^n infamy in 
 charging others with the sins of which they are 
 themselves guilty. 
 
 t Among other charges brought against the Amer- 
 icans is one which I must not omit to remark upon, i 
 It is, that they have no discipline in their families ; ! 
 that their children grow up in insubordination, pride, i 
 insolence, and want of respect for old age and pa- 1 
 rental authority. All this is inferred from the re- 
 
 people ; tliis is emphatically true of a large 
 portion of our population. And notwith- 
 standing our vices, whether of native or for- 
 eign origin, there is among us a vast amount 
 of practical and efficient goodness. We 
 have much to learn, but I trust we shall not 
 be slow to imitate whatever is excellent in 
 the manners or the deeds of other nations, 
 _ 4. But the last topic which I shall men- 
 tion, on which we have been the subjects 
 of more misrepresentation and abuse than 
 any other, is slavery. On this difficult and 
 humiliating question I cannot enter into 
 detail. It would require a volume to say 
 all that might be said about it, and even 
 all that ought to be said, in order to make 
 our position to be fully comprehended by 
 foreigners. I can say only a few words. 
 Slavery is an accursed inheritance 
 which the Old World bequeathed to the 
 New. England, France, Spain, and Hol- 
 land, all contributed their respective shares 
 to its introduction and establishment in 
 what is now the United States. Several 
 of the colonies remonstrated against the 
 bringing in of slaves among them. But it 
 was all in vain. Slavery was fastened upon 
 them for the purpose of promoting the 
 commerce of the mother-country, Eng- 
 land. And when the struggle came, by 
 which the colonies were dissevered from 
 Great Britain, slavery was one of the 
 causes which led to that event ; and of all 
 the portions of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, as it was originally drawn up 
 by Mr. Jeff"erson, the most severe was that 
 
 ports of foreigners (who, generally, have had no very 
 good opportunities of knowing the interior life of the 
 families which they may have visited), or from some 
 poor specimens of American families which have 
 gone abroad, or from what they suppose must be the 
 effects of Republican institutions ; just as if Republi- 
 can institutions will not tolerate, or, rather, do not 
 require, due subordination and discipline. 
 
 Now it is not to be denied that there are weak-mind- 
 ed and foolish parents in America, as well as in other 
 countries, who do not govern well their children, but 
 it is their own fault, and not that of the institutions, 
 religious or political, of the country. On the other 
 hand, we have parents, and not a few, who are as 
 rigid in the government of their children as are the 
 Scotch themselves ; we have few teachers who can- 
 not, or who do not, punish their scholars with the 
 rod, if need he ; there is not a college in the land 
 that would not, without a moment's hesitation, expel 
 from its halls the sons of the greatest men in the na- 
 tion, if they deserved it, as I have myself witnessed. 
 In our army, it is true that it is no longer allowed to 
 flog men, save as a commutation for the punishment 
 of death ; but other and severe modes of punishing, 
 though less degrading, are permitted. VVhile in our 
 navy, the discipline, 1 believe, is the most severe in 
 the world. Recently the commandant of a petty 
 brig of war hung up three men for alleged mutiny 
 under the most remarkable circumstances, one of 
 whom was a son of one of the first officers of the 
 government. This instance was summary in its na- 
 ture, quite without a parallel ; and how was it borne 
 by the nation? The overwhelming majority of the 
 people, including almost the v^'hole of the religious 
 portion of them, approved of the act. Would such 
 things be tolerated in a nation in which there is no 
 domestic government ? I think not. 
 
336 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 which related to the slave-trade.* As op- 
 position was made to it by some of the 
 members, it was stricken out in order to 
 secure entire unanimity. 
 
 The war of independence found slavery 
 existing in all the thirteen colonies. Du- 
 ring its progress, or soon after its close, the 
 original four New-England States, Mas- 
 sachusetts, New-Hampshire, Connecticut, 
 and Rhode Island, abolished slavery within 
 their respective limits. Some years later, 
 Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, and New- York 
 followed. In process of time Vermont and 
 Maine, in New-P]ngland, and Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, Illinois, and Michigan, in the West, 
 were formed into states without slavery. 
 To these we may add the two Territories 
 of Iowa and Wisconsin. On the other 
 hand, the six original slaveholding states, 
 Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Caro- 
 lina, South Carolina, and Georgia, remain 
 isuch to the present day, and to them have 
 been added, in the West and Southwest, 
 the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ala- 
 bama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Ar- 
 kansas, and the Territory of Florida. And 
 the number of slaves has augmented from 
 about 600,000, at the close of the Rev- 
 olution, to nearly three millions. How 
 and when the abolition of slavery is to be 
 accomplished in these thirteen states and 
 one territory, is a question which no one 
 can answer. 
 
 It may not be amiss for me to say, how- 
 ever, that this mighty task will never be 
 effected peaceably but through the influ- 
 ence of Christianity. This has accom- 
 plished all that has hitherto been done — 
 the destruction of slavery in seven states, 
 and the prevention of its entrance into six 
 or eight more ; the abolition of the slave- 
 trade before any other nation liad done any- 
 thing on the subject, and the declaring of 
 it to be of the nature of piracy, and as mer- 
 iting the same punishment. And however 
 desperate the struggle may prove to be, 
 she will not shrink from it. 
 
 The noble example of England in abol- 
 ishing slavery in her islands will not be 
 
 * It was in these words : " He (the King of England) 
 has waged cruel war against human nature itself, 
 violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in 
 the persons of a distant people, who never offended 
 him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in 
 another hemisphere, or to more miserable death in 
 their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, 
 the opprobrium of inlidcl powers, is the warfare of 
 the Clinslian King of Great Britain. Determined 
 to keep open a market where men should be bought 
 and sold, he has prostituted his prerogative for sup- 
 pressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or re- 
 strain this execrable commerce. And that this as- 
 semblage of horrors might want no fact of distin- 
 guished dye, he is now e.xcitmg these very people to 
 rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty 
 of which he has deprived them, by murdering the 
 people on whom he also has obtruded them ; thus 
 paying off former crimes committed against the liber- 
 ties of one people, with crimes which he urges them 
 to commit against the lives of another," 
 
 lost upon us. It has given a great impulse 
 to the moral movement which is steadily 
 going on in the community. It is true 
 that, as slavery is by our Constitution left 
 to the government of each slate in which 
 it exists, to be managed by it alone, there 
 can be no such action among us as that of 
 England, by which the overthrow of sla- 
 very in her dominions was effected at a 
 blow. It is in the midst of us ; it is not at 
 a distance. Its destruction with us can be 
 accomplished only by those whose pe- 
 cuniary interests are at stake for its main- 
 tenance. This point foreigners should 
 well comprehend. It is the slaveholders 
 among us, that is, the inhabitants of each 
 slaveholding state, who alone can over- 
 throw it. This it is which makes our po- 
 sition so difficult. 
 
 I am of opinion that it will require many 
 years to efface this dreadful evil and burn- 
 ing disgrace from the midst of us. It will 
 require long and persevering efforts on the 
 part of good men, and a large amount of 
 that " wisdom which cometh down from 
 above." But of one thing I feel very sure : 
 it is, that although some may act rashly, 
 and sometimes attempt to promote the 
 cause by unwise measures; and others 
 may be too supine, and, through fear of 
 evil consequences, not come up to its help 
 as they ought ; although both these parties 
 may charge each other, and perhaps justly, 
 with so acting as to retard the work, yet 
 there is a growing dissatisfaction with this 
 great evil, a conviction that it ought and 
 must be terminated as speedily as possi- 
 ble, consistently with the true interests of 
 all concerned, which will one day lead to 
 its overthrow. I do not know how it will 
 be brought about, but Christianity will ef- 
 fect it. God — our fathers' God — invoked 
 more and more earnestly, as I am sure he 
 is, will, by his providence, open the way 
 for this great achievement. 
 
 To this great struggle, which Christians 
 with us must carry on — let it take what 
 course it may — in order to be successful, 
 we are far from wishing our brethren oi 
 other lands to be indifferent.* We want 
 
 * The visits of foreign philanthropists cannot fail 
 to do good- among us, when made in the spirit of a 
 great and a good man who lately came to us from 
 England,* who travelled throughout all our states, 
 and " reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
 judgment to come;" who, though he neglected no 
 opportunity to speak of the wrongs done to the slave, 
 was ever heard with respect and attention by the 
 slaveholder, for he spoke words of mingled wisdom 
 and love. And when he had accomplished his mis- 
 sion and returned to his native land, he addressed a 
 series of letters to one of our most distinguished 
 statesmen on the subject of slavery, and especially 
 on the effects of its abolition in the British West In- 
 dia Islands, which have been widely and attentively 
 
 * Mr. Gurney, a distinguished member and minister of 
 the Society of Friends, and who, with his excellent brother 
 and sister (Mrs. Elizabeth Fry), is one of the brightest or- 
 naments of humanity. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 337 
 
 their sympathy and their prayers. We 
 wish them to make a proper allowance 
 for the difficulties of our position; and 
 while they reprove our delays and stimu- 
 late our zeal, we wish them to do it in a 
 Christian spirit, not only because it best 
 comports with the religion which we both 
 profess, but also because of its influence 
 upon those among us who are slavehold- 
 ers, the great majority of whom are not 
 religious men. It is easy to grow indig- 
 nant on this subject, and indulge in hard 
 •epithets ; but the " wrath of man worketh 
 not the righteousness of God." There are 
 those abroad who see no difficulties in our 
 position ; to whom the fact that slavery is 
 ■entwined about our very vitals, so far at 
 least, as one half of the country is con- 
 cerned, is of no importance ; and who 
 vainly imagine that it is enough to de- 
 mand that every slaveholder should let his 
 slaves go free. This, indeed, is a very 
 simple way of getting rid of the evil ; and 
 if it were practicable, it would be well 
 enough. So if all mankind would at once 
 of their own accord give up their rebel- 
 lion against God and yield a heartfelt obe- 
 dience to Him, this world might be deliv- 
 ered from sin without the toil of preach- 
 ing the Gospel, and the employment of so 
 many other instrumentalities which are 
 now found to be necessary. And if all 
 the men in the United States who were 
 engaged in the manufacture and sale of 
 intoxicating liquors twenty years ago had, 
 of their own accord, or upon being simply 
 requested or commanded, abandoned their 
 wicked business ; and all who drank such 
 liquors ceased to do so from the same in- 
 fluence, there would have been no need of 
 all the labour and expense which it has 
 cost to promote the cause of Temperance 
 among us. But how vain it is to talk in 
 this way ! To overthrow slavery in the 
 United States is a great work — the great- 
 est and most difficult, I hesitate not to say, 
 that ever man undertook to accomplish. 
 And there is nothing but Christianity, em- 
 ploying its blessed influences, light and 
 LOVE, which can eflTect it. A good deal of 
 time, and a great deal of patience and pru- 
 dence will also be required, if we would 
 see this evil come to an end in a peaceful 
 way. 
 
 We have sometimes been not a little 
 grieved by the severity — no doubt wholly 
 inconsiderate — and the want of discrimi- 
 nation with which some of our Christian 
 brethren in the Old World have spoken and 
 written respecting the American churches, 
 
 read, and which cannot fail to do good. What a 
 contrast between his course and that of some ardent, 
 self-sufficient "friends of humanity," as they consid- 
 er themselves, who have visited us from Europe with- 
 in the last seven years, and who accomphshed no 
 good whatever for the cause which they profess to 
 ihave so much at heart ! 
 
 in relation to this subject. Now I have 
 no disposition to say that the American 
 churches have done all that they ought to 
 do, that they feel all the solicitude, and 
 distress, and sorrow, which they ought for 
 the continued existence of this great evil. 
 There is nothing more probable in itself 
 than that our churches should fail of com- 
 ing up to their whole duty on this subject, 
 more than on almost any other, when we 
 consider how they are situated. I do not 
 say this by way of apology, but to state 
 the case truly. But to accuse our church- 
 es throughout the land with approving of 
 slavery, because, in some parts of the 
 country, they think they are compelled to 
 tolerate it as an evil from which circum- 
 stances do not at present allow them to 
 extricate themselves (and this is the most 
 which can be said against them on this 
 point), is going beyond the bounds of 
 Christian charity. Besides, to charge all 
 the American churches, as well as those 
 in the fifteen states and territories in which 
 slavery is unknown, as those in the thir- 
 teen states, one territory, and one district 
 in which it does still exist, with the sin of 
 "robbery,". "man-stealing," etc., is to be 
 guilty of something more than a mere 
 want of Christian charity. 
 
 Nor are some other denunciations of a 
 sweeping nature much less unjust or inju- 
 rious. " Let America," said a distinguish- 
 ed Christian minister whom we all love, 
 at a missionary meeting in one of the 
 great capitals of Europe, a few years ago, 
 " let America wash the stain of slavery 
 from her skirts, and then she will be worthy 
 to come up and join us in the great work of 
 converting the world." Indeed! and must 
 our American churches be compelled to ab- 
 stain from attempting to obey the command 
 of their risen Saviour— and which may be 
 one of the means of staying, if not averting 
 the divine wrath, which would otherwise 
 overwhelm their guilty country — until their 
 land be freed from slavery V And if they 
 are to be condemned for national sins which 
 they have not been able to overcome, where 
 are the churches which are to cast the first 
 stone at them ? Shall it be those of Eng- 
 land, or France, or Holland ? Blessed be 
 God, our heavenly Father does not use 
 such language towards us. He deigns to 
 bless our humble efforts to make known 
 his Gospel to the heathen nations, notwith- 
 standing our many sins ; nor does He for- 
 bid our co-operating with those who love 
 his name in other lands to make known this 
 great salvation to all men. Still more. He 
 condescends to visit the churches in all parts 
 of our land with the efll'usions of His Holy 
 Spirit, without which, indeed, we might 
 well despair of our country. 
 
 But sympathy, love, prayer, and co-oper- 
 ation better become those who love God 
 in all lands, than crimination and recrim- 
 
338 
 
 RELIGION IN AMERICA. 
 
 illation. They form one vast brotherhood, 
 and their trials, their labours, and their 
 hopes are common. Neither difference of 
 language, nor separating oceans, nor diver- 
 sity of government and of ecclesiastical 
 organizations, nor variety of modes of wor- 
 ship, can divide them. They have their 
 various difficulties to encounter, and their 
 respective works to perform. And how 
 they should delight to encourage each oth- 
 er in every good enterprise, rejoice in each 
 other's success, stimulate and reprove each 
 other (when reproof is necessary) with 
 kindness, and not with bitterness ; and thus 
 strive to hasten the universal triumph of 
 the kingdom of their common Lord ! And 
 how appropriate to them is the prayer of 
 
 England's sweetest religious bard,* witb 
 which we bring this book to a close : 
 
 " Come, then, and, added to thy many crowns, 
 Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth, 
 Thou who alone art worthy ! It was thine 
 By ancient covenant, ere Nature's birth ; 
 And thou hast made it thine by purchase since, 
 And overpaid its value with thy blood. 
 Thy saints proclaim Thee king ; and in their hearts- 
 Thy title is engraven with a pen 
 Dipped in the fountain of eternal love. 
 Thy saints proclaim Thee king ; and thy delay 
 Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see 
 The dawn of thy last advent, long desired, 
 Would creep into the bowels of the hills, 
 And flee for safety to the falling rocks. 
 The very spirit of the world is tired 
 Of its own taunting question, asked so long, 
 ' Where is the promise of your Lord's approacn ?"*■ 
 
 * Cowper — The Task, book vi. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abolition Riots, how viewed in this country, p. 331. 
 " " exaggerated report of, in Europe, 
 
 333, note. 
 Aborigines (see North America). 
 Acadenaies and Grammar-schools, 148. 
 Allenite Methodists, noticed, 262. 
 America (see North America). 
 
 Americans, best method for obtainmg correct knowl- 
 edge of, 29. 
 American Revolution, effects of the, on religion, 102. 
 " morals, character of two foreign censors 
 of, 335, note. 
 American, meaning of, when annexed to religious 
 
 societies, 140, note. 
 American Sunday-school Union and Auxiliaries, 152. 
 " Education Society, origin of the, 157. 
 " Bible Society, notice of the, 166. 
 " Tract Society, operations of the, 167. 
 " Prison Discipline Society, 174. 
 " Home Missionary Society, operations of 
 the, 140. 
 American preaching, character of, 189, 192. 
 " " different methods of, 191. 
 
 " Unitarian Association, 278. 
 " Theology, great achievement of, 291. 
 " Colonization Society, history of the, 314. 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
 sions, origin and constitution of the, 300. 
 
 history of the, 301. 
 
 statistics of the, 304. 
 
 plan of, for training a native ministry, 305. 
 
 — annual meetings of, 306. 
 
 publications of the, 307. 
 
 Andover Theological Seminary, history of the, 160. 
 Anecdote of two young ladies under conviction, 212. 
 Anglo-Saxon Colonists, character of, 23. 
 
 " " effect of Norman conquests upon, in 
 England, 29, 30. 
 Anti-slavery Societies, 176. 
 Associate Reformed Church, 255. 
 Atheists, notice of, 286. 
 
 Atonement, doctrine of, illustrated by American 
 theology, 291. 
 
 Ballou, Rev. H.,work of, on the Atonement alluded 
 
 to, 275. 
 Banditti, no organized hordes of, in United States, 
 
 332. 
 Baptists, Regular, account of the, 229. 
 
 " Independents in church government, 230. 
 
 " Declaration of Faith of, 230. 
 
 " statistics of the, 232. 
 
 " Roger Williams not the foimder of the, 
 231, note. 
 Baptists, Board of Missions of, 309. 
 
 " Home Missions of the, 144. 
 
 " Seventh-day, notice of the, 251. 
 
 " Free- Will, history of the, 251. 
 
 " " Missions of the, 312. 
 
 " Campbellite, account of the, 251. 
 Benevolence, interesting examples of, 329. 
 Bible-classes, 156. 
 Blake, Mr. Joseph, notice of, 63. 
 Bhnd, asylums for the, 180. 
 Boston, early settlement of, 54. 
 Bouck, Hon. W. C, proclamation of, 320. 
 "Brainerd, Rev. David, notice of, 199. 
 
 " " missionary labours of, 295. 
 
 -Burr, Mr. Joseph, and Seminary, notice of, 149. 
 ■" Bush-whacking" defined, 22. 
 
 Camp-meetings, origin and nature of, 216. 
 Carolina, North and South, benefits of dissolution of 
 
 Church and State in, 115. 
 Charters of American Colonies, curious character 
 
 of, 27, 28. 
 Cheever, Rev. G. B., extract from lecture of, 319. 
 Cherokees, removal of the, 298. 
 Christ-ians, origin and belief of the, 280, 281. 
 Christianity, happy influence of, on public order. 
 
 332, 333. 
 Christianity, only remedy for slavery in the United 
 
 Slates, 336, 337. 
 Churches and ministers at the Revolution, 103, 104. 
 " membership in, how obtained, 185. 
 " evangelical, order prevalent in the, 218. 
 " " three divisions of, 220. 
 
 " " general statistics of the, 264, 
 
 265, 269. 
 Churches, evangehcal, missionary efforts of the, 317. 
 Church, relation of unconverted men to the, 187. 
 " union of, with State gradually dissolved, 104. 
 " union of, with Slate, when and how dissolv- 
 ed, and effects, 112, 323, note. 
 Church edifices, how built in cities and large tovras, 
 
 132. 
 Church edifices, how built in new settlements, 134. 
 
 supply of, in the large cities, 134. 
 
 number annually built in United States, 324. 
 
 • eflSciency of Voluntary Principle in erecting, 
 
 324. 
 Church edifices, average size of congregations in, 
 
 324. 
 Church edifices, estimate of number of, annually 
 
 needed, 324. 
 Church edifices, grounds of alleged destitution of. 
 
 325. 
 Cobb, Mr. Nathl. R., charitable resolutions of, 328. 
 Colleges and universities, 150. 
 
 " " effect of state control upon, 
 
 151. ^ 
 
 Colonial era, state of religion in the, 99. 
 Colonists, religious character of the early, 51, 52. 
 Colonization Society, history of the, 314. 
 " advantages of African, 315. 
 
 " plan of Gustavus Adolphus, 68. 
 
 Coloured people, our reported quarrels with the, 332. 
 " " disturbances chiefly between them 
 
 and foreigners, 332, note. 
 Colony, influence of, at Liberia, 315. 
 
 " at Plymouth, account of the, 47-51. 
 " " ecclesiastical regulations of 
 
 the, 84. 
 Colony at Plymouth, causes of aversion of, to prel- 
 acy, 86. 
 Congregations, new, how formed, 133. 
 CongregationaUsts, parent stock of those in Eng- 
 land. 224. 
 Congregationalists, not Dissenters, 225. 
 present religious system of, 225. 
 
 mode of church disciphne among, 226. 
 
 mode of, for supporting public worship, 227, 
 
 nature of the " Associations" of, 228. 
 
 pastoral office among early, lost by dismis- 
 
 sion, 228. 
 
 Congregationalists, ordination among, how perform- 
 ed, 228. 
 
 Congregationahsts not Independents in practice, 229. 
 
 '• Consociations" among, nature of, 229. 
 
 Congregationalism, opinions of, as to preventing 
 heresy, 279. 
 
340 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Connecticut, early settlement of, 17, 56. 
 
 " union of Churcli and State in, dissolved, 
 
 112. 
 Convent at Charlestown, burning of the, 270, note. 
 Conversion of a young man by a particular mode of 
 
 preaching, 205. 
 Covenant, Half-way, introduction of the, 273. 
 Covenanters (see Reformed Presbyterians). 
 
 Deaf and Dumb, history of asylums for the, 179. 
 
 Deists, notice of, 286. 
 
 Delaware, early settlement of, 19, 68. 
 
 " early relations between Church and Stale 
 
 in, 90. 
 Delaware, character of the Swedish settlements on 
 
 the, 68, 69. 
 De Tocqueville, works of, on America noticed, 31, 32. 
 •' erroneous opinions of, noticed, 194, 
 
 note. 
 District of Columbia, origin of the, 35. 
 Dwight, Rev. Dr., opinion of, on union of Church 
 
 and State, 115. 
 
 Education, attention of Puritans to, 147. 
 
 " societies of different sects, 157, 159. 
 
 Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, character of preaching of, 
 198, 274. 
 
 Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, labours of, among the In- 
 dians. 295. 
 
 Eliot, Rev. John, missionary labours of, 294. 
 
 English language first introduced in Dutch church- 
 es of New- York, 65. ' 
 
 Episcopal (see Protestant). 
 
 " Evangelical Association," account of the, 261. 
 
 Evangelical churches, three divisions of, 220. 
 
 statistics of missionary efforts of, 317. 
 
 ■ General statistics of, 264, 265, 269. 
 
 Foreign Evangelical Society, origin of the, 313. 
 Fourierism, notice of, 286. 
 Frelinghuysen, Rev. I. J., notice of, 65. 
 French colonists, character of the, 25. 
 
 Georgia, early settlement of, 19, 63. 
 German colonists, character of the, 24. 
 
 " Reformed Presbyterians, account of the, 260. 
 " Transcendentalism, 278, 279. 
 Germantovvn, Pennsylvania, when founded, 80. 
 Germany, early immigration from, 80, 81. 
 Goodell, Mr. Solomon, systematic benevolence of, 
 
 328. 
 Gurney, Mr., happy influence of visit of, to the Uni- 
 ted States, 336, note. 
 Gustavus Adolphus, colonization plan of, 68. 
 death of, 68. 
 
 Half-way Covenant, introduction of the, 273. 
 Hanover Presbytery, memorial of, to Virginia As- 
 sembly, and opposition to, 106, 108. 
 Harrison, General W. H., a Sunday-school teacher, 
 
 155. 
 Harvard College, when founded, 1 53. 
 
 " " early opposition to Unitarianism 
 
 in, 276. 
 Henrico, University of, noticed, 61. 
 Henry, Hon. Patrick, notice of, 109. 
 Hopkins, Rev. Ur., sermon of, in Boston, 1768, 275. 
 Huguenots, origin of the, 75. 
 
 " immigration of, to America, 77, 78. 
 
 " interesting facts respecting the, 78. 
 
 " eulogiiun on the, 80. 
 
 Hunt, Rev. Robert, notice of, 62. 
 
 Immigration, extent of, from foreign countries. 42. 
 " influence of, on the Voluntary Princi- 
 
 ple, 42, 43. 
 
 Indians, Society for Propagating the Gospel among, 
 277, 278. 
 
 Indians (see Ahnri^ines ami North America). 
 
 Insane, asylums for the, 178. 
 
 Irish colonists, character of the, 24. 
 
 Italian colonists, character of, 25. 
 
 Jefferson, Hon. Thomas, proposal of, for establish- 
 ing religious freedom, 110. 
 
 Jews, notice of the, 283. 
 
 •' American Society for benefit of the, 313. 
 
 Judicial order, striking instance of, in a new settle- 
 ment, 332, note. 
 
 Kentucky, peculiar character of revivals in, 201. 
 Kirkland, Rev. Samuel, missionary labours of, 295,. 
 
 Laidlie, Rev. Dr., anecdote of, 66, note. 
 Lamed, Rev. Sylvester, anecdote of, 188. 
 Liberia, influence of colony at, 315. 
 " Methodist mission at, 316. 
 Lindsay, Memoir of, by Belsham, 276. 
 Livingston, John and Robert, notice of, 65. 
 
 Dr. J. H., notice of, 66. 
 Lowell, Massachusetts, statistics of, 182. 
 Lutheran Church, history and statistics of the, 257,. 
 
 259. 
 Lutheran Church, Theological Seminary of the, 164. 
 " " Foreign Missionary Society of 
 
 the, 312. 
 " Lynch-law" very rarely executed, 332. 
 
 Maryland, early settlement of, 18. 
 
 " effects of early union of Church and State- 
 in, 90, 96. 
 Maryland, early religious toleration in, 62. 
 
 " effects ofdisunion of Church and State in, 
 115. 
 Maryland, Declaration of Rights in. 111. 
 Marryat, Captain, opinions of, noticed, 271, note. 
 Mason, Dr. J. M., originator of Theological Semi- 
 naries, 159. 
 Massachusetts, early settlement of, 17, 52 54, 55. 
 
 " the last to dissolve union of Church, 
 
 and State, 116. 
 Massachusetts Bay Colony, trials and prosperity of, 
 
 55. 
 Massachusetts, dissolution of union of Church and* 
 
 State in, 112. 
 Massacre at St. Charles city, Virginia, notice of, 
 
 61. 
 Maternal Societies, 156. 
 Mather, Cotton, notice of, 101. 
 Mayhew, Rev. Thomas, missionary labours of, 294. 
 Mennonists, account of the, 261. 
 Methodist ministers, salaries of, 323, note. 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, history and organiza- 
 tion of, 245, 246. 
 
 religious belief and discipline of, 246. 
 
 statistics of the, 249. 
 
 Home Missions of, 145. 
 
 Foreign Missions of the, 310. 
 
 Methodists, Primitive, account of the, 262. 
 
 " Allenite, notice of the. 262. * 
 
 " Protestant, origin of the, 262. 
 
 " Calvinistic, notice of the, 263. 
 
 « Stilwell, notice of the, 262. 
 
 Ministers, salaries of, how raised, 136. 
 " extent of support of, 137. 
 " how trained and settled, 138. 
 " proportion of evangelical Protestant, to- 
 the population, 322. 
 Ministers, evangelical, not sufficient for present 
 
 need, 323. 
 Ministers, total amount raised to support, 323. 
 Montgomery, rapid growth of the town of, 135. 
 " Moore's Charity School," notice of, 295. 
 Moravians, notice of the, 81. 
 
 " Church of the, account of, 250. 
 " Foreign Missions of the, 312. 
 Mormons, origin and character of the, 285. 
 Morris, Mr. Samuel, notice of, 105. 
 Muhlenburg, Rev. .Mr., anecdote of, 113. 
 Murders, comparative number of, in England and 
 
 America, 334. 
 Murders, large proportion of, in United States com- 
 mitted by foreigners, 334, note. 
 
 Nassau Hall College, when founded, 67. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ML 
 
 New-England, indebted to the religion of the colo- 
 nists for its character, 32, 33. 
 
 cause of rapid growth of settlements in, 57. 
 
 apology for the Fathers of, 58. 
 
 religious character of, 59. 
 
 influence of early union of Church and State 
 
 in, 91-96. 
 
 relations between Church and State in, 87. 
 
 proposal to divorce the Church from the 
 
 State in, how received, 115. 
 
 introduction and history of Unitarianism in, 
 
 272, 275. 
 
 New-Hampsliire, early settlement of, 17, 57. 
 New-Jersey, early settlement of, 18, 66. 
 
 early eminent ministers of, 67. 
 
 • early relations between Church and State in. 
 
 90. 
 
 College of, established, 67. 
 
 New-Orleans, more of a foreign than American city, 
 
 334. 
 Newton Theological Seminary, notice of, 164. 
 New-York, early settlement of, 18, 64. 
 
 " intolerance of early Episcopacy in, 98. 
 " early Indian war in, 64. 
 " character of first colonists of, 64. 
 " early relation between Church and State 
 in, 90. 
 North America, geography of, 9-11. 
 
 discovery of, noticed, 15. 
 
 account of the Aborigines of, 12-15. 
 
 colonization of, 16-23. 
 
 curious colonial charters of, 27, 28. 
 
 forms of government in, 33, 34. 
 
 views of first settlers of, on rehgious tolera- 
 tion, 38. 
 
 character of early colonists of, 83. 
 
 relations between Church and State in, 84. 
 
 churches and ministers in, at the Revolu- 
 
 tion, 103, 104. 
 
 union of Church and State in, gradually dis- 
 
 solved, 104. 
 
 early efforts to convert the Aborigines of, 293. 
 
 obstacles to conversion of the Aborigines, 295, 
 
 296. 
 
 sentiments respecting the extinction of the 
 Aborigines, 296. 
 
 causes of the decrease of the Aborigines, 296. 
 
 removal of the Indians by Government, 297. 
 
 governmental sanction to missions among 
 
 the Aborigines, 299. 
 
 similarity of original tribes of, 12-15. 
 
 • advance of civilization among Indians of, 299. 
 causes of success of evangelical religion in. 
 
 320. 
 
 General and State Governments of, not indif- 
 ferent to religion, 320. 
 
 grounds of hope in relation to the churches 
 
 in, 321 
 
 union of Church and State in, when termi- 
 
 nated, 323, note. 
 
 foreign objections to rehgious institutions of. 
 
 330. 
 
 • religious institutions of, not chargeable with 
 immoralities, 330. 
 
 religious institutions of, not chargeable with 
 
 political broils, 331. 
 
 ■impositions in, as reported in Europe, 331, 
 
 prejudices against coloured people in, 331, 
 
 note. 
 
 note. 
 
 financial integrity of General and State Gov- 
 ernments of, 330. 
 
 settlement of the interior of, 20-23. 
 
 Northampton, Massachusetts, notice of revival at, 
 198, 274. 
 
 North Carolina, first settlement of, 19, 63. 
 " " early relations between Church and 
 
 State in, 90. 
 
 Owenism, notice of, 286. 
 
 " Panoplist," commencement of, in Boston, 276. 
 
 Peace societies, 176. 
 
 Penn, William, notice of, 69. 
 
 Pennsylvania, early settlement of, 19, 70, 74. 
 
 " character of colonists of, 70. 
 
 Perkins Institution for the Blmd, 180. 
 Philips Academy, notice of, 149. 
 Piedmont, immigration from, 82. 
 Pl)-mouth Colony, account of the, 47-51. 
 
 ecclesiastical regulations of the, 84. 
 
 causes of aversion of, to prelacy, 86. 
 
 Plymouth Company, notice of, 52. 
 Poland, early immigration from, 81. 
 
 " " tradition respecting the, 82. 
 
 Political excitement, recent instances of, and re- 
 sults, 333. 
 
 Political disturbances in United States, how exag- 
 gerated abroad, 331. 
 Political institutions, firm attachment to, 332, note. 
 Poor and afflicted, how provided for, 177. 
 Presbyterian Church, history of the, 238. 
 
 churches, how organized, 233. 
 
 quahfications for ministry in, 233. 
 
 Board of Domestic Missions of, 142. 
 
 mode of communion in the, 187. 
 
 Church Session, how constituted, 234. 
 
 " " deacons not members of, 235, 
 
 Presbytery of the, how constituted, 235. 
 
 — Presbytery, powers of the, 236. 
 
 ministry in the, how hcensed, 235. 
 
 Synod of the, noticed, 230. 
 
 General Assembly of the, nature of, 237. 
 
 character and influence of the, 240. 
 
 origin and progress of Old and New School 
 
 parties in, 242. 
 
 differences between Old and New School, 244. 
 
 the recent separation in the, 243. 
 
 statistics of the, 245. 
 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the, 307, 308. 
 
 Presbyterians, Cumberland, history of the, 252. 
 
 " Reformed, distinguishing traits of, 256. 
 
 Primary schools, 146. 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary, notice of, 163. 
 Prostitution, foreign exaggerated account of, 334, 
 
 note. 
 Protestant religion early established in South Caro- 
 lina, 123. 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, account of the, 220. 
 
 Puseyism, how extensive in the, 223. 
 
 Board of Missions of the, 311. 
 
 Theological Institution of the, 164. 
 
 Providence, Rhode Island, settlement of, 57. 
 Pubhc worship, total cost of, in United States, 324,. 
 
 325. 
 Public opinion, alleged tyranny of, in United States^ 
 
 292, note. 
 Public disturbances and crimes, comparative few- 
 ness of, 332. 
 Puritans, origin and character of the, 44-47. 
 " eulogy on the, 33. 
 " attention of the, to education, 147. 
 " religious views of the, 272. 
 " ecclesiastical usages of the, 272. 
 
 Quakers, history and character of the, 263. 
 " persecution of the, 70, 93. 
 
 Rappists, notice of the, 283. 
 
 Reformed Dutch Church, history of the, 253. 
 
 Home Missions of the, 144. 
 
 Theological Seminary of the, 164. 
 
 Religious liberahty, noted individual instances cf, 
 
 327. 
 Religious institutions of the United States, best 
 
 means of knowing the, 31, 32. 
 Religious liberty, progress of, in America, 130, 318. 
 " " present state of, in America, 318. 
 
 " toleration, extract on, 319. 
 Religion, state of, in the colonial era, 99. 
 " exigencies of, in United States, 131. 
 " evangehcal, causes of success of, in United 
 States, 320. 
 Religion, true source of all success in promoting, 321. 
 
3^ 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 207. 
 
 'Religion, institutions of, not chargeable with public 
 crime, 330. 
 
 Religion, institutions of, not chargeable with politi- 
 cal disturbances, 331. 
 
 Repudiation, wrong impressions respecting, abroad, 
 330. 
 
 Repudiation, doctrine of, how viewed in this coun- 
 try, 3.30. 
 
 Revivals of religion, nature of, 196. 
 
 character of early, 197. 
 
 at Northampton, 198, 274. 
 
 extensive in 1740-41, 199, 274. 
 
 peculiar character of, in Kentucky, 201. 
 
 remarkable, in Yale College, 201. 
 
 advantages of and best mode of conducting, 
 
 202. 
 
 consistency of, with our mental constitution, 
 
 instances of opposition to, disarmed, 208. 
 
 importance of orderly meetings in, 218. 
 
 happy instance of female influence in, 212. 
 
 alleged abuses in, 214. 
 
 pernicious effects of late meetings in, 218. 
 
 who oppose, 214. 
 
 causes of prejudices against, 215. 
 
 Unitarian objections to, in New-England, 275. 
 
 Revival preachers, objections to, 216. 
 
 Rhode Island, early settlement of, 17, 56. 
 
 Rochester, rapid growth of, 135. 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, early establishment of, 270. 
 
 conversions from, how checked, 272. 
 
 statistics of the, 271. 
 
 probable influence of, 271. 
 
 Sabbath associations, 176. 
 
 " comparatively good observance of, in the 
 United States, 334. 
 Sabbath, interest of railroad and steamboat compa- 
 nies to observe, 334, note. 
 "St. Charles city, Virginia, massacre at, 61. 
 . Scotch colonists, character of the, 24. 
 
 " persecution of the, 73. 
 Scotland, early cause of immigration from, 72, 73. 
 
 " religious influence of immigrants from, 75. 
 Scottish Secession churches, account of the, 255. 
 
 Foreign Missions of, 312. 
 
 Seamen, efforts to promote the interests of, 172. 
 Sects, advantages of numerous evangelical, 266. 
 " nature and character of theological discus- 
 sions among, 290. 
 Sects, grounds of alleged want of harmony among, 
 
 267, 269. 
 Sects, evangelical, often commingle, 268. 
 " differences between evangeUcal and unevan- 
 gelical, 288. 
 Sects, extent of doctrinal agreement among, 289. 
 Shakers, account of the, 283. 
 
 " recent extraordinary book of the, 284, note. 
 Slavery, true position of the country respecting, 335. 
 " how entailed on this country, 335. 
 " severe clause against, in original Declara- 
 tion of Independence, 336, note. 
 Slavery, when abolished by the free states, 336. 
 " increase of, since the Revolution, 336. 
 " how to be ultimately abolished, 336. 
 " an obstacle to promotion of religion, 40. 
 " Christianity the only remedy for, 336, 337. 
 " extent of, in the United States, 42. 
 " difficulties attending the abolition of, 336. 
 " severity offoreign Christians respecting, 337. 
 Slavery, proper Christian spirit in relation to, 337, 338. 
 Smith, Mr. Normand, extract from memoir of, 327. 
 South Boston, Transcendental sermon at, 279. 
 South Carolina, early settlement of, 19, 63. 
 
 " " early relations between Church and 
 
 State in, 90. 
 Southern States, religious character of the early 
 
 colonists of, 60. 
 State legislation here, friendly to Christianity, 126. 
 Stoddard, Rev. Mr., peculiar sentiments of, 273. 
 Story, Chief-justice, opinion of, on State patronage 
 of religion, 116. 
 
 Success, true source of all, in promoting religion, 321. 
 Sunday-schools, mode of conducting, 154. 
 Swedenborgians, notice of the, 282. 
 Swedish settlements on the Delaware, 68. 
 
 " " character of the colonists of, 69. 
 
 Swiss colonists, character of the, 25. 
 
 Temperance societies, 172. 
 
 Tennent, Rev. Messrs., opinion of Whitefield re- 
 specting, 203. 
 Thanksgivmg-day, publicly appointed, 320. 
 governor's proclamation for, 320, note. 
 
 Theological Seminaries, 159-165. 
 Tract societies, 168. 
 Transcendentalism, notice of, 278, 279. 
 Transcendentalists, charged with Pantheism, 279. 
 Transcendental sermon at South Boston, 279. 
 Trinity Church, New-York, funds of, 323, nott. 
 Tunkers, notice of the, 282. 
 
 Union of Church and State, when terminated, 323, 
 note. 
 
 Unitarianism, introduction and history of, in New- 
 England, 272, 275. 
 
 circumstances favourable to the growth of, 
 
 275. 
 
 different writers on, 276. 
 
 early opposition to, in Harvard College and 
 
 elsewhere, 276. 
 
 early concealment of, 276. 
 
 first disclosures of, and results, 276, 277. 
 
 first congregation that avowed, 275. 
 
 first American writer on, 275. 
 
 Unitarians, objections of, to early revivals in New- 
 England, 275. 
 Unitarians, early philosophy of, 278. 
 
 " " American Association" of, 278. 
 " religious belief of, 278. 
 " introduction of Transcendentalism 
 among, and results, 278, 279. 
 " United Brethren in Christ," account of the, 261. 
 United States, geographical notice of the, 35-37. 
 power of government of, in promoting reli- 
 gion, 116. 
 
 religious character of government of the, 118. 
 
 action of government of. Christian, 120. 
 
 state governments of. Christian, 120. 
 
 when, may be directed to- 
 
 wards religion, 127. 
 
 church discipline in the, 183. 
 
 moral character of ecclesiastical discipline 
 
 in, 189. 
 
 causes of diversity of religious doctrine in, 287. 
 ■ difference between evangelical and other 
 
 sects in, 288. 
 
 alleged tyranny of public opinion in, 292, note. 
 
 religious literature of the, 169. 
 
 misrepresentation of family discipline in, 335, 
 
 note. 
 
 character of political papers in the, 171. 
 commencement and progress of religious lib- 
 erty in, 130. 
 
 comparative smallness of standing army iiij 
 
 333. 
 
 absence of military police in the, 333. 
 
 comparative morality of the people of the, 333. 
 
 much of the gross crime of, imported, 334. 
 
 Universalists, origin of, in the United States, 281. 
 
 doctrinal belief of the, 282. 
 
 definition of, in the United States, 275. 276. 
 
 difference between, and Unitarians, 277. 
 
 Virginia, early settlement of, 17. 
 
 the first to dissolve union of Church and 
 
 State, 105. 
 
 religious character of first settlers of, 61. 
 
 intolerance of Legislature of, 62. 
 
 early relations between Church and State in, 
 
 and effects, 88, 89, 96. 
 
 legislation in, about religion, 110. 
 
 effects of dissolution of Church and State in, 
 
 113. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 343 
 
 Virginia, state of Episcopal Church in, at close of 
 Revolution, 114. 
 
 present state of Episcopal Church in, 114. 
 
 act for establishing religious freedom m, 110. 
 
 Voluntary Principle in supporting religion, obsta- 
 cles to, 37-40. 
 
 in religion, nature of the, 129. 
 
 " " importance of the, 130. 
 
 founded in character and habits of the peo- 
 ple, 131. 
 
 developed in Home Missions, 140. 
 
 influence of the, on education, 146. 
 
 " " on moral reformation, 172. 
 
 " " on beneficent institutions, 177. 
 
 " " in furnishing a ministry, 322. 
 
 efficiency of, in increasing the ministry, 323. 
 
 " " m supporting the ministry, 323. 
 
 " " in erecting church edifices, 324. 
 
 comparative influence of, in raising religious 
 
 funds, 325. 
 
 Wales, notice of immigrants from, 71. 
 
 Welsh colonists, character of the, 24. 
 
 Western States, extent of population of 1840, 22. 
 
 Wheaton, Hon. Henry, remarks of, on relations be- 
 tween Church and State, 128. 
 
 Wheelock, Rev. Eleazar, school of, for Indian youth, 
 295. 
 
 Whitaker, Rev. Alexander, notice of, 62. 
 
 Whitefield, Rev. George, preaching of, at Boston, 
 274. 
 
 Williams, Roger, arrival of, 56. 
 " " notice of, 92. 
 
 Winebrennarians, notice of the, 261. 
 
 Winthrop, Hon. John, notice of, 53. 
 
 letter of, to members of Church of England 
 
 53. 
 
 ■ arrival of, in this country, 54. 
 
 Yale College, remarkable revival in, 201. 
 
 THE END. 
 
i