m B 3 ^4b M37 ^, CedncCri'vcrs Bitl «j RELIGION AND EDUCATION AMERICA: WITH NOTICES OF THE STATE AND PROSPECTS AMERICAN UNITARIANISM, POPERY, AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D„ SENIOU MINISTKA OF THE I'RESB YTBHIAN CHURCH IN NHW SOUTH WALK" PRINCirAL OP TIIK AUSTItALtAN COLLEGE, AND HONORARY VICE- PRESIDENT OV THE AFRICAN INSTITUTE OV I'RANCK. " It'll bill i{aii7. Hirer AUiiiiung. Die Kirclie soil keine Sclilaviu, soiiderii cine frci Uieiierin ties Herrn, seyn." — GossNERof Berlin. Letter to the Aiit'im. LONDON : THOMAS WARD AND CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1840. ^ O^ lO .v\^ TO THE CHRISTIAN LAITY THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. Fellow-Countrymen and Fellow-Christians, The following work was commenced on the 1st of June last, on board the steam-ship, British Queen, in the Bay of New York, and was written partly during my voyage across the Atlantic, and partly in the midst of numerous and sometimes harassing avocations since my return to England. There are deficiencies in its plan and arrangement, which you will easily perceive, and which a little leisure might probably have enabled me to obviate. There may be discrepancies also between some of its statements on minor points, which a word or two of explanation, if I had perceived them in time, would doubtless have enabled me to reconcile. But such as it is, I inscribe it to you ; because I am strongly of opinion that it is just such a work as is wanted in Scotland in the present important crisis of our National Church. We have long been deluding ourselves with the idea iV TO THE CHRISTIAN LAITY that the Sovereign of Great Britain is not the Head of the Church of Scotland as she is of that of England, and that we enjoy great religious liberty in our beloved land. We have been awakened at length from this dream of self-delusion. The British Parliament, or at least the House of Lords, has told us through some of its most distinguished organs, that, as members of the Church of Scotland, we are merely the '' Hereditary Bondsmen" of the civil magistrate, and that it is the fixed determination of Parliament to keep us m this degrading condition while it has the power ! As members of the Church of Scotland, we all profess to venerate those Christian and apostolic men who built the wall of our Zion in troublous times and cemented it with their blood. We build their sepul- chres, after a most respectable example in Jewish antiquity ; we erect columns to their memory, and call our churches by their names. But do we cherish their spirit, or follow their example ? I trow not. The inscription on the blue banner of the Presby- terians of the seventeenth century was, " For Christ's Crown and Covenant." They would tolerate no other Headship of the Church than that of Christ himself : they would suffer no mortal to occupy the Redeemer's throne. True to their allegiance to the King of Zion, they were ever ready to sacrifice not only their property but their lives at his bidding ; to seal their testimony with their blood. The present is a crisis of a somewhat similar kind ; inasmuch as it calls loudly for the exercise of self- OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. V denial and for personal sacrifices, on the part of the office- bearers of our National Church. The freedom and inde- pendence of the Church of Scotland can no longer be preserved along with its temporalities. The Lords of Parliament are determined that the holders of the latter shall not be the free servants of the Lord Christ, the only King of Zion, but the *' hereditary bondsmen" of the State. In such circumstances it becomes the bounden duty of all who value the freedom and inde- pendence of the Church, and who would maintain their allegiance to her only King and Head, to renounce the temporalities altogether, and to throw themselves at once upon the Christianity of the people. In short, it is not mere agitation and empty declamation about non- intrusion, but self-denial and sacrifice that the time calls for. When the ancient Roman people were treated in a somewhat similar manner by their Parliament, they retired in a body from their city of Rome, and, encamping on the " Mons Sacer" or Holy Hill in the neighbourhood, left their Parliament to do with the city-property what they chose. Precisely the same course is open to the real friends of the Church of Scotland in the present crisis. They can retire in a body to the Holy Hill of Zion, and entrench themselves there where the wall of fire will still surround them, and God, even our God, will dwell in the midst of them as of old. In short, they can tell the Parliament that the Clunch of Scotland shall be free and independent from henceforth, and leave them to dispose of her State Vi TO THE CHRISTIAN LAITY, &C. endowments as they please. This would indeed be acting in the spirit, and following the example, of our forefathers. But our forefathers — where are they? The following work will, I trust, show you suffi- ciently that such a course, which I apprehend is the course of duty in the present crisis, would also be a course of safety. It were a vile calumny upon the people of Scotland to insinuate that they would be less willing to support the Church of Christ, if set free from the degrading bondage of her State-connexion, than the people of America. The American Presby- terians are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh ; and their Church — so superior to our own in the good works of self-denial and self-devotedness and Christian liberality — requires no endowment from the State for its support ; neither would its members suff'er any man, in the capacity of a civil magistrate, to put forth his hand, under any pretext, to that Ark of God, in its pas- sage from the land of the Philistines to its place on Mount Zion ; being assured that the sacred symbol \\i\\ only move the more steadily, the more securely for all parties, and the more triumphantly, if the civil magistrate will but keep his " hands off"," and let it alone. With earnest desires for your spiritual and eternal welfare, I have the honour to be, Fellow-countrymen and Fellow-Christians, Your sincere well-wisher, JOHN DUNMORE LANG. London, Attffusf 12, 1840. CONTENTS. Introduction . . . . . .1 CHAPTER I. Origin of the Inhabitants of the Atlantic States of America . 1 1 CHAPTER II. View of the state of Religion, and of the Ecclesiastical Esta- blishments of the American Colonics, previous to the Revolution . . . . . .46 CHAPTER III. History of the Establishment of the Voluntary System in America . , . . . .91 CHAPTER IV. General Results of the Voluntary System in the United States — Church Accommodation . . . .130 CHAPTER V. General Results of the Voluntary System in America. — Minis- terial Character and Efficiency . . ... .190 CHAPTER VI. The Voluntary System in the United States not open to the charge of Infidelity . . . . • 250 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. Page Sketch of tlie Principal Religious Denominations in the United States . . . . . .307 CHAPTER VIII. Unitarianism in the United States . . .. .368 CHAPTER IX. Popery in America ..... 392 CHAPTER X. Slavery, Abolition, and African Colonization . . 41D Postscript ...... 46G £4 IIT RELIGION AND THE VOLUJ^TAEY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. INTRODUCTION. The main object I had in view in visiting the United States of America was different, perhaps, from that of every other European who had previously crossed the Atlantic. It was to endeavour to interest the American Presbyterian Church, of whose character and zeal I had long entertained a favourable opinion, in the diffusion of Christian knowledge, and the blessings of civilization in the southern hemisphere ; but more especially in those parts of that hemisphere in which a series of British colonies has recently been successfully planted, at the ends of the earth — I mean the continent of New Holland, and the adjacent islands. On embarking for America with this view, I had no intention to write a book of travels, or, indeed, to pub- lish any thing on the subject of my visit, on my return to Europe. But having incidentally taken up Captain Marryat's " Diary in America," in the course of my voyage out, I was so greatly astounded at certain of his statements, in regard to the influence and effects of the fi 2 INTRODUCTION. Voluntary System in the United States, that I de- termined to make particular inquiry on the subject dur- ing my own stay in the country, to ascertain the cor- rectness of these statements on the one hand, or to be enabled to disprove them on the other. In the course of my subsequent inquiries, conducted with this view, I very soon ascertained that the statements I allude to were altogether unfounded, and could only have been made, either in entire ignorance of the subject, on which the frivolous, but entertaining, novel-writer had presumed to issue his dictatorial opinions, or w ith a wil- ful intention to mislead. I am quite willing, however, that Captain M. should take the benefit of the former of these suppositions, and shelter his gross mistate- ments, in regard to the morals and religion of the Ame- rican people, under the plea of ignorance and presump- tion. In the course of my visit to America, and especially in consequence of the inquiries to which I have just alluded, I became apprised of many facts and circum- stances, illustrative of the general operation of the pe- culiar ecclesiastical system that now obtains universally in the United States, which were not generally known in England, and which, it appeared to me, it would be of some importance to the cause of truth for the reli- gious public in Great Britain to know. With this view, I was induced to commit my observations to writing, and to submit them, as I now do, to the pubhc, through the press. In addition to the main object I had in view in visit- ing America, I was influenced by various other conside- rations, one of which I shall mention. In the course of a long residence in the Australian colonies, I had gradually been led to the firm belief and conviction, that the system of a universal establishment of religion, which at present obtains in these colonies, and the prin- ciple of which is to grant salaries from the public trea- INTRODUCTION. 3 sury to the ministers of all religious denominations, in proportion to the number of their respective adherents, was latitudinarian in its character, and calculated rather to retard, than to promote, the advancement of genuine Christianity ; and I was therefore desirous of witnessing for myself the working of a totally different system — I mean the Voluntary System — in a state of society some- what similar to that of the British colonies, and in which, moreover, the natural operation of that system was un- checked and unfettered by the contemporaneous exis- tence of any religious establishment. For, as it re- quires no superior discernment to foresee that, in the natural course of events, the universal establishment system, which now prevails in the Australian colonies, cannot subsist long, and will, in all likelihood, merge very speedily into the Voluntary System, it is a matter of no small importance to all concerned, to ascertain beforehand, by a reference to actual facts in the his- tory of other communities, the state of things in regard to morals and religion which is likely to result from its discontinuance. In regard to the general working of the politico- ecclesiastical system which now prevails in the Aus- tralian colonies, the first of its effects has been to ele- vate the Romish priesthood, and the whole system of colonial Popery to a degree of pre-eminence and power in these colonies, which they could never otherwise have attained — an eifect which will doubtless be regarded by all sincere Protestants, as an unmixed evil. A great effort, it is well known, is now making, in various ways and from various quarters, to form a permanent strong- hold and centre of influence for Popery in the southern hemisphere ; and I am confident there is nothing that will tend so strongly to render this effort successful, as the establishment of the politico-ecclesiastical system which now obtains in the Australian colonies. The establishment of that system has served also, as far at least as present appearances can justify ihe anti- 4 INTRODUCTION. cipation, to stereotype the Colonial Episcopal Church, for all time coming, upon the model of the old High Church and Oxford Tract editions. There are many, doubtless, in England who will regard such a result with satisfaction ; but as I address myself particularly to men uho hold the doctrinal articles of the Church of Eng- land, whether members of that church or not, and have no sympathy with the semi-popish figments of certain of its modern divines, " who say they are apostles, and are not, but are liars," I deem it unnecessary to say any thing further on the subject. It is certain, at all events, that if religion had been left entirely to itself in the Australian colonies, the Episcopal Church in these colonies would not have taken the anti-protestant form it has already assumed, under the existing system. Another evil effect of the system has been, in a great measure, to render the Presbyterian Church in the Aus- tralian colonies a mere receptacle or asylum for inferior men, who have been rejected by the Christian people, or have proved utterly inefficient at home. For so long as Government salaries are obtainable on easy terms in these colonies, such men — and I am sorry to say they are numerous in Scotland — will be attracted to their territories, as surely as the dead carcase attracts the carrion-crow. In short, greatly preferable as is the politico-ecclesi- astical system now in operation in the Australian colo- nies to the one which it superseded — under which the Episcopal Church enjoyed something like an exclusive establishment — inasmuch as it has restored peace to the colonies, and put an end to the cry of injustice and op- pression ; it cannot be denied that it is altogether lati- tudinarian in its character, and anti-christian in its ten- dency ; and I am decidedly of opinion, therefore, that Christianity will never make much progress in these im- portant settlements till it is swept utterly away.* * There is a moral certainty that the Voluntaiy System 'svill very INTRODUCTION. O If I were a voluntary myself— receiving no support from the State as a minister of religion, and professing to regard it as unscriptural to receive such support — my opinion on such a subject as this, would, I confess, be liable to suspicion : for men are rarely unbiassed in any case in which their pecuniary interests are concerned ; and in these peaceful times, especially, in which the mere declaration of opinions implies no sacrifice what- ever, it cannot be denied that conscience is often called on to give evidence in favour of particular opinions, soon become the law of the land in New South Wales. The enor- mous expenditure of a convict colony, which has been unfortu- nately entailed upon that settlement, already exceeds the whole amount of its ordinary revenue; and recourse has accordingly been had very recently to the suicidal policy of appropriating, for the com- mon exigencies of the public service, the revenue arising from the sale of Crown land — which, it was universally supposed by the colo- nists, had been appropriated exclusively for the promotion of the emigration of virtuous and industrious persons from Great Britain and Ireland, To restore this revenue to its proper use, taxation to a large amount must now be resorted to ; and it cannot be doubted, that whenever the colonists come to be taxed, as they certainly will very shortly, to the amount of from £50,000 to ^100,000, per annum, for the support of three or four contemporaneous established churches, they will just do vvhat the Americans found it both expe- dient and necessary to do, in precisely similar circumstances, by refusing the tax, and leaving all these churches to the Christian feelings and affections of their respective adherents. So long as the salaries of the colonial clergy are paid from the Custom-house chest, or the produce of indirect taxation, the colonists are not likely to murmur; but the case will be prodigiously altered when they come to be paid from a revenue arising from direct taxation. The co- lonists will then most certainly refuse the rate, and leave the clergy to tlie operation of the Voluntary System. I do not mean to in- sinuate, however, that the people of New South AVales will be un- ■willing to support religion when they come to be taxed directly for upholding its ordinances ; I only mean to assert, that, under the present system, the pressure on the colonial treasury will very soon be so enormous, in proportion to the real service rendered to the community, that that system will certainly be superseded, at no very remote period, by anotlier and better system which, from its < fHcicut working clsewliere, has already been found to supply the Cluistian peoide with much more efficient service fur far less money. b2 6 INTRODUCTION. with which .'he has in reality nothing to do. But as I have voluntarily subscribed the Westminster Confession of Faith, including the chapter on the Civil Magistrate,* as a regularly ordained minister of the Church of Scot- land, and have, therefore, no scruples of conscience about the lawfulness of receiving support from the State ; nay, as I have actually received, for the last fifteen years and upwards, the highest salary allowed by the State to any minister in the denomination I belong to, in my adopted country, it will be evident that I have some- thing to lose as an individual in the case in question, and that I ought, therefore, as far as my own pecuniary interests are concerned, to be an advocate of things as iliey are, rather than of things as they should be. In so far, then, as my evidence in the following pages may go to recommend the adoption of the Voluntary System, instead of the one actually in operation in the Australian colonies, it will, at least, have the rare merit of disin- terestedness, and not be liable to suspicion. As to the bearing which evidence in favour of the Voluntary System may be supposed to have on the avowed principles of a minister of the Church of Scot- land, I observe, that when the learned and pious men * The Chapter I i-efer to is as follows : — " 1. God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath or- dained civil magistrates to be under liim over the people, for his own glory, and the public good ; and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defence and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evil doers." " 3. The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the adminis- tration of the word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire ; that all blasphemies and he- redes be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship or disci- pline be prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting where- of, he hath power to call Synods, to be present at them, and to pro- vide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the miud ol Q\^K\r—Chnp. •22. cy the Civil Majistnde. 4 INTRODUCTION. 7 who drew up the Westminster Confession of Faith laid it down as a principle of doctrine, that it was the duty of the civil magistrate to establish and to support reli- gion, they took it for granted that it was the true reli- gion, as described in that Confession, and no other, that he was bound to support. And, accordingly, when the Scottish Parliament passed a resolution, in the year 1 705, pending the negotiations for the union with Eng- land, to the effect, " That the English Parliament had a right to take what security they thought fit for the main- tenance of the system of Prelacy within the realm of England," the Commission of the General Assembly, which was sitting at Edinburgh at the time, remonstrated and protested against the said resolution ; alleging that it would bring guilt upon the Scottish nation, to assert that the civil magistrate had a right to establish Prelacy any where. It cannot be denied, indeed, that this is no longer the doctrine of a large majority of the Scottish clergy ; the prevalent doctrine of that body being simply the Erastian doctrine, that the civil magistrate has the same right to establish Prelacy in one country, as he has to establish Presbytery in another — a doctrine altogether at variance with the Westminster Confession.* It follows, as a necessary consequence from the principle I have stated, that when the civil magistrate * Of course, I would not object to a conscientious Episcopa- lian, who held tlic divine right of Episcopacy, maintaining, in accord- ance with his own principles, that it was wrong for the civil magis- trate to establish Prcsb}tery. I wish every man to carry out his religious principles to their full extent; and uiy object, in these re- marks, is simply to anticipate the accusation that I have betrayed mine, in pleading for the establishment of the Voluntary System in Australia. This charge, I know, will be brought against me, with the utmost eagerness, by men who have never made any sacrifice themselves for the principles they profess to hold, and who, I have reason to believe, never would, if they Avcre put to the test. But Christianity is a religion of self-denial, and a man's real princii)les can never be known, without knowing what he is willing to saciilicc for them. 8 INTRODUCTION. is either unable or unwilling to establish the true reli- gion, it is perfectly accordant with the duty of a mi- nister of religion, holding the V\'estminster Confession, to recommend that he should leave religion entirely alone. A Christian man, holding the principle of a religious establishment, may, in perfect consistency with that principle, adopt such a course in any given case, (as, for instance, in that of the Australian colo- nies,) where an exclusive establishment, in favour of any one denomination, is confessedly impracticable, and where the acknowledged effect of the universal establishment system is the encouragement and propa- gation of Popery ; but it is impossible for a Christian man to maintain the principle, that the civil magistrate may rightfully establish any form of religion, whether truth or error. Entertaining these sentiments, I confess I went forth into the field of observation in America altogether un- trammeled ; and, consequently, instead of being dis- appointed, as a churchman, at finding so much in favour of the Voluntary System in that country, I rather re- joiced, in the anticipation of the benefits which, I foresaw, it was likely to confer on my adopted countrj^ when the evil and anti-christian system of a universal establishment, under which it now labours, should have passed away and been forgotten. I was not a little strengthened in this feeling by the sentiments I found prevailing among the few ministers and licentiates of the Church of Scotland whom I happened to meet with in the United States. One of these, a fellow-student of my own at the university of Glasgow, and a licentiate of the Presbytery of that city, whom I found as the minister of a Presbyterian church in the synod of Albany, in the state of New York, expressed, in the strongest terms, his entire con- fidence in the sufficiency of the Voluntary System, as a means of providing for the regular dispensation of INTRODUCTION. 9 the ordinances of religion in Christian countries, as well as of sending the gospel to the unconverted hea- then. Nay, the only minister of the Church of Scot- land in the United States, who stands unconnected with the American Presbyterian Church, and still maintains a species of connexion with the Church of Scotland, — I mean the Rev. Mr. Forrest, of Charleston, South Carolina, — I found a thorough and decided vo- luntary ; not, indeed, in the ultra sense of maintaining that any connexion between church and state is un- warranted by the word of God, and positively sinful, but in that of maintaining the entire sufficiency of the voluntary system for the maintenance of religion throughout the Christian world, and especially through- out the United States of America. A declaration of such sentiments, on the part of Mr. Forrest, was the more unexpected on my part, as, up to the period of his leaving Scotland, about six or eight years ago, he had regarded as his magnus Apollo the late Principal Baird of Edinburgh, and was strongly attached to the principles and views of the moderate party — the party in the Church of Scotland who regard the Church as the mere creature of the State. But mere theory, however strongly inculcated in one's youth, cannot be expected to stand against the evidence of personal experience and ocular demonstration in the period of vigorous manhood. The portion of the United States I visited, and partly traversed, during my stay in America, was the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, in New England ; New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, commonly called the Middle States; and the slave-holding States of Delaware, Maryland, Vir- ginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I also spent a few days in the district of Columbia. I did not visit any of the Western States in the great valley of the Mississippi ; first, because I had no leisure for 1 INTRODUCTION. such a visit ; secondly, because, from my long residence in the Australian colonies, I M-as already sufficiently acquainted with the processes usually resorted to by civilized men, in first penetrating into the great wilder- ness of nature — the operation of settling, as it is tech- nically called, being much the same in all new coun- tries ; and thirdly, because, as I conceived, I was fully warranted in regarding the Western States of America as standing in precisely the same relation to the Eastern as the British colonies do to the mother country, they were of lesser importance in regard to the particular subject of inquiry to which my attention was principally directed during my visit. Although I determined, in the course of the follow- ing work, to adhere pretty closely to the subject an- nounced at the head of each chapter, I did not consider myself precluded from introducing occasional narra- tives, episodes, and digressions of various kinds, to relieve the tedium of a dry detail of facts, or of a mere argumentative deduction from these facts ; espe- cially when such deviations from the due course tended to throw additional light upon the m.oral and religious aspects of American society. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. Most of the English writers on America have erred egregiously in endeavouring to account for the singular moral phenomena which that country presents, by as- cribing them to the influence of its civil government, or political institutions. The fact is, that the character of the American people was formed and developed long before they had a government of their own ; and it was rather that character that impressed itself on the po- litical institutions of their country, than the government that formed and modelled the character of the people. M. de Tocqueville, in his admirable work entitled " Democracy in America," points to the true mode of solving the problem in question, in the following pro- found remark : — " The growth of nations presents some- thing analogous to the growth of a human being, from infancy to manhood — they all bear some marks of their origin ; and the circumstances which accompanied their birth, and contributed to their rise, affect the whole term of their being,"* And again : — " Their forefathers imported that equality of conditions into the country from whence the democratic republic has very naturally taken its rise. Nor was this all they did ; for, besides this republican condition of society, the early settlers * Democracy in America. By M. de Tocqueville. Page 10. Second American edition. New York, 1838. 12 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF bequeathed to their descendants those customs, man- ners, and opinions, which contribute most Xo the success of a repubhcan form of government. When I reflect upon the consequences of this primary circurnstance, methinks I see the destiny of America embodied in the first puritan who landed on those shores, just as the human race was represented by the first man."* It is necessary, therefore, to ascertain the origin of the great mass of the American people, in order to arrive at a philosophical conclusion in regard to their present con- dition and character as a nation. With this view, I shall briefly enumerate the principal streams of emigra- tion that continued to flow from the European continent to the American colonies, from their first settlement, in the reign of James the First, till the war of independ- ence. Of these, the first in importance, if not in time, is the Puritan emigration to New England. That portion of the United States of America which is commonly called New England, comprising the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and bounded by the State of New York on the south, and the British pos- sessions on the north, was originally colonized from England, during the tyranny of the Stuarts. The origin and character of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England are well known, and the names of these venerable men are well worthy of everlasting remembrance. The vic- tims of a cruel oppression in their native land, they went forth, in search of civil and religious liberty, to an inhospitable wilderness, — " not knowing whither they went," nor what should befal them ; but He, whom alone they feared, mercifully guided their steps, and at length crowned their enterprise with immortal honour. For, after suffering innumerable hardships, they were enabled, in the far distant land of their exile, not only ♦ Democracy in Americn, page 271. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 13 to plant the tree of civil and religious liberty in a con- genial soil, but to lay the broad foundations of as fair a structure of national greatness as the world has ever yet beheld.* During the first twenty years of the existence of the New England colonies, not fewer than twenty- one thousand emigrants arrived in their territory, who were virtually expelled from their native land by the cruel intolerance of Charles the First, and his worthy agent, Archbishop Laud. The great majority of the English Puritans were then Presbyterians ; but, as the first colonists of New England, and several of the most distinguished of the New England clergy, were Brown- ists, or Independents, an ecclesiastical system, embody- ing the main features of both of these denominations, was at length devised and agreed on by a mutual com- promise, and has subsisted, with eminent benefit to the country, to the present day. Of that system, I shall give a more particular account in a subsequent chapter. During the civil wars and the usurpation of Crom- well, emigration to New England appears to have ceased, and many even of the original emigrants ac- tually returned to their native land. The Act of Uni- formity, however, and the other oppressive measures of the reign of Charles the Second, caused the stream of emigration again to flow ; but, on the accession of William and Mary, it was diverted in a great measure to the southern colonies ; and from that period to the war of independence, the gradual increase of the popu- * " The God of heaven," says the Rev. Cotton Mather, in the outset of his gi-eat work, Magnolia Christi Ajnen'ca/ia, "served, as it were, a summons upon the spirits of his people in the English nation, stirring up the spirits of thousands which never saw the faces of each other, with a most unanimous inclination to leave all the ])lcasant accommodations of their native country, and go over a terrible ocean, into a more terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment of all his ordinances." c 14 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF lation of New England was but little owing to immi- gration. In later times, that section of the American Union, whose inhabitants have thus been a compara- tively unmixed people, almost exclusively of Puritan origin, has held pretty much the same place in America as that of Scotland in the British Empire — sending forth numerous adventurers every year to the Southern States, as mercantile agents, store-keepers, mechanics, mer- chants, clerks, teachers of youth, and ministers of religion ; and throwing off annually large swarms of agricultural emigrants, who generally move off simultaneously in great numbers, with all their effects, to the Western States. This tendency to emigration arises, in great measure, from the comparative sterility of the soil, and the unpropi- tiousness of the climate of New England ; in conse- quence of which, a large proportion of the population is virtually forced, either into maritime pursuits and manufactures, or emigration. The regular stream of emigration began to set toward the west, and from the more populous States of New England — Connec- ticut, and Massachusetts — about the year 1790 ; and it gradually increased its volume, till, at one time, it had reached the enormous amount of 300,000 emigrants in a single year. This mighty stream spread itself, in the first instance, over the western portions of the State of New York, where it deposited about half a million of peo- ple of New England origin : it then successively overflow- ed the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, audit is still flowing, although at a less rapid rate, towards the new State of Michigan, and the territories of Wisconsin and Iowa. The reader may judge, therefore, for himself, what probability there is that the great valley of the Mississippi is likely to become, at no distant period, a Roman Catho- lic province, as Captain Marryat sagely and lugubriously predicts. The whole Roman Catholic emigration to that valley, from all Europe, is but as a drop in the bucket, compared with the thoroughly Protestant emigration THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 15 from New England ; and as the New Englanders uni- versally enjoy the blessings of religion and education in their native land, they are not likely to suffer their offspring to grow up without these advantages in the land of their adoption. In short, the very circumstance that by far the largest and best portion of the great stream of emigration that is flowing from the eastward to the valley of the INIississippi, has its source in New England — the land of the Pilgrim Fathers, the land which is unquestionably the best situated in America for the enjoyment of the blessings of religion and education, and the inculcation and practice of pure morality — is of itself sufficient to prove that the designs of Divine Providence, in regard to that great valley, are such as to cheer the spirits, and to animate the hopes of Pro- testants, rather than to excite apprehension or alarm. But the Puritans of New England were only a por- tion of the original European inhabitants of the Atlantic States of America ; and there is reason to believe that, as they never made much impression on the middle and southern States, they were much less concerned in forming the character of the great mass of the American people, than is generally supposed. Various other streams of population, of a kindred origin, doubtless, in regard to religion, but still of a different national origin, went to form the present comparatively homo- geneous community to the southward of New England. Of these, the first consisted of the Dutch colonists of Manhattan, or New York. That colony was planted by the Hollanders in the year 1 CI 3, and was taken by the English in 1664; its population amounting at that time to 10,000, while that of all New England amounted only to 20,000. The Dutch were all strict Presbyterians, and their colonial church was modelled in entire conformity to the articles and order of tlie synod of Dort. Tlie Dutch language was used exclu- sively in Divine service in the churches of that com- 16 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF munion, even in the city of New York, till the year 1 764, exactly a hundred years from the conquest of the colony. In that year the Rev. Dr. Laidlie, a Pres- byterian clergyman from Scotland, was settled as one of the pastors of the Dutch church, and conducted divine service, thenceforward, in the English language. Dr. Laidlie's labours were eminently blessed, and a revival of religion speedily took place in the Dutch church, under his ministry. At the close of a social meeting for prayer, shortly after his arrival, one of his elders thus addressed him : — " Ah Dominie!" (the usual de- signation of the Dutch clergy, when addressed by their people), " we offered many an earnest prayer in Dutch for your coming among us ; and, truly, the Lord has heard us in English, and sent you out to us."* Many of the descendants of the earlier Dutch colonists were soon mingled, by intermarriages, with the neighbouring colonists of New England ; of whom many had, at a com- paratively early period, settled within the limits of the province of New York. Many others have been dis- persed, either individually or in families, over the middle and southern States, and have fallen into the communion of the American Presbyterian church. But the great majority still retain their separate organiza- tion ; and although proverbially slow in their move- ments, and strongly opposed to innovation of every de- scription, they have uniformly been a highly virtuous and religious people.f At the close of the revolutionary * History of the Evangelical Churches of Xew York. New York, 1839. t As an instance of the amiable simplicity of the Dutch inhabit- ants of the State of New York, and their repugnance to anv thing new, I have been told that, when winnowing-niachines were first introduced into the district of Tappaan, near New York, about thirty years ago, the Dutch farmers would not allow them to be brought near their premises, on any account, as they believed they went by icitchcntft. A wealthy Dutch farmer, of New York State, having contributed the whole cost of the buildin" of a church in his THE ATLANTIC STATES OP AMERICA. ] 7 war, there were 90 churches of the Dutch reformed communion, chiefly in the States of New York and New Jersey. There are now upwards of 200, under the superintendence of the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church. During its separate existence, the Dutch colony had absorbed a small but interesting colony of Swedes and Finns, situated on the Delaware river, to the southward of New York. The Swedish colony had been planned and promoted by the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus, and was founded in the year 1627. The first Swedish emigrants landed at Cape Hinlopen, at the mouth of the Delaware, and were so delighted with the appear- ance of the country, when compared with their own dreary land, that they called it Paradise Point. They purchased the land extending from that cape to the Falls of the Delaware, from the Indians of the country ; and, obtaining peaceful possession, built a fort on the river, called Christiana, in honour of their queen. In revenge, however, for an aggression which, it seems, their governor had committed, without provocation, on one of the Dutch settlements in the neighbourhood, the latter, who disputed their title to the country alto- gether, destroyed their fort, and forwarded to Holland, and from thence to Gottenburg, all the Swedish colo- nists who refused to swear allegiance to the States- General. The Swedes who remained increased and multipUed, till they were gradually lost among the mass of the American people. The last rector of their churches, the late Rev. Dr. Collins, had seven or eight under his superintendence, in the neighbourhood of their original settlements in the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware ; most of which, I believe, have since passed neighbourhood, was advised (I presume by one of his New England neighbours) to attach a liglitning-iod to it. He received the sug- gestion, however, with great displeasure, indignant at the idea that O'oil icould ml Jire to hin vun /I'licsc. c 2 18 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF into the communion of the American Episcopal Church.* The influx of French Huguenots into the Ame- rican colonies is an exceedingly interesting circum- stance in the history of the American people. It took place at a very early period in the history of these co- lonies ; and the immigration appears to have been long continued, and very extensive. During the wars of the League, the French Huguenots had seriously enter- tained the project of emigrating in a body to the pro- vince of Rio Janeiro, in the Brazils, under their cele- brated chief, the Admiral Coligni, who was afterwards massacred at Paris, along with so many of his unfortu- nate countrymen, on the eve of St. Bartholomew. This project, however, was, unfortunately for the world, never carried into effect ; but, from the period of the famous siege of Rochelle, till the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., in the year 1685, there had been a continual emigration of French Pro- testants to the English colonies of America, which, after that event, was greatly increased. It is calculated that, during the first ten years after the revocation of that celebrated edict, not fewer than seven hundred thousand of her best subjects were exiled from France ; of whom a much larger number than is com- monly supposed appear to have found their way to America. The Naturalization and other Acts of the old Colonial Legislatures of America afford satisfactory evidence of the fact of an early and extensive immigration of French Huguenots into the English colonies, which afterwards formed the United States. The first notice on the subject appears in the Acts of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, under the year 166-2. In that year, it is recorded that " Jean Touton, a French doctor, * iJoluitb' Anuriciia Xmiali, paasiin. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 19 and inhabitant of Rocbelle, made application to the General Court of Massachusetts, in behalf of himself and other Protestants expelled from their habitations on account of their religion, that they might have liberty to inhabit there ; which was readily granted to them."* And in the year 1C86, eleven thousand acres of land were granted to another detachment of French Protestants who had settled at Oxford, in the same colony.f In that year, also, the Rev. Cotton Mather informs us a French Protestant church was erected in the city of Boston, of which, about ten years thereafter, the Rev. M. Daille was pastor. It is a singular fact in the history of this church, that upwards of a century after this period, when the descendants of the French Protestants had become indistinguishably blended with the American people, and had long ceased to speak the language of their forefathers, or to occupy their church for public worship, it fell into the hands of a small congregation of French Roman Catholic refugees, who had sought an asylum in Boston when driven from France or St. Domingo. It is situated in School- street, Boston. An act for the naturalization of French Protestants, evidently marking the period when a Huguenot emi- gration took place to that colony, was passed by the legislature of Maryland in the year 16G6 ; a similar act was passed in Virginia in the year 1671, and an- other of the same import in Carolina, which then in- cluded the two States of that name, in 1696. The naturalization act in favour of French Protestants was not passed in the colony of New York till the year 1 703. Of the Huguenots who emigrated to the colony, the wealthier portion settled as merchants in the city of New York; others obtained land to cultivate * Holmes' Amcricuii Ann-dh, sub anno. + Ibid. 20 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF ill the neighbourhood, and founded the town of New Rochelle, situated about twenty miles from the city, to the north-eastward, on Long Island Sound ; while others again settled also as farmers at New Palz, in Ulster County, on Hudson's River. The church found- ed by the Huguenots in New York was a collegiate church, of which the Rev. Messrs. Roux and Mouli- naars were the joint pastors in the beginning of the last century ; and Smith, the historian of New York, informs us that in the year 1708 the Huguenots were, next to the Dutch, the most numerous and the wealth- iest class of the population. On the testimony of an old Huguenot lady of New Rochelle, the Rev. Dr. Miller, an iVmerican clergyman, relates, " that when the Huguenots first settled in that neighbourhood, the only place of worship they had to attend was in New York city. They had taken lands on terms which required the utmost exertions of men, women, and children among them to clear and render tillable. They were therefore in the habit of working hard till Saturday night, spending the 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. Amidst all these hardships, they wrote to France, what great privileges they enjoyed r^ In the year 16 79, Charles II. ordered two ships to be provided at his own expense, to convey foreign Pro- testants (Huguenots) to Carohna, where they proposed to cultivate the vine, the olive, and the other produc- tions of the south of Europe : and from this period till the Revolution an extensive emigration of French Protestants took place to all the American colonies. Large collections were made for them in England even * Hist, of Evang. Churches of JS*. York. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 21 during the reign of James II., and a grant of £15,000 was at one time distributed among tliem by order of Parliament.* In the year 1G90, King William III. sent a large body of French refugees to the colony of Virginia, giving them a free passage at the expense of government. Others purchased land, and settled in Carolina, for the cultivation of the vine. In the year 1G99, about three hundred families of French refugees arrived in Virginia, and were afterwards followed by two hundred others, and subsequently by a hundred more. So late as the year 1752, not fewer than sixteen hundred foreign Protestants, chiefly French, settled in South Carolina, and upwards of two hundred more, exclusively French, in 176-1. In short, the British government appears for a long period to have systematically encouraged the settlement of French and other foreign Protestants in the American colonies ; for, besides the instances al- ready mentioned, we are informed that in the year 1733, three hundred and seventy Swiss Protestant fa- milies settled in South Carolina, to the northward of the Savannah River, who had been conducted to Ame- rica by Jean Pierre Pury, of Neufchatel ; the British government allotting them 40,000 acres of land, and contributing £400 sterling for every hundred adult Swiss emigrants landed in the colony.-]- Enactments were also passed by the various colonial legislatures, granting the French Protestants liberty of worship, and relieving them from the burden of contri- buting towards the support of the old colonial episcopal establishments. Thus, in the year 1700, 12th William III., it was enacted as follows by the legislature of Virginia : " Whereas a considerable number of French Protestant refugees have been lately imported into this His Majesty's colony and dominion, several of which * Holmes' Annuls, puawn, f Ibid. 22 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF refugees have seated themselves above the falls of James' River, at or near to a place commonly called and known by the name of the Manakin town, Sec, the said settlement to be erected into a parish, not liable to other parochial assessments."* In some of these settlements, the French language continued to be spoken till a comparatively recent period. M. du Ponceau, of Philadelphia, President of the American Philosophical Society, himself a Hugue- not by descent, and one of the most eminent linguists now living, informed me that, in the year 1782, (for M. du P. is now considerably upwards of eighty years of age,) being stationed for some tim^e with a troop of American horse, during the war of independence, at the town of New Rochelle, he found the French lan- guage still generally spoken by the people, and always used in their public worship. Now, however, there is no trace of the French language in that settlement. In like manner, in the city of Charleston, South Caro- lina, the French Protestant church has an endowment of about two thousand dollars per annum, for the sup- port of a minister, of the French Reformed communion, to dispense the ordinances of religion in that language. The church property is held by thirty-six families of Huguenot origin in the city ; but as the use of the French language has been long discontinued in Charles- ton, the endowment is now in abeyance, and the church shut up. The last minister who statedly preached in it was an American Presbyterian clergyman of the name of Frazer, who has since been endeavouring to establish his title to the ancient Scotch barony of Lovat, attainted in the year 1745. In short, as the whole population of the American colonies in the year 1701, that is, forty years after the Huguenot emigration to these colonies had commenced, * Ilemmings" Collection of the Laws of Virginia. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 23 did not exceed 260,000 souls altogether,* it is evident that a large portion of that population must have been of Huguenot origin, and that Huguenot blood must be extensively diffused among the American people of the present day. Many of the first families of New York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, trace their origin to this honourable source, of which, indeed, their names still exhibit satisfactory evidence. In many cases, however, as in the central parts of Penn- sylvania, where there was a numerous French Protes- tant settlement, this evidence no longer remains ; the American descendants of the Huguenots having been obliged to vary the spelling of their names, and to give them an English aspect, to prevent their being per- petually mangled by American pronunciation. And in proof of the fact that these descendants of an illus- trious stock have not degenerated in later times, but are still mindful of those principles of civil and religious liberty which their forefathers so ardently cherished, and for which they preferred " suffering affliction with the people of God," to all the riches and the pleasures of France, it is worthy of remark, that of the seven Pre- sidents of the Congress of the United States of Ameri- ca, during the war of independence, not fewer than three were of French Huguenot descent. I am indebt- ed for this information to M. du Ponceau ; the names of the three Presidents referred to were John Jaye, Elias Boudinot, and Henry Laurens. The French Protestants never formed a separate ec- clesiastical organization in America, like the Dutch in New York, and the Germans in Pennsylvania. In a few localities, in which the Episcopal Church was esta- blished and predominant, as in the cities of New York and Charleston, their descendants, on coming to use the English language, passed over into that communion, * Holmes' Annals. 24 ORIGIN OF THE INHAEITAXTS OF to which, indeed, they had many inducements previous to the Revolution ; but in all other cases, they gra- dually fell into the communion of the American Pres- byterian Church. In the roll of communicants in the Presbyterian churches in Charleston, I observed the fol- lowing Huguenot names : — Dupre, Du Bosc, Quillin, Lanneau, Legare, Rosamond, Dana, Cousar, Lequeux, Boies, Hammet, Rechon, Bize, Benoist, Berbant, Ru- berry, Vardell, Marchant, Keckeley, Mallard, Chapin, Belville, Molyneux, Fabrigue, Lagow, Chevalier, Bayard, Sayre, De Saint Croix, Boudinot, Le Roy, Bonnell, Ogier, Janvier, Gillet, Purviance, Guiteau, Boyer, Car- rel!, Simon, &c. About the middle of the seventeenth century, and probably before the Dutch colony of New York had fallen into the hands of the English — for I have only learned the circumstance from the Dutch traditions of the neighbourhood, and have never met with any ac- count of it in the English histories of the American colonies — there was an emigration of about two hundred. Protestants from the kingdom of Poland to the territory of New Jersey. It was headed by a Polish nobleman, of the illustrious and royal house of Sobieski, a lineal descendant of the celebrated Pole of that name, who, with a mere handful of troops, in the depth of winter, attacked and routed a Turkish army of sixty thousand men, under the walls of Vienna ; thereby compelling the Turks to raise the siege of that important city, and ar- resting their victorious march into the heart of Christen- dom. The Reformation, it is well known, had, at an early period, made considerable progress in Poland ; and, like Henry the Fourth of France, John Casimir, king of Poland, had granted great immunities to his Protes- tant subjects, by a royal charter, like the edict of Nantes ; which, however, certain of his less liberal suc- cessors, at the instance of the Romish princes and pre- Jates refused to carry into effect. It was during the THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 25 troubles and persecutions arising from this source, that Count Sobieski, and certain of liis Protestant retainers, emigrated in a body to America ; where his descendants are still numerous and respectable, in the state of New Jersey, although their name has shared the fate of so many other continental names in that country, in being corrupted into Zabrisky. It may not be irrelevant to remark, especially as the fact is not generally known, that the troubles of Poland for a century past, the dis- memberment of that unfortunate kingdom, and its hav- ing ultimately become a mere province of Russia, are all distinctly traceable to the obstinate refusal of the Popish party in Poland to give effect to the charter of John Casimir, granting liberty of conscience to his Pro- testant subjects. It may also be regarded as a further instance of the retributive justice of Divine Providence, that the emperor Nicholas should now be compelling those very Poles, whose forefathers so long refused li- berty of worship to their Protestant brethren, to re- nounce the Romish and to enter the Greek Church. The troubles of the Palatinate, towards the close of the seventeenth century, were also productive of a nu- merous emigration from that part of Germany to the American colonies, chiefly during the reign of Queen Anne. About 2700 Palatines, as they were then called, were sent out by the British Government to New York, along with Colonel Hunter, the Governor of that colony, in the year 1710; while many others, who had been sent in the same way to Virginia, settled above the falls of the river Rappahannock, on what was then the Indian frontier of the colony. When the Whig ministry of Queen Anne, by whom these measures had been pro- moted, were superseded by a Tory administration, one of the charges which was brought against them by their successors, was that of " squandering away great sums upon the Palatines, who were a useless people, a mix- ture of all religions, and dangerous to the constitution ;" D 26 ORIGIN OF THE IN'HABITANTS O? and it was actually resolved, by a vote of the Imperial Legislature, " That those who advised the bringing them over were enemies to the queen and kingdom." It is somewhat instructive to observe how very differently the emigration of these peaceful and industrious Ger- mans was regarded in the colonies ; for so advan- tageous was their settlement on the frontier considered by the General Assembly of Virginia, that an act passed the legislature of that colony, in the year 1712, exempt- ing them from all levies or assessments for the period of seven years.* From this period there was a regular influx of Germans into the American colonies, which continued with little interruption till the war of indepen- dence, and which has since been increasing rapidly till the present day. One half of the whole population of Pennsylvania is of German origin ; and as a proof of their influence in the Commonwealth, I was informed, that for twenty years before the accession of the last Go- vernor, the Germans had uniformly elected one of their own countrymen as Governor of the State. Nearly a similar proportion of the population of Ohio, and a large amount of that of Maryland, are also of German origin. The German Protestants, who constitute the great ma- jority of the whole German population of the United States, are divided into Lutherans and Calvinists, or Reformed ; each of which denominations is under the superintendence of a General Synod — the Lutherans having a thousand congregations, and the German Re- formed about half that number. The origin of the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania is well known. It was founded at the instance and through the exertions of the benevolent individual whose name it bears ; chiefly, I believe, in consequence of the perse- cutions to which the members of the Society of Friends had long been subjected, not only in the mother coun- * Holine?" Annals, passim. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 27 try, but even in the other American colonies. For, incredible as it may seem, it is nevertheless the fact, that in the year 1656, twelve Quakers were banished from the colony of Massachusetts, by order of the Ge- neral Court of that colony, for no other crime than their inoffensive opinions ; and two of their number who had returned to it some time thereafter, were actually exe- cuted in the year 1659 ! In that year, also, an act was passed by the legislature of Virginia, by which it was enacted, that " any commander of any shipp or vessell bringing into the collonie any person or persons called Quakers, is to be fined ^100. ; and all Quakers appre- hended in the collonie, are to be imprisoned till they abjure this countrie, or give securitie to depart from it forthwith. If they return a third time, they are to be punished as felons."* Quakers are, of course, still numerous in the state of Pennsylvania, although it is long since they ceased to be a majority of the population. They are unequally divided into orthodox and Hicksites, or Unitarians ; each of which denominations has two separate meeting- houses in the city of Philadelphia. That city is built on an oblong piece of level ground, lying between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, which, in that neigh- bourhood, pursue a parallel course for some distance, about two miles apart. The streets that run perpendi- cularly to the course of the rivers are named from the trees of the country — Chestnut, Walnut, Mulberry, Filbert, Cherry, Pine, &;c. tSrc. — while those that run parallel to their course are regularly numbered from the Delaware, Front-street, Second-street, Third-street, up to Thirteenth-street. It is an admirable device for a stranger, who thus gets familiar with the geography of the place at a glance, and it affords a good practical commentary on the Quaker doctrine of utility. * Heramiugs" Collection of the La\vs of Virginia. 28 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF It is unnecessary to say a single word about the morality of the Quakers, as an influential portion of the American people ; and in regard to the Germans in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland, they are the same plodding, industriou'', and virtuous people that we uniformly find their countrymen, especially those of the Lutheran and Reformed communions, in Europe. But the largest portion of that stream of population that had been flowing for a century and upwards, pre- vious to the war of independence, to those colonies that now constitute the middle and southern States of the American republic, was unquestionably derived from the British isles. And it is worthy of remark, that although it continued to flow long after the return of peace and rest to the British churches, it originated exclusively in persecution for conscience' sake. Of the two thousand Presbyterian ministers who were driven from the communion of the Church of England by the famous Act of Uniformity, in the reign of Charles the Second, we are informed by contemporary historians, that not a few found an asylum in the American colo- nies ; and many of their people also followed their example. During the Commonwealth, the Presbyterian system of church government had found many zealous adherents, both among the clergy and people, in the principality of Wales ; and when the times of oppres- sion and persecution succeeded to that period of calm, emigration to America was extengively resorted to by both ministers and people. Towards the close of tlie seventeenth century, the Welsh emigrants in Pennsyl- vania were so numerous as to occupy six townships on the Schuylkill river, in that State ;* and in the lists of the earlier ministers of the Presbyterian church in America, such names as Evans, Davies, Griffiths, Mor- * History of tlie Presb. Church in America, by Prof. Hodge, of Princeton, New Jersey, vol. i., p. 51. Philadelphia, 1840. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMEIUCA. 29 gan, and Jones, evidently of Welsh origin, frequently occur. But it was principally from Scotland and the north of Ireland that the great stream of British emigration to the middle States of America was supplied, from the accession of Charles the Second till the American Revolution. There seems even to have been for some time a fixed purpose, on the part of the wretched government to which the Almighty had at the com- mencement of that period subjected the British isles, to force the Presbyterians of Scotland and the north of Ireland to emigrate to America, probably because it was at length found impracticable to get rid of them entirely by more violent measures, or because the royal stomach was gorged sufficiently with blood. " It is judged the interest of the government," observes Scot, of Pitlochie, a Scotchman of rank and influence at this period, " to suppress Presbyterian principles al- together ; the whole force of the law of this kingdom is levelled at the effectual bearing them down. The rigorous putting these laws in execution has,- in a great part, ruined many of those who, notwithstanding hereof, find themselves in conscience obliged to retain their principles. A retreat, where by law a toleration is allowed, doth at present offer itself in America, and is nowhere else to be found in His Majesty's dominions." " This is the era," observes Bancroft, in his History of the United States, " at which New Jersey, till now chiefly colonized from New England, became the asy- lum of Scottish Presbyterians. And is it strange," asks that writer, " that many Scottish Presbyterians of virtue, education, and courage, blending a love of po- pular liberty with religious enthusiasm, came to New Jersey in such numbers, as to give to the rising com- monwealth a character which a century and a half has not effaced ?" " The more wealthy of the Scotch emi- grants of that period," observes another writer, " were D 2 30 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF noted for bringing with thein a great number of ser- vants, and, in some instances, for traiisporting whole families of poor labourers, whom they established on their lands."* And in speaking of the town of Free- hold, one of the earlier settlements in New Jersey, the Rev. W. Tennent observes : " The settling of that place with a gospel ministry was owing, under God, to the agency of some Scotch people that came to it ; among whom there was 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 appre- hended and sent to this country, under a sentence of perpetual banishment. By which it appears, that the devil and his instruments lost their aim in sending him from home, where it is unlikely he could ever have been so serviceable 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 8Sth year."-!- About the same period, a company of thirty noble- men and gentlemen, headed by Lord Cardross, of Scot- land, contracted for a large tract of land in Carolina, as an asylum for their persecuted countrymen ; and a Scotch settlement was accordingly formed on Port Royal Island, in that colony, in the year 1682.:|: According to Dr. Hodge, " A considerable number of Scotch also settled in Maryland. Colonel Ninian Beall, a native of Fifeshire, having become implicated in the troubles arising out of the conflict with episco- pacy, fled first to Barbadoes, and thence removed to Maryland, where he made an extensive purchase of land, covering much of the present site of Washington and Georgetown. He sent home to urge his friends * Bancroft and Gordon, quoted by Prof. Hodge in bis Hist, of the Presb. Cb. in America, vol. i. t Rev, W. Tennent, (luotcd by Prof. Hodge, Hist. &c. ii., p. 2-i. i Holmes' Annals. THE ATLANTIC STATKS OF AMEKICA. 81 and neighbours to join him in hi.s exile, and had inliu- ence enough to induce about two hundred to come over. They arrived about 1690, bringing with them their pastor, the Rev. Nathaniel Taylor, and formed the church and congregation of Upper Marlborough."* Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia during the greater part of the reign of Charles the Second, states, in a paper containing replies to certain inquiries proposed to him by the Lords of Plantations, that the number of emigrants who arrived annually in Virginia during that period was fifteen hundred ; and that of these a portion were Scotch and Irish.f As the emi- gration of Roman Catholics from Ireland to America did not commence till some time after the war of American Independence, it is to be presumed that these Irish were exclusively Presbyterians, and chiefly from the province of Ulster. This, indeed, is rendered almost certain from the fact, that a Presbyterian minis- ter, the Rev. Francis Makemie, was ordained, in all likelihood at their request, by the Presbytery of Donegal, in the north of Ireland, to dispense the ordi- nances of religion in that colony, and was actually settled in Accomack county, in Virginia, previous to the year 1690. Mr. Makemie was thus the father of the Presbyterian Church (as distinct from the churches of New England) in America ; and his memory was long revered in that country as a man of piety, and learning, and apostolic zeal. In the year 1704 he returned to Ireland, to procure additional ministers for the wide field of labour which the American colonies then presented to the Presbyterian Church, and carried out with him, on his return to Virginia, other two mi- nisters, who were immediately settled in the adjoining colony of Maryland. In the year 1707, Mr. Makemie went to visit his countrymen in New York ; and during * I'ruf. llodgc, Hist, of Prcsb. Cli. in Amcr., vol. i., p. O'fJ. f liciuuiiiigs" CoUectiou of the Laws ui V»4j[Uu;i. ApiK-ndix. 0? T ' !7Ej.--;i. A L 32 ORIGIN or THE INHABITANTS OF his stay in that colony he was imprisoned, and brought to trial by Lord Cornbury, the Governor, as a disturber of the public peace and a mover of sedition, for the serious offence of preaching the gospel ! His defence, which he conducted himself in a masterly manner, was long and deservedly famous among the Presby- terians of America.* It was some time after the commencement of the last century that the Scotch and Irish began to emi- grate in considerable numbers to the colony of New York. The intolerance of the public authorities, or rather of the Episcopal Church, in that colony, of which I have just given a striking example, appears to have deterred them. In the year 1708, "the inhabitants of the city were Dutch Calvinists, upon the plan of the Church of Holland ; French Refugees, on the Geneva model ; a few English Episcopalians ; and a still smaller number of English and Irish Presbyterians."-|' In the year 1717, however, the Scotch Presbyterians were numerous enough to have a church and pastor of their own in New York, and the Scotch and Irish emi- gration to the interior of the colony was then rapidly increasing. In the year 1737, Captain Lachlan Camp- bell, a Scotch Highlander, carried out to New York, at his own expense, upwards of five hundred of his poorer countrymen ; and the influx of Scotch and Irish emi- grants till the commencement of the Revolution was thenceforward regular and progressive. So early, even, as the year 1736, a settlement of Scotch Highlanders was formed in the colony of Georgia, then recently planted, under the pastoral superintendence of the Rev. Mr. M'Leod, a Gaelic minister from the island of Skye.:]: * Prof. Hodge, Hist, of Presb. Ch. in Amew, passim. Rev. Dr. Rcid, Hist, of Presb. Church in Ireland, vol. ii. t Smith, Hist, of New York, (luolcd by Prof. Hodge, i Holmes'' Annals, THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 33 " It was, however, to Pennsylvania that the largest emigrations of the Scotch and Irish, particularly of the latter, though at a somewhat later period, took place. Early in the last century, they began to arrive in large numbers. Near six thousand Irish are reported as having come out in 1729 ; and before the middle of the century, near twelve thousand arrived annually, for several years. Speaking of a later period, Proud says, ' they have flowed in, of late years, from the north of Ireland, in very large numbers.' Cum- berland county, he says, is settled by them ; and they abound through the whole province. From Peim- sylvania, they spread themselves into Virginia, and thence into North Carolina. A thousand families arrived in that State, from the northern colonies, in the single year 1764. Their descendants occupy the western portion of the State, with a dense and homo- geneous population, distinguished by the strict morals and rigid principles of their ancestors. In 1749, five or six hundred Scotch settled near Fayetteville ; there was a second importation in 1754 ; and there was an annual importation, from that time, of that hardy and industrious people."* Fayetteville is situated at the head of the navigation of Cape Fear river, in the State of North Carolina ; and the Scotch who are said to have settled there, about the middle of last century, were exclusively from the Highlands of Scotland. The Gaelic language is still spoken in this vicinity ; and in some of the Presbyterian churches of this part of North Carolina, it is used in divine service. Public worship is conducted, in every respect, as in Scotland ; and on extraordinary occa- sions, as at the solemn and protracted services that accompany the celebration of the Lord's Supper, in the Presbyterian Church, congregations of from two to three * Prof. Hodge, Hist, of Prc&b. Cli., &c., vol i., p. 60. 34 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF thousand persons are frequently assembled, as is still the case, on such occasions, in some parts of Scotland. The Presbytery of Londonderry, in New Hampshire, in Avhich, in like manner, the manners and observances of the Presbyterians of Ireland are still retained and che- rished, owes its origin to the settlement of a hundred families, from the province of Ulster, in that neighbour- hood, in the year 1719. The land along the Atlantic coast of America, for upwards of a hundred miles from the ocean, especially to the southward of the Chesapeake Bay, is generally low and sterile, and was, probably, at no remote period, under water. The rivers that empty themselves into the Atlantic Ocean generally cease to be navigable at that distance from the coast, and the falls that are there found to impede navigation indicate both the rise and the improvement of the country. It is on this rising country, of which the climate is highly salubrious and the soil sufficiently productive, that the Scotch settle- ments of North Carolina are principally located. Beyond the first range of mountains, however, which, running parallel to the coast, stretches across the whole extent of Virginia, and is called the Blue Ridge, and the Alle- ghany mountains to the westward, there is a valley of several hundred miles in length, and of various breadth, called, by way of distinction, the Valley of Virginia, or simply The Valley, and embracing a country of great natural beauty and unbounded fertility. Into this valley the Scotch-Irish, as they are called in America, that is, the Irish Presbyterian descendants of the ori- ginal Scotch colonists of the province of Ulster, found their way from the State of Pennsylvania, where the two mountain ridges form a narrow defile, some time about the close of the seventeenth, or the beginning of the eighteenth, century. And in succeeding genera- tions, reinforced, as they were, from year to year, by perpetual immigration, they gradually spread them- THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 35 selves over the whole valley, and in process of time pushed onward into the western parts of North Caro- lina, South Carolina, and Georgia, where the country is of a somewhat similar character, and sent numerous de- tachments into the vast region which now constitutes the States of Kentucky and Tennessee. In still later periods, numerous families and individuals from these older colonies, and especially from the sterile regions on the coast, joined the great stream of emigration to the westward, ultimately fixing their residence in the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas. For it is worthy of remark, that emigration within the United States generally proceeds upon the same parallel of latitude : for, as the land of promise in that country is the West, the emigrant, naturally pre- ferring the climate to which lie has been accustomed, turns neither to the right hand nor to the left, in his western course, but pushes right onwards towards the setting sun. In short, if it was the comparatively small number of English Puritans, that settled in the northern colonies during the seventeenth century, that gave the tone and character to the present population of New England, it has unquestionably been the Scotch-Irish, who had thus been pouring in their thousands, every year, into the Middle States of the Union, for a whole century before the war of independence, that have given the tone and character to these Middle States, which now con- stitute so large and so important a portion of the Ameri- can Republic, and from which the South and West are now rapidly colonizing. From the preceding rapid and imperfect sketch of the origin of the inhabitants of the Atlantic States of America, it will doubtless be evident to the reader that, for the space of a century and upwards, before the war of American independence, Divine Providence had, in a most remarkable manner, been collecting to-' 3G OIiIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF eether, from all parts of Europe, in the English colonies that now constitute the United States of America, just such materials as were, unquestionably, the best fitted for laying the foundations of a great and Christian empire, and for thereby exerting, in all time coming, a highly beneficial influence in the advancement of the human race. Formed, in regard to their national origin, of the most heterogeneous and apparently discordant materials, but united, nevertheless, by the strong tie of a common faith, for which they had all suffered the loss of all things, it was natural to expect that, as soon as the American people should assume the standing and cha- racter of a separate nation, governed by its own laws, and forming its own institutions, pure and undefiled re- ligion would be found to flourish among them, on the one hand, and that they would be remarkably distin- guished for an ardent and enthusiastic attachment to civil and religious liberty, on the other. And, to use the apposite metaphor of M. de Tocqueville, the Ame- rican man has fully realized the promise of his infancy and childhood ; exhibiting those peculiarly sterling qua- lities that were to have been anticipated from the cir- cumstances of his birth. So early as the year 1634, George Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore, the origuial patentee of the colony of Maryland, settled in that colony with two hundred Roman Catholics from Ireland ; for whom, indeed, the colony of Maryland was originally intended as an asylum.* Now, had this Roman Catholic emigration, which was very consider- able in the first instance, and promised to be equally extensive with the Protestant, not been checked by va- rious circumstances, at the outset, and kept back for the long period of a hundred and fifty yeais, or till the country had been sufficiently leavened with Protestant- ism to enable it to neutralize all the subsequent efforts * Holmes' Annals. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 37 and influence of Popery ; in short, had the emigration of Irish Roman Catholics to America been as extensive in the seventeenth, as it has been in the nineteenth century, the United States would at this moment have been a mere province of the Papacy ; while its free- born, intelligent, and thoroughly Protestant people would in all likelihood have been, like their neighbours in Mexico and South America, the deluded victims of a debasing superstition. It would be blindness, indeed, not to discern the hand of God in so beneficent an ar- rangement! " This review," observes Professor Hodge, after enu- merating the different classes of immigrants into the United States, " accounts for the rapid increase of the Presbyterian church in this country. In about a century and a quarter, it has risen from two or three ministers to between two and three thousand. This is no matter of surprise, when it is seen that so large a portion of the emigrants were Presbyterians. As they merged their diversities of national character into that of American citizens, so the Scotch, Irish, French, English, Dutch, and German Presbyterians became united, in thousands of instances, in the American Presbyterian church. Having the same views of civil government, our population, so diversified as to its origin, forms a harmonious civil society, and, agreeing in opinion on the government of the church, the various classes above specified formed a religious society, in which the difference of their origin was as little regarded as it was in the state.'* " The history of American colonization," observes an able and eloquent writer, " is the history of the crimes of Europe." Of the multitudes of emigrants that crossed over into the New World, from the Old, during the seventeenth, and the earlier portion of the eighteenth centuries, how few, comparatively, had not been driven from their native land by the scourge of oppression ! South America was originally colonized for its silver E 38 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF and its gold ; and the present inferior and degraded race that occupies its vast extent, in comparative po- verty and indolence, are the worthy descendants of the bands of lawless and blood-thirsty ruffians that first landed, in search of these precious metals, on its shores ; but North America was colonized, in great measure at least, by honest and Christian men — men who were searching, in the vast v.'ilderness, for that civil and religious liberty which they prized above all other earthly possessions, and which had been so un- justly and so cruelly denied them at home. " It is the peculiar characteristic of America," observes Dr. Hodge, " that it is the asylum of all nations. The blood of the Huguenots, of the Puritans, of the Dutch, of the Germans, of the Scotch, and of the Irish, here flows in one common stream."* And yet, if we are to believe Captain Marryat, in direct opposition to the evidence afforded by ten thou- sand indisputable facts, and to all the deductions of common sense and experience, we must believe that this blood has now become so thoroughly tainted, that there is no portion of the putrid mass of society in the worst parts of the European world to be compared with the American people for corruption and immorality I " I consider," says this writer of novels, " that, at this present time, the standard of morality is lower in Ame- rica than in any other portion of the civilized globe." '• It may, indeed, be fairly said, that nothing is disgrace- ful with the majority in America, which the law^ cannot lay hold of. You are either in or out of the Peniten- tiary ; if once in, you are lost for ever ; but keep out, and you are as good as your neighbours." And again, " Fifty years back, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, was not the American community one of the most virtuous in existence ? It is equally * Hist, of Presb. Church in America, vol i. p. 71. Philadelphia, 1840. THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 39 certain that they are now one of the most demo- ralized."* I have no hesitation, from what I saw myself, in hun- dreds of localities, in not fewer than eleven States of the Union, in characterising these statements as an utterly un- founded and atrocious libel. I cannot even give Captain Marryat, in this particular instance, as I am willing to do in others, the credit of ignorance and presumption. He could not be ignorant that such statements were grossly untrue, and utterly unfounded. In short, with such exceptions as are to be met with in all countries, and in tenfold greater numbers in England than in America, the inhabitants of all the older States of the American Union are a pre-eminently moral and religious people. And why should it be otherwise ? Is it cre- dible that men who had, in so many instances, willingly suffered exile for conscience' sake, would fail to instil virtuous principles into the hearts of their children ? Or is it at all accordant with uniform experience in other instances, that these children would so speedily prove so utterly unmindful, as Captain M.'s slanderous representation implies, of the precepts and example of their fathers ? The comparatively pure morality even of the Unitarians of New England, which, like the sun- light in the arctic regions, still continues to illumine the land of darkness and of the shadow of death, after the glorious luminary from which it had emanated has dis- appeared from the firmament of heaven, proves suiSi- ciently how deeply seated were the Christian principles of their pilgrim fathers, and how zealously they taught even their erring children the pure morality of the gospel. Besides, is it credible that the comfortable circum- stances in which the great mass of the American peo- ple are placed, in regard to the means of subsistence — alike removed from poverty en the one hand, and from affluence on the other — should be unfavourable to mo- * Diary in America, vol. i. Atncr. edit. 220. 40 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF rality ? On the contrary, is it not universally allowed, that very much of the immorality of England arises, from the very different constitution of society in our own country — from degrading penury at the one ex- treme of the social system, and from the ability to in- dulge in wasteful extravagance and dissipation at the other? The working man in America is in general of much superior standing in society to the working man of the same occupation in England. In ail likelihood the American workman is an intelligent man, and has got a good common education, and expects eventually to rise to a higher level in society than the one he occupies. He is, in all likelihood, married, and has a rising family, for whom he finds no difficulty in securing as good an education as he has had himself ; and the probability is, that he is a member, and perhaps an office-bearer, of some Presbyterian, Methodist, or Baptist church in his neighbourhood : for it is not creditable even for a com- mon workman in America not to be connected with some Christian church. Compare such a situation, and its eminent advantages for morality and religion, with that of the English workman — " the lean, unwashed artificer" of our cities — and then say whether the representation of Captain Marryat has even the semblance of proba- bility ! How few comparatively of our own workmen are married men ! Alas ! their scanty wages, and their precarious pro^^pect of employment, too frequently de- ter them from burdening themselves with the cares of a family ; and how many, comparatively, of these un- married men, especially in our large cities, lead exceed- ingly irregular and vicious lives ! The common work- man in England very rarely expects to better his fortune, or to rise to the rank of a master. Hope is annihilated within him from the very first, and the powerful stimu- lus to virtuous action which it uniformly supplies is never felt. How few, comparatively, also, of our workmen are members of any church ! How large a proportion THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 41 of their whole number are Socialists and Chartists — cherishing a deep-rooted feeling of hatred towards the higher classes of society, whom they almost uniformly regard as their oppressors, and a growing disposition to throw off all authority, whether human or divine ! These undoubted characteristics of a large proportion of the working classes in England, have nothing what- ever to compare with them in America. After complacently taking for granted the unparal- leled and atrocious immorality of the Americans, with- out adducing, however, the slightest evidence of the fact. Captain Marryat ascribes the prevalence of this immorality to the want of an aristocracy. '* It is the want of this aristocracy that has so lowered the standard of morals in America, and it is the reviving of it that must restore to the people of the United States the morality they have lost." And again, " The fact is, that an aristocracy is absolutely necessary for America, both politically and morally, if the Americans wish their institutions to hold together ; for if some stop is not put to the rapidly advancing power of the people, anarchy must be the result. I do not mean an aristo- cracy of title ; I mean such an aristocracy of talent and power as wealth will give — an aristocracy which shall lead society and purify it. How is this to be ob- tained in a democracy ? Simply by purchase. In a country where the suffrage is confined to certain classes, as in England, such purchase is not to be obtained, as the people who have the right of suffrage are not poor enough to be bought. But in a country like America, where the suffrage is universal, the people will eventually sell their birth-right, and if by such means an aristocra- tic government is elected, it will be able to amend the constitution and pass what laws it pleases." And again, " Power once gained by the people is never to be re- covered except by bribery and corruption." — Murryat, passim, e2 42 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF I congratulate the Americans on the prospect of hav- ing their constitution voluntarHy amended, some day or other, by men who shall have won their way to the possession of political power by bribery and corruption ! To speak seriously, however, it is somewhat remarkable that such miserable drivelling should, in any part of Eng- land, be mistaken for common sense, or sound philoso- phy ! If the English voters are not poor enough to be bought, those of America are not poor enough to sell their birth- right. And even if they were inclined to do so, all the wealth of the would-be aristocrats, whom Captain Marryat- — this half-pay morahst — is so anxious to teach the aristocratic lesson of bribery and corruption, would be insufficient to effect the purchase. On all the great principles of their common govern- ment, all parties in America are perfectly at one. It is only in m.atters of minute detail, as to how these principles should be applied in particular cases, that there is any difference. Although I am no financier myself, I believe 1 am correct in stating that the ablest men in that department in England have not yet decid- ed the question, as to whether our own great national Bank has hitherto been a national benefit, or a na- tional evil. Now this is in reality the main question between the two great political parties that divide America — the Federalists, or Whigs, and the Adminis- trationists, or Democrats. The former, who comprise the merchants, are strong in the cities ; the latter, who constitute the agriculturists, are strong in the country ; and, as far as I could ascertain from personal observa- tion, as well as from the testimony of competent wit- nesses, neither the wealth, nor the talent, nor the piety of the nation, is engrossed by either party. In addi- tion to the Bank question, however, there is another that, I confess, deeply agitates America, in every pe- riodical return of their national elections. It is simply the great question that agitates us here — who shall ob- tain the power and divide the spoil ? THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 43 " The determination to have an aristocracy in Ame- rica," observes Capt. Marryat, meaning an aristocracy of wealth, as he has himself explained it, "gains head every day ; a conflict must ensue, when the increase of wealth in the country adds sufficiently to the strength of the party." The increase of wealth in America will always be accompanied with a corresponding increase of popu- lation, and the circumstances of society and the ba- lance of power will therefore remain, for the future, precisely the same in this particular as at present. As to the alleged desire for an aristocracy in America, I am confident no intelligent American, who can discern the real interests of his country, either has, or can have, the slightest desire for any thing of the kind. The general distribution of property in America, arising from the want of an aristocracy, to treasure up the wealth of the country in vast accumulations, and to spend it, as is done so frequently in England, in heartless extravagance and dissipation ; or rather from the abolition of the laws of primogeniture and of entail — this general dis- tribution of property in the United States gives a per- sonal and direct interest in the maintenance of the great political institutions of the country, to perhaps four times the number of persons in America, as compared with the number of those who have such an interest in England. The beneficial efl'ect of such a distribution of property on the general morality of the country, must be self-evident ; especially to all who can perceive any propriety in the prayer of Agur, " Give me neither po- verty nor riches." Then, as to the personal character and influence of the men who really do form a species of aristocracy in the one country as well as in the other — I mean the statesmen and legislators of each — I will only mention a single fact, which, however, speaks volumes on the subject. Of the members of the present American Congress — amounting to about two hundred and fifty 44 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF altogether — there are not fewer than forty, of such de- cided piety, as to hold social meetings for prayer in the city of Washington. Let Captain Marry at only pro- duce a similar proportion of equally decided Christian men from our own House of Commons, and I shall, most willingly, acknowledge that he has written the truth.* As I shall not recur to this subject again, I shall conclude this chapter with the following quotation, on the prospect of an aristocracy in America, from the ad- mirable work of M. de Tocqueville, who, compared with Captain Marryat as a writer on America and her insti- tutions, is as Hyperion to a satyr. " Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy arise in America, and they already predict the exact period at which it will be able to assume the reins of government. I have previously observed, and I repeat my assertion, that the present tendency of American society appears to me to become more and more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not assert that the Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the circle of political rights in their country, or confis- cate those rights to the advantage of a single individual ; but I cannot imagine that they will ever bestow the ex- clusive exercise of them upon a privileged class of citi- zens, or, in other words, that they will ever found an aristocracy. " An aristocratic body is composed of a certain num- ber of citizens, who, without being very far removed from the mass of the people, are, nevertheless, perman- ently stationed above it : a body which it is easy to touch, and difficult to strike ; with which the people are in daily contact, but with which they can never combine. Nothing can be imagined more contrary to nature, and to the secret propensities of the human heart, than a * As 250 : 10 ;: 600 : 96— the number lequiicd ! THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA, 45 subjection of this kind ; and men, who are left to follow their own bent, will always prefer the arbitrary power of a i^ing to the regular administration of an aristocracy. Aristocratic institutions cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the legislation affecting the con- dition of the human family, as much as it affects that of society ; but these are things so repugnant to natural equity, that they can only be extorted from men by constraint. " I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society began to exist, which has, by its own free will and by its own exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom. All the aristocracies of the middle ages were founded by military conquest j the conqueror was the noble, the vanquished became the serf. Inequa- lity was then imposed by force ; and after it had been introduced into the manners of the country, it maintain- ed its own authority, and was sanctioned by the legisla- tion. Communities have existed which were aristocra- tic from their earliest origin, owing to circumstances an- terior to that event, and which became more democratic in each succeeding age. Such was the destiny of the Romans, and of the barbarians after them. But a peo- ple, having taken its rise in civilization and democracy, which should gradually establish an inequality of con- ditions, until it arrived at inviolable privileges and ex- clusive castes, would be a novelty in the world ; and nothing intimates that America is likely to furnish so singular an example."* * De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," page 401. Se- cond Amcr, Ed. New York, 1838. CHAPTER II. VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION, AND OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES, PREVIOUS TO THE RE- VOLUTION. As the pilgrim fathers who landed on Plymouth Rock, and laid the foundation of the future colony of Massa- chusetts Bay, in the year 1620, had been Brownists or Independents before they left England, as well as dur- ing the period of their temporary sojourning at Rotter- dam, in Holland ; and as the system of church govern- ment which they established in New England has, for some time past, been generally known in this country by the name of Congregationalism, it has been taken for granted, without investigation of any kind and with- out evidence, that it is identical with that of the Eng- lish Independents or Congregationalists. This idea, however, is altogether unfounded ; and there are none so ready as the New Englanders themselves to testify against the injury which they conceive is thus done them by misrepresenting the system under which their church has unquestionably flourished for upwards of two cen- turies past. " When the pious Robinson," observes the Rev. Samuel M. Worcester, A.M., the pastor of the Tabernacle Church in Salem, Massachusetts, " gave his farewell charge to those of his flock who were embark- ing for the American wilderness, and expressed his per- suasion, that the Lord had more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word, he unquestionably anticipated that VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION. 47 the churches of the Reformation, founded upon these shores, would embrace farther light upon the jirincijjles of government and discipline, as also upon points of faith and duty. His anticipations have been realized, and the doctrines which he loved have been vindicated and en- forced by new arguments and more impressive illustra- tions. And Congregationalism, as established in New England, is a decided improvement upon the scheme of Independence, which, for a time at least, he advo- cated."* The passage from the farewell address of the Rev. Mr. Robinson to his people at Rotterdam, to which Mr. Worcester refers, is quoted by him as follows : — " If God reveal any thing to you by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry ; for I am verily persuaded, I am very confident, the Lord hath more truth yet to bring out of his holy word." And again, " I beseech you to remember it ; it is an article of your Church covenant, that you will be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known unto you from the written word of God. Remember that, and every other article of your most sacred covenant. But I must herewithal exhort you to take heed what you receive as truth ; examine it, consi- * ■■' Discourse delivered on the first Centennial Anniversary of tlie Tabernacle Church, Salem, Mass. April 26th, 183.5. By Samuel M. Worcester, A.IM., Pastor of the Church. Salem, 183.5." I cannot help remarking, thatniy good friend, Mr. Worcester, was peculiarly happy in the choice of his text, on the occasion in question. It was Psalm lxx\-i. 2, "In Salem also is his Tabernacle." The Tabernacle Church in Salem was so named by its founders, in ho- nour of the celebrated Mr. Whitcfield, whose place of worship in Lon- don, was of that name. Mr. W. died at Newburyport, Massachu- setts, a place in the neighbourhood tf Salem. I had the melan- choly pleasure of occupying for a few minutes the arm-chair in which the venerable and apostolic man breathed his last. It is pre- served as an interesting relic of the olden time, in the collection of the Historical Society of Salem. 48 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION der it, compare it with the other Scriptures of truth, before you do receive it."* What " farther light upon the principles of govern- ment and discipline " the Pilgrim Fathers of New Eng- land actually received and followed, in accordance with this apostolic injunction of their spiritual guide, the learned and pious Robinson, may be easily ascertained from the following passages, which [ quote from an un- questionable authority. " Next unto the Bible, which was the professed, per- petual, and only directory of the churches of New Eng- land, they had no platform of their church government more exact than their famous John Cotton's well-known book of The Keys ; which book endeavours to lay out the just lines and bounds of all church power, and so defines the matter, that, as in the state there is a dis- persion of powders into several hands, which are to con- cur in all acts of common concernment, from whence ariseth the healthy constitution of a commonwealth ; in like sort he assigns the powers in the church unto several subjects, wherein the united light of Scripture and of nature have placed them, with a very satisfactory distribution. He asserts, that a Presbyterated Society of the faithful hath within itself a compleat power of self-reformation, or, if you will, of self-preservation, and may within itself manage its own choice of officers and censures of delinquents." " Nevertheless, because par- ticular churches of elders and brethren may abuse their power with manifold miscarriages, he asserts the neces- sary communion of churches in synods, who have autho- rity to determine, declare, and injoin, such things as may rectifie the ynale-administration, or any disorders, * In his account of the formation of the first church in Salem, in the year 1629, Huhhard, an early Puritan writer, quoted by Dr. Holmes, observes, " They aimed to settle a Reformed Church, ac- cording to their apprehension of the rules of the Gospel, and the pattern of the best reformed chirchesr — Holmes Annals, an. 1629. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 49 dissentions, and confusions of the congregations, which fall under their cognizance. But still so as to leave unto the particular churches themselves the formal acts, which are to be done pursuant unto the advice of the council; upon the scandalous and obstinate refusal whereof, the council may determine to ivithdraw com- munion from them, as from those who will not be coun- selled against a notorious mismanagement of the juris- diction which the Lord Jesus Christ has given them. This was the design of that judicious treatise wherein was contained the substance of our church discipline."^ It is evident, therefore, that the additional light on the principles of church government and discipline, which the New England congregationalists actually re- ceived and followed in the American wilderness, icd them to reject the peculiar tenets of the English Inde- pendents, in regard to the union and communion of churches ; and to adopt those of the Scotch Presby- terians, and the other reformed churches of the Calvin- istic confession. Nay, Mr. Cotton Mather actually quotes the celebrated Scotch divine, Samuel Ruther- ford, whose opinion, in regard to what mainly consti- tutes Presbyterianism, no one will venture to contro- vert, as to the general conformity of the New England and Scotch systems of church government. " The famous Mr. Rutherford himself, in his treatise intituled, A Survey of the Spiritual State of Christ, has these words : ' Mr. Cotton, in his treatise of The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, is well sound in our way, if he had given some more power to assemblies, and in some lesser points.' "-(- In the years 1648 and 1649, a Synod of tlie Churches of New England was held at Cambridge, * ^Fagnalia Christi Americana. By the Rev. Cotton blather, A.M. Book V. sec. I. London, 1702. \ Magnalia, &c , uhi supra. F 50 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION Massachusetts, to draw up and determine upon a plat^ form of doctrine and discipline for these churches ; and in Chap. II. Sec. 5, of that platform, we find the fol- lowing declaration on this subject : — " The state of the members of the militant visible church, walking in order, was either before the law, (Economical, that is, in families ; or under the law, national ; or since the coming of Christ, only congregational ; (the term inde" pendent we approve not,) therefore neither national, provincial, nor classical." The 16th chapter of the Cambridge Platform, en- titled. Of Synods, is as follows :— 1. Synods orderly assembled, and rightly proceeding according to the pattern. Acts xv., we acknowledge as the ordinance of Christ : and though not absolutely necessary to the being, yet many times, through the iniquity of men, and perverseness of times, necessary to the well-being of churches, for the establishment of truth and peace therein. 2. Synods, being spiritual and ecclesiastical assem- blies, are therefore made up of spiritual and ecclesias- tical causes. The next efficient cause of them, under Christ, is the power of the churches sending forth their elders and other messengers, who, being met together in the name of Christ, are the matter of a synod ; and they, in arguing, and debating, and determining matters of religion, according to the Word, and publishing the same to the churches it concerneth, do put forth the proper formal acts of a synod, to the conviction of errors and heresies, and the establishment of truth and peace in the churches, which is the end of a synod. 3. Magistrates have power to call a synod, by call- ing to the churches to send forth their elders, and other messengers, to counsel and assist them in matters of religion ; but yet, the constitution of a synod is a church act, and may be transacted by the churches, even when civil magistrates may be enemies to churches and to church assemblies. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 51 4. It belongeth unto synods and councils to debate and determine controversies of faith, and cases of con- science ; to clear from the Word holy directions, for the holy worship of God and good government of the church ; to bear witness against mal-administration and corruption in doctrine or manners, in any particular church ; and to give directions for the reformation thereof : not to exercise church censures in way of dis- cipline, nor any other act of church authority or juris- diction, which that presidential synod did forbear. 5. The synod's directions and determinations, so far as consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission ; not only for their agreement therewith (which is the principal ground thereof, and without which they bind not at all), but also secondarily, for the power, whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in his word.* Upwards of thirty years thereafter, we not only find synods assembling under this constitution, but as- sembled under the authority of the civil magistrates. Witness the following entry : — " A synod of the churches in the colony of the Mas- sachusetts being called by the honoured General Court, to convene at Boston, the 10th of September, 1679, having read and considered the Platform of Church Discipline, agreed upon by the synod assembled at Cambridge, anno 1648, do unanimously approve of the said Platform, for the substance of it, desiring that the churches may continue steadfast, in the order of the gospel, according to what is therein declared from the Word of God."t In the year 1708, another synod of the New Eng- land churches was held at Saybrook, Connecticut, in which the Cambridge Platform was not only confirmed, * Magnalia, &c., vbi supra. f lb. Book v. »^ itiiffi 'SB' ga»amia» " -^ ' ' iTtti» ii^ ID jmuwAuK g^ at gfgnMw. rver max heesa ^& ^esoik^tasutail 'iarwsustv ta Cim- ■rcsfid;^ HOB ai&c3r4viii&' ygftflgftied uu&sr tfttr ixsile nf fn~~ ~'' "olktS PjcaAnlenHift and Oiiiisws*- . ixnt miiiiKisiK, ' r jifli- fi* T r~iiTi"t«:«. af i r^ rr yruii - .• nut ♦!•? . *VlTT»f «• «p amiifCiuiti ft ] n: JL.1:. V'KF. iH HI*- *» :ir " lii.Jf n viur^t ibe Uid:vcTf?t r«r dnndi se5sm> gwasfe>«ig of IIm pislbw ami 41 M|y ^ mdter tli« fenft«r by ^b» ^trbidte bid^ «f «)iwkIi «n«i> b«%«a«liQf«lMnlias Hie sadM^ ^polft % iAift jpastor^ la oHwt w^id^ thi^ BNfibylmadBL ^wteshsl k aJI ^p^teM Is lepoblkAii tloQu^^wMil $ 0i« C»nsi«^»tbtiMw»l is «Jte«iiid- enkkaL In «ases« li«»««!p«r« in ^idncli «llfti«f i^ pastor or ai uawwitf «t llvft ew B ^ f regmfen «« difefttlEted ^tAi bud syshMi^ Kcowsft Is allow^i «illMsr Id Hift Cowily AsscKttliQii or GMMsadaydwi «f OmkImi^ w to tli^ G«n«n) A^omkMm ^ IK« St^te — b^ilKS In ^ K^p^eks aindhr to di« prasfey to nigs ami s@tt«nl s^pnods or a»- shbUms ai tjbtt Ftosfeytoran systoaii Isr,, ahlMn^ lh«^ A^sooblMMfi b»f« w) k$^bklv« (&t jwfimi »»> tbonl;^* pnbfie cjpl nl Mv and lli« nnifenR pwft lk ft «^ tfti« N»w En^md cIiiikIi«s,» ^y« llitlr d^usMtt^ ^idkkli w« llk« h%lt«sl ^cc te siaa l knl «otttt in llift PiK^ytomn or th» wQckb^ qT tftts ^r$toa^ i^ K«t. Mr. W*dn ^ tb« w^lorily^t with trbom wats th» jpastor,, tli« K^r, Mr. FIsk., fii^ to % sPMklkr,, auid aJI«r«caat^ to at lagr^r »5;sv>- to th«e Oittibm)^ *" " ; tb« liAttor «?>lf tfvftar n-vHiit>» r i 54 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION ministers altogether. Of these churches, nhieteen sent clerical and lay delegates to the council, who at their first meeting, held at Salem, July 16th, 1734, confirmed the decision of the smaller council, whose Result had been unfavourable to the pastor and the majority of the divided church, and then adjourned, to meet again at Salem, on the 15th of October following. The pastor and the majority were earnestly advised, in the mean time, to come to terms with their aggrieved brethren, and threatened with the highest ecclesiastical censures in the event of their refusal. This advice, however, w^as ineffectual ; and the council accordingly voted, at their adjourned meeting, " that the First Church in Salem had forfeited the privilege of communion with the churches represented in their body. The sentence of non- communion, however, was delayed for three months. It then went into efifect ; and the churches of New England were called to witness the singular spectacle of a sister-church excluded from the pale of fellowship." The position which Mr. Fisk and the majority of his church members had taken up, in direct opposition to the principles of the Cambridge and Saybrook Plat- forms, was that of English Independency, as distinct from New England Congregationalism, or rather, as directly opposed to it, viz. that no other churches had any right to interfere in the management of the internal affairs of his church ; and, as an important and funda- mental principle of the whole system of the church government of New England was thus in question, it became absolutely necessary, on the part of the churches generally, to have the point definitively settled. " Mr. Fisk," it is well observed by Mr. Wor- cester, " was a man of distinguished abilities ; but the principles of ecclesiastical government, for w^hich he contended, were at war with the established usages of Congregationalism ; and, as applied by himself, would PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 55 expose the churches to all the evils of anarchy in ge- neral, and despotism in particular. Aggrieved mi- norities could have no possible redress or relief."* " On the 18th of April, 1735, the party dissatisfied with Mr. Fisk, (?. e. the minority sustained by the council,) voted to dismiss him, and to hire Samuel Mather, of Boston, to supply their pulpit. And in the forenoon, on the last sabbath of the month, Mr. Fisk was forcibly prevented from preaching. Never again did he make an effort to occupy his pulpit. Accom- panied by three-fourths, at least, of the church and society, he abandoned the house of worship to the aggrieved brethren and their associates." " That a minority should thus be able to triumph, is easily explained, when we consider how much moral power was wielded by an ecclesiastical council, whose decisions were just, and whose sentence was ratified by the voice of public opinion. The majority of the First Church were under the ban of excommunication, ac- cording to the * Third way of Communion.' The churches generally, though not unanimously, approved of the measure. Not only so, but the colonial legis- lature sanctioned the votes of the aggrieved party, and cut off Mr. Fisk and his friends from all hope of relief. Such was the energy and the efficiency of Congre- gationalism, one hundred years since."-}- It is worthy of remark, that, in the year 1743, i. e. ten years after the ejectment of Mr. Fisk and his con- tumacious majority from the First Church in Salem, that very majority " had become fully sensible of their error in adhering to Mr. Fisk, in opposition to the Christian advice and solemn admonition of the churches, which had dealt with them previous to the separation. Happy were they to avail themselves of the aid of sister-churches, to extricate them from the embar- * Mr. Worcester's Discourse. t Il^i^l- 56 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION rassments and disasters into which they had been plunged, by their obstinate defiance of what they had pronounced unscriptural and unauthorized interference. They made a humble confession, and the sentence of non-communion was rescinded."* It is worthy of remark, also, that, at a subsequent period (in the year 1769), when the Third Church in Salem had been guilty of some irregularity, in neglect- ing to solicit the countenance and assistance of the neighbouring churches, on the occasion of the installa- tion of their pastor, three of the neighbouring clergy, in a letter to the brethren of that church, remonstrated and protested against the new and unheard-of practice, as one " savouring of Independency." The following is an extract of their letter ; and is interesting for its general tone and spirit, as well as for the testimony which it bears to the principles and practice of the Pil- grim Fathers. " Our worthy and pious ancestors of this Province esteemed the Congregational plan of church polity most agreeable to the gospel, and most favourable to the religious liberties and rights of individuals and so- cieties. The First Church in Salem (and in the Pro- vince), from which we all descended, did formerly, from time to time, solemnly renew their original covenant, and professed their adherence to Congregational prin- ciples, and particularly that they will no way slight their sister churches ; but use their counsel as need shall be. " Now% it has been the constant usage of these churches, from the beginning, to ask the presence of jister churches in the settlement of pastors, whether at their first ordination or instalment, and that for such obvious reasons, among others, as follows, to testify their union and charity — to derive mutual help and * Worcester's Discourse, page 11. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 57 strength from each other — to be so satisfied of the qua- lifications of pastors, as to embrace them in their public characters, and open their doors to them in all occa- sional acts of their ministry, and thereby maintain that friendly correspondence and communion which is so beneficial to the common cause of religion. " It is a maxim of prudence, not to deviate from established customs, but for w^eighty reasons. Your departing, therefore, from the practice of these churches, into a mode savouring of independency, will, we fear, be found inconvenient to yourselves in consequence ; and any act of ours, showing an approbation of it, may, so far as our small influence reaches, be hurtful to the communion of churches, give umbrage to our own churches in particular, and bring us under blame from those who wish well to our ecclesiastical state."* The reader will doubtless excuse the length of the preceding extracts, when he reflects on the frequent efforts that have been made, of late years, to repre- sent the ecclesiastical system of the New England churches as altogether identical with that of the Eng- lish Independents. On the contrary, it must be evi- dent from these extracts, that no two systems can be more opposed to each other ; as the fundamental prin- ciple of the system of the Independents is, that each congregation or society constitutes a complete church, with the internal affairs of which no other church can have any thing to do ; whereas, the fundamental prin- ciple of the system of New England, as it is also of the Presbyterian church, is, that each congregation forms a part of the general church of Christ, and is amenable, even for the exercise of church government and disci- pline towards its own members, to the cognizance and authority of the whole communion to which it belongs. We find, accordingly, that the Congregationalists of * Worcester's Discourse — Appendix, page 5,?, 58 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION' New England have all along considered themselves as much more closely allied to Presbyterians, than to In- dependents. The venerable President Day, of Yale College, Connecticut, told me he had never heard of their being designated by any other name than Pres- byterians, in that State, till he was thirty years of age. I subjoin another, and a much more interesting ex- ample, not merely of the working, but of the thoroughly Presbyterian character of the ecclesiastical system of New England ; interesting, in the highest degree, to all orthodox Protestants, inasmuch as it exhibits the manner in which the Unitarian heresy, which after- wards made such desolating progress in Massachusetts, was successfully eradicated, even after it had seemed to have taken firm root, in the neighbouring State of Con- necticut. In the year 1805, the Rev. John Sherman, A. B., minister of the First Church in the town of Mansfield, Connecticut, having not only broached Uni- tarian doctrines, but induced a majority of the members of his church to receive them, and to sign a paper, be- sides, pledging themselves, forsooth, not to quarrel about doctrines during his incumbency — for this, it seems, was the adroit way in which the church of Mansfield was to be Socinianized — a minority of the members of the church, feeling themselves aggrieved, addressed the following letter to the General Associa- tion or Presbytery of the county of Windham, in that State : — " To the General Association of the county of Wind- ham, to meet at Westford, in Ashford, on the third Tuesday in May, 1805. " Mansfield, April 29, 1805. " Reverend and Beloved, " We, the undersigned, are members of the Church in the South Society of Mansfield, of which the Rev. John Sherman is pastor, professing to be built on the PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 59 foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. We are deeply- wounded, when sentiments are advanced, which, to us, appear dishonourable to the glorious Redeemer, and calculated to destroy that system of religion he has taught, and eventually ruin immortal souls. The real Deity of Christ, or that the man Christ Jesus is truly slw& properly God, is a doctrine we have been taught, and in the belief of which we have been long esta- blished. It is a doctrine we cannot be persuaded to give up, but with the Bible which contains it. It is a doctrine on which rest our hopes of eternal salvation. In connexion, we have been in the habit of thinking, and are finally persuaded, that the doctrine of a trinity of persons in the Godhead, as held by Calvinistic di- vines for ages, is a doctrine clearly taught in the Holy Scriptures. These doctrines, however mysterious and incomprehensible, we consider as lying at the founda- tion of revealed truth, and as the very basis of Chris- tianity. But these doctrines, we are constrained to be- lieve, are denied and treated with levity by him we have received as our spiritual guide. " You, Rev. Gentlemen, are so fully acquainted with his sentiments on these points, that we need not enlarge for the sake of your information. We have heard him with pain on these subjects. We have not been un- mindful of him in our addresses to the Father of Lights, that he might be recovered from the dangerous error, and be a wise and faithful guide to souls. But we can no longer rest easy. We feel for the cause of truth : we feel for the honour of religion : we feel sensibly for the good of our children, and rising generation, whose moral interests we consider as greatly endangered. Un- der our burdens and pressing difficulties, we need the advice and prayers of the friends of truth and re- ligion. * We desire, therefore, that this Association would 60 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION take our case into their serious consideration, and point out to us the present path of duty, and the steps we ought to take for the honour of God, and the interest of the Redeemer among us. " John King, Amasa Palmer, Stephen Barrows, Samuel Storrs, Isaac Barrows, Nathaniel Hunt, Caleb Trowbridge, Ezra Fuller, Isaac Barrows, 3rd. John Brown." Mr. Sherman, to whom a copy of this letter was sent in due course, having a majority of the Church, as well as the aforesaid paper, in his favour, got a vote passed in the mean time, referring the matters in dispute be- tween himself and the complainants to a special council, to be selected, of course, by the majority. To this measure, however, the complainants objected, and de- manded an investigation of the case by the County As- sociation, or Council, to which they had a right to ap- peal, under the Saybrook Platform ; which, like the Confession of Faith, in Scotland, had been ratified and confirmed as the ecclesiastical constitution of the State, by the supreme legislature. The Association accord- ingly assembled, and after a minute investigation of the case, voted, as their Result, " That it is expedient and proper that the ministerial connexion of the Rev. John Sherman with the First Church and Society in Mans- field should be dissolved ; and it is hereby dissolved." No decision of any ecclesiastical court in Scotland, deposing a minister for heresy, could be expressed in more peremptory terms, than this result of a New Eng- land Association ; and such decisions are always final in PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 61 Connecticut — quite as much so, indeed, as those of the General Assembly in the Church of Scotland. Mr. Sherman, therefore, instead of accepting the invitation which the majority of his people gave him in the mo- ment of exasperation at their defeat to remain among them, as their pastor, and to form a separate church and congregation, deemed it advisable rather to leave Con- necticut altogether.* In the flippant pamphlet which he afterwards published on his case, at Utica, in the state of New York, in the year 1806, and from which I have extracted the preceding account and document, Mr. Sherman explains the technical word " Consocia- tion," the name of the council that deposed him, as " An ecclesiastical court, formed by a representation of the confederate churches in a county, with much the same powers as the General Assembly of the Presby- terian Church." It is a correct definition ; but the reader, if at all acquainted with ecclesiastical history, will not require to be informed that there is nothing similar to such a court among the English Independents. It will also be obvious to the reader, that if there had not been such a court to resort to in the case in ques- tion, the minority would have had no redress, and the * I was tohl by — Edwards, Esq., of New Haven, Connecticut, a grandson of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, that there is now one Unitarian church in that State. There is only one, however ; and it is very remarkable that such should be the case, as there are con- siderably upwards of a hundred in the adjoining state of Massachu- setts. But the Presbyterian element in the ecclesiastical constitution of New England has hitherto been kept strong and vigorous in the State of Connecticut; while in that of Massachusetts, the Indepen- dent element has latterly predominated ; the Unitarian clergy of the latter State having adroitly managed, in the first instance, to bring ec- clesiastical councils, or church courts, into disuse, and afterwards into discredit. It is singular that the very same course should have been successfully employed by men of a kindred spirit in England, to transform the old Presbyterian churches of this country into Socinian places of worsiiip. They were first divested of their Presbyterian character, and they then became Unitarian. 62 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGIOiV First Church in Mansfield vvould have become irre- claimably Unitarian, One inestimable advantage which this ecclesiastical system has hitherto secured to New England is, that of a well educated clergy. The County Associations, or Presbyteries, were constituted, under the Cambridge and Saybrook Platforms, the sole judges of ministerial qualifications ; and the sovereign people could therefore elect no man to the ministry who had not received the requisite education, and who had not been pronounced beforehand duly qualified by the neighbouring clergy. It is well known that under the system of the Indepen- dents the case is altogether different. The sovereign people, in an Independent congregation, may indeed take the advice of the neighbouring ministers as to the qualifications of any particular candidate for their suf- frages ; but if they choose to act without such advice or sanction, — and they are always doing so in some con- gregation or other in England, — who is there to hinder them under their peculiar ecclesiastical constitution ? Within the last few years, a German clergyman of my acquaintance having had to submit his credentials, which happened to be written in the Latin language, but in a very plain, legible hand, to a meeting of Independent ministers in England, one of these ministers — a man of some standing, too, in the religious world — took up the document, and after looking at it for some time, laid it down with great formality, saying, he " did not read German ;" another then took it up, and, in like manner, laid it down again, after due examination, saying, he " was no French scholar." So awkward a mistake could not have happened in New England, as uneducated men are not permitted to enter the ministry there, under the Congregational Presbyterian system. With the best feelings, therefore, towards the Independents, I must state it as my opinion, that they have come far short of their duty in this respect, simply by allowing of no check what- PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 63 ever upon the exercise of the democratic principle in their ecclesiastical constitution. They have thus opened their doors, in hundreds of instances, to an unedu- cated and pigmy clergy, and the decline of their in- fluence in many parts of England is the necessary re- sult. Would Owen, and Howe, and the other eminently learned and pious men, of the congregational commun- ion, in the seventeenth century, have admitted into the Christian ministry men who could not distinguish Latin from either French or German ? Certainly not. But Dr. Owen was no Independent. He was, like the New Englanders, a Congregational Presbyterian. The uniformly superior education which was thus se- cured to the clergy of New England, has had a reflex and most beneficial influence on the general education of the people, in providing for the establishment not only of common or elementary, but of superior or La- tin schools, throughout the country. One of the earlier laws of the state of Massachusetts has the following preamble, which one can scarcely suppose could have originated otherwise than in clerical suggestion : " It being one chief project of Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, by dissuading 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 ; there- fore, be it enacted, that there shall be a Latin school in every district of certain extent." How admirably this praiseworthy anxiety on the part of the Puritan clergy and people of New England, for the promotion of useful learning and general education, contrasts with the state of things at the very same period in the exclusively Episcopal colony of Virginia ! That colony was settled in the year 1G07, and its population in the reign of Charles the Second, was not less than forty thousand souls, including about two thousand negroes — a popula- tion considerably greater than that of New England at the same period. But in the year 1670, Sir William 64 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION Berkeley, the Governor of Virginia, replies as follows to one of the inquiries addressed to him respecting the state of that colony, by the Lords of Plantations, " I thank God," (for it was an age of abounding piety,) " there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years ; for learning has brought disohedience, and heresy, and sects, into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both !"* The pious Matthew Henry observes, as my excellent mother used to remind me, that " we ought to be thankful even for small mercies." Sir William Berkeley was certainly thankful for very small ones. Excellent, however, as the New England ecclesiasti- cal system undoubtedly is, in various respects, its bene- ficial operation has too often been neutralized and coun- teracted through the undue predominance of the demo- cratic element of Independency. There is no case that so strongly illustrates this evil tendency, as that of the persecution and ultimate expulsion of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, from the church in Northampton, Massachusetts, of which he had been for upwards of twenty years before the highly talented and devoted pastor. There were upwards of six hundred church- members, or communicants, in Northampton at the time alluded to, one-half of whom had been admitted by the venerable man himself, during the revival of 1735, of which he has given us so interesting, but, as appears by the sequel, so over-sanguine, an account. Many of these people, it seems, did not afterwards realize the ex- pectations of their worthy pastor, who, desirous, perhaps unwisely, of purging the church-roll, by subjecting cer- tain of their number to further examination as to their personal piety, was himself voted out, and dismissed by the sovereign people. It is melancholy to listen to the venerable man — the author of some of our most valu- * Hemmings'' Laws of Virginia — Appendix. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 65 able standard works in theology — lamenting over the imperfections of that system of ecclesiastical government under which he had thus been called to suffer so deeply and so undeservedly. " I have long," he says himself, in a letter to Mr. Erskine, quoted by Professor Hodge, " been out of conceit of our unsettled, independent, confused way of church-government ; and the Presbyterian way has ever appeared to me most agreeable to the word of God, and the reason and nature of things." It may be asked, indeed, Why did President Edwards not appeal to an ecclesiastical council, like the orthodox minority in the First Church of Mansfield ? To this I answer, That a man of eminent piety and strong feelings, as President Edwards evidently was, would just be the less likely to appeal to such a council against his ungrateful people, the more confidently he felt that he was in the right ; for it is the characteristic of a Christian man meekly and willingly to suifer wrong. It will appear, therefore, from the preceding review, that the New England ecclesiastical system is totally different, in certain most important points, from that of the English Independents. Ever since the visit of the Rev. Drs. Reed and Matheson, however, to the Ame- rican churches, individuals in this country have not only been endeavouring, through the press, to make the religious public believe that the two systems are in all respects the same, but have even been using every means of influence they can employ — especially by misrepresenting the state and character of the Ame- rican Presbyterian church — to induce the New England churches to reject the Presbyterian element of their peculiar constitution, and to revert to the system of Independency, which their Pilgrim Fathers, who had seen its imperfections, deliberately abjured. I trust, however, the New England churches will be on their guard against such influences. They have flourished exceedingly, for upwards of two centuries, under the G '2 66 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION Cambridge and Saybrook platforms ; for I question whether there is any other part of Christendom, in which there has been so much Christian knowledge, so much genuine piety, and so many revivals of religion, during the whole course of that long period, as in " the glorious and pleasant land" of New England. Why, then, should they seek to innovate upon that system, which not only secures to them a well-educated clergy, but provides such excellent and efficient checks against the overwhelming influence of the democratic principle, by casting themselves adrift upon the troubled and shoreless sea of Independency? The democratic prin- ciple, surely, requires no strengthening in America ; and wherever, therefore, either in church or state, the existing constitution provides a system of checks against its possible extravagance or abuse, the enlight- ened patriot will seek to confirm and strengthen these checks by every means in his power. At the same time, I am sorry to observe, that the natural, and, as I conceive, disorganizing influence of the English Independents on the New England churches, is likely to be greatly increased and promoted by the position which has recently been taken up by a large and influential portion of the American Presbyterian church. Forgetful of the fact, that that church has been indebted to New England, especially in the re- cently settled districts of New York and Ohio, for a large portion of her members, and for not a few, even, of her most zealous ministers ; and looking only to the adventitious circumstance, that heretical doctrine, as is alleged, has lately been taught by certain professors in certain of the schools and colleges of New England — a hue and cry has been got up against New England by the party I allude to, as if that part of the Union were a mere hot-bed of heresy ; and as if all connexion with its Christianity were necessarily evil, and supremely to be deprecated. Now, this is not like " men of under- PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 67 standing, who know the times, and what Israel ought to do." In my humble opinion, it is not the way to put down heresy, but rather to confirm and spread it, to draw a magic circle around ourselves, and, taking our place in its centre, to say to all beyond it, " Stand back, for we are holier than ye." From all I could learn, in the course of repeated conversations with men of unquestioned piety and of extensive acquaintance in New England, I was led to believe that the alleged heresies were confined to a very small circle in that country, and that the great body of the clergy and people were still sound in the faith, adhering sincerely to the doctrines of the Westminster Confession and Shorter Catechism, which the New England churches had long since and cordially received. In such cir- cumstances, indiscriminate charges of heresy are as impolitic, on the one hand, as they are unchristian and unwarrantable on the other ; as they tend to produce that alienation of mind, between parties and individuals, which will at length lead many to hate the truth, simply on account of the uncharitable conduct of those " who hold it in unrighteousness " From the first settlement of the New England co- lonies, the Congregational Presbyterian Church was supported, except in the little State of Rhode Island, in which there was no church establishment, by a general assessment, imposed and collected annually, in each town or district, by the Select-men, or district authorities. Early in last century, when the ofiicers of government, who were generally episcopalians from the mother country, and the few other resident mem- bers of that communion, began to form a small party in the New England community, the members of the epis- copal church were relieved from this assessment, by successive enactments of the colonial legislatures. The episcopal clergy in New England, from this period till the Revolution, were, with only three exceptions, mis- sionaries from the Society for the Propagalion of the 68 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION Gospel ; and these missionaries were thus sent forth to the American colonies at the expense of the religious public in England, not to carry the gospel to those who had never heard it before, as the venerable Society was ostensibly incorporated for doing, but to proselytize to the Church of England the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, who had already a standing ministry of their own, comprising not fewer than five hundred and fifty regularly educated and ordained ministers of the Con- gregational Presbyterian Church. In Connecticut, the legislature had simply relieved all persons professing themselves episcopalians from the general assessment. The episcopal missionaries in that colony, who, it seems, were rarely men of evangelical principles, ac- cordingly perambulated the country in all directions, and, wherever they found individuals whom they could influence by such considerations, got them to declare themselves episcopalians, merely to get rid of the as- sessment ; assuring them that, in that case, they would have nothing to pay, as they received their salaries from the Society in England. Such a state of things suffi- ciently accounts for the facts detailed in the following statement by the Rev. Dr. Chandler, an American episcopalian clergyman of the middle of last century, who laboured long and zealously to have bishops estab- lished, by act of parliament, in America. "As to Con- necticut, of which I can judge from my own observa- tion, the church has increased there most amazingly, for twenty or thirty years past. I cannot at present recollect an example, in any age or country, wherein so great a proportion of proselytes has been made to any religion, in so short a time, as has been made to the Church of England in the western division of that po- pulous colony ; unless where the power of miracles, or the arm of the magistrate, was exerted to produce that effect."* It is easy to conceive how vast a number of * Dr. Chandler, quoted by Professor Hodge. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 69 proselytes from the Church of England would be made, even in a single year, in the mother country, if the same notable experiment could be tried. If it were declared, for example, by the legislature, that no person of some favoured communion, whether Independent, Presby- terian, or Baptist, should henceforth require to pay tithes to the regular clergy, we should, in that case, have whole counties dissenting by the lump. In the State of Massachusetts, however, where a different plan was followed from that of Connecticut, the result was correspondingly different. There, the assessment was still universal ; episcopalians being merely indulged in having the amount they contributed paid over by the Select-men to their own clergy. Under this system, as proselytism was not profitable, it was very rare. Encouraged by the indulgence granted to the Epis- copalians, tlie Baptists in Connecticut petitioned for a similar exemption, and readily obtained it. In Massa- chusetts, however, it was refused till after the Revolu- tion, on the ground that their ministers were, for the most part, illiterate men, and tliat to recognize them in that capacity by an act of the legislature, would be to bring the ordinances of religion into contempt. In the de- bates on the subject, in the colonial legislature, the case of a Baptist minister in Massachusetts was particu- larly commented on, who, in quoting the Scriptural ex- pression, " The Lord is a buckler to them that fear him," in one of his sermons, quoted it, " The Lord is a butler,'' Sec. The insolence of the missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who were stationed in New England, about the middle of last century, was extreme, and the alarm that was spread throughout the American colonies, in consequence of the support which their madly ambitious views uniformly obtained in Eng- land, was correspondingly great. Although tiie Episco- palians did not constitute more than a thirtieth part of 70 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION the whole population of the northern colonies — includ- ing New England, New York, New Jersey, and Penn- sylvania — previous to the war of independence, these men had divided the whole country into parishes, of which they styled themselves the Rectors, designating the people of all other communions as their parishioners, and their clergy as schismatical teachers, who ought not to be encouraged. In a publication of the day, one of their number, the Rev. James Wetmore, Rector of the parish of Rye, in Connecticut, and Missionary of the Venerable Society, &c., avows their determination to subvert the New England churches, by whatever means ; observing, that " Such congregations, whatever they may call themselves, and whatever show they may make of piety and devotion in their own ways, ought to be es- teemed in respect of the mystical body of Christ only as excrescences in the body natural, or perhaps as fun- gosities on an ulcerated tumour, the eating away of ichich^ BY WHATEVER MEANS, tends not to the hurt, but to the soundness and health of the hodyT^ One of the approved modes of the period for the eating away of this American tumour in the body politic and ec- clesiastical of England, was the proposed appointment of at least three American bishops, under an Act of the Imperial Parliament, with suitable revenues, and corresponding powers ; and in the publications of the abettors of the measure, it was represented that the Americans would be a disloyal people indeed, if they refused the small tax that icould be requisite for their support. The missionaries of the Venerable Society were the warmest advocates of this measure ; as they doubtless conceived it would give them a territorial establishment, with all the other endowments and im- munities of the established clergy in England. In short, although the Stamp Act and the tax on tea were * Wetmore, quoted by Professor Hodge, Hist. Prcsb. Cb. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 71 the immediate occasion of the war of American inde- pendence, it cannot be doubted that it was the lordly- pretensions of the insignificant minority who then con- stituted the Church of England in America, backed, as they were, with all the influence and the power of the mother country, that produced, in no small degree, that deep and general alienation of the public mind in the colonies, that led to the ultimate dismemberment of the empire. When the war actually broke out, the Episcopal clergy of New England, who, as I have already stated, were, with only three exceptions, missionaries of the Propagation Society, were Royalists almost to a man. Praiseworthy as this would undoubtedly have been in other circumstances, it was not to be wondered at if it was prompted, as it doubtless was, by other feelings than those of loyalty and duty, in theirs. They had no hold on the affections of the people. They could not identify themselves with them, " for better, for worse." They had nothing to expect from the success of the Americans ; for even their own salaries were derived from a foreign source, which, in that event, would be completely dried. It is related of one of them, who, if I recollect aright, was stationed at New London, in Connecticut, that he continued to read the prayer for the King, in the English Liturgy, the first and second Sabbaths after the Declaration of Lidependence. His people, although Episcopalians, were nevertheless Ame- ricans, and had made common cause with their bleeding country. They bore with the good man, however, the first and the second Sabbath ; but when he ventured to read the prayer for the king the third Sabbath, they could stand it no longer, and accordingly marched up delibe- rately to the desk in a body, lifted him out of it without saying a word, carried him out of the church, and then ''shutting the door and locking it, put the key in their pocket. 72 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION There were other American Episcopalian clergymen at that interesting period, however, who were not restrained by any alleged scruples of conscience from continuing to discharge the duties of their office under the new order of things. The late venerable Bishop White, of Penn- sylvania, the real father of the Episcopal Church in America, was then chaplain to the Congress, and con- tinued to read the prayer for the king till the Sabbath immediately preceding the famous 4th of July, His conscience did not reprove him for omitting it then, or for thenceforth enforcing upon his people their duty to their country. The Presbyterian clergy, to a man, pur- sued a precisely similar course ; for when the rulers of their country had at length passed the Rubicon, they did not hesitate to identify themselves completely, in so far only, however, as they could, in their ministerial capa- city, with the cause of their country and their people. As it will, doubtless, be interesting to the student of history to learn the precise course which conscientious and Christian men actually pursued in so difficult a crisis, I subjoin the following account of a pastoral letter, ad- dressed, in the year 1775, the year before the Declara- tion of Independence, by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, to the churches of the Presbyterian com- munion under their care. I extract it from the second volume of Dr. Hodge's valuable History of the Ame- rican Presbyterian Church, published at Philadelphia during the present year. As a literary production, the Pastoral Letter is evidently of a superior order, highly creditable to the body from which it emanated ; as a po- litical document, it is unexceptionable ; as a Christian testimony and admonition, it is all that could possibly be desired. " In this memorable year also, the Synod addressed a long and excellent letter to the churches. It thus be- gins : ' The Synod of ISevv York and Philadelphia, be- ing met at a time when public affairs wear so threatening PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 73 an aspect, and when, unless God in his sovereign provi- dence speedily prevent it, all the horrors of a civil war thronghout this great continent are to be apprehended, were of opinion that they could not discharge their duty to the numerous congregations under their care, without addressing them at this important crisis. As the firm belief and habitual recollection of the power and presence of the living God, ought at all times to possess the minds of real Christians ; so in seasons of public calamity, when the Lord is known by the judg- ments which he executeth, it would be an ignorance or indifference highly criminal, not to look up to him with reverence, to implore his mercy by humble and fervent prayer, and, if possible, to prevent his vengeance, by timely repentance. We do, therefore, brethren, beseech you, in the most earnest manner, to look beyond the immediate authors either of your sufferings or fears, and to acknowledge the holiness and justice of the Al- migbty in the present visitation.' The Synod then ex- hort the people to confession and repentance ; remind- ing them that their prayers should be attended with a sincere purpose and thorough endeavour after personal and family reformation. * If thou prepare thine heart and stretch out thine hand towards him, if iniquity be in thine hands put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.' " They considered it also a proper time to press on all of every rank, seriously to consider the things which belong to their eternal peace, saying, ' Hostilities long feared, have now taken place ; the sword has been drawn in one province ; and the whole continent, with hardljr any exception, seem determined to defend their rights by force of arms. If at the same time the British ministry shall continue to enforce their claims by vio- lence, a lasting and bloody contest must be expected. Surely, then, it becomes those who have taken up arms, and profess a willingness to hazard their lives in the H 74 VIEW OF THE STATE OF B.ELIGION cause of liberty, to be prepared for death, which to many must be certain, and to every one is a possible or pro- bable event. " ' We have long seen with concern, the circum- stances which occasioned, and the gradual increase of this unhappy difference. As ministers of the gospel of peace, we have ardently wished that it might be, and often hoped that it would have been more early accom- modated. It is well known to you, otherwise it would be imprudent indeed thus publicly to profess, that we have not been instrumental in inflaming the minds of the people, or urging them to acts of violence and dis- order. Perhaps no instance can be given on so inter- esting a subject, in which political sentiments have been so long and fully kept from the pulpit ; and even malice itself has not charged us with labouring from the press. But things have now come to such a state, that as we do not wish to conceal our opinions as men and citizens, so the relation in which we stand to you, seemed to make the present improvement of it to your spiritual benefit, an indispensable duty.' " Then follows an exhortation directed principally to young men, who might offer themselves as ' champions of their country's cause,' to cultivate piety, to reverence the name of God, and to trust his providence. * The Lord is with you while ye be with him ; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you ; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.' " After this exhortation, the Synod offered special counsels to the churches as to their public and general conduct. " ' First : In carrying on this important struggle, let every opportunity be taken to express your attachment and respect to our sovereign King George, and to the revolution principles by which his august family were seated on the British throne. We recommend, indeed, not only allegiance to him from principle and duty, as PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 75 the first magistrate of the empire, but esteem and reve- rence for the person of the prince, who has merited well of his subjects on many accounts, and who has probably been misled into his late and present measures by those about him ; neither have we any doubt, that they them- selves have been in a great degree deceived by false representations from interested persons residing in Ame- rica. It gives us the greatest pleasure to say, from our own certain knowledge of all belonging to our com- munion, and from the best means of information of far the greatest part of all denominations in this country, that the present opposition to the measures of adminis- tration, does not in the least arise from disaffection to the king, or a desire of separation from the parent state. We are happy in being able with truth to affirm, that no part of America would either have approved or per- mitted such insults as have been offered to the sove- reign in Great Britain. We exhort you, therefore, to continue in the same disposition, and not to suffer op- pression or injury itself easily to provoke you to any thing which may seem to betray contrary sentiments. Let it ever appear that you only desire the preservation and security of those rights which belong to you as freemen and Britons, and that reconciliation upon these terms is your most ardent desire. " ' Secondly, be careful to maintain the union which at present subsists through all the colonies. Nothing can be more manifest than that the success of every measure depends on its being inviolably preserved ; and, therefore, we hope you will leave nothing undone which can promote that end. In particular, as the continental congress, now sitting at Philadelphia, consists of dele- gates chosen in the most free and unbiassed manner, by the body of the people, let them not only be treated with respect, and encouraged in their difficult service ; not only let your prayers be offered up to God for his direction in their proceedings, but adhere firmly to their 76 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION resolutions ; and let it be seen that they are able to bring out the whole strength of this vast country to carry them into execution. We would also advise for the same purpose, that a spirit of candour, charity, and mutual esteem, be preserved and promoted towards those of different religious denominations. Persons of pro- bity and principle of every profession, should be united together as servants of the same ]\Iaster ; and the expe- rience of our happy concord hitherto in a state of li- berty, should engage all to unite in support of the com- mon interest ; for there is no example in history in which civil liberty was destroyed, and the rights of con- science preserved entire. " ' Thirdly, we do earnestly exhort and beseech the societies under our care to be strict and vigilant in their private government, and to watch over the morals of their several members.' This duty is urged at some length, and then the letter proceeds thus : " ' Fourthly, w^e cannot but recommend and urge in the warmest manner, a regard to order and the public peace ; and as in many places, during the confusion that prevails, legal proceedings have become difficult, it is hoped that all persons will conscientiously pay their just debts, and to the utmost of their power serve one another, so that the evils inseparable from a civil war may not be augmented by wantonness and irregularity. " ' Fifthly, we think it of importance at this time, to recommend to all of every rank, but especially to those who may be called to action, a spirit of humanity and mercy. Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood. It is impossible to appeal to the sword without being exposed to many scenes of cruelty and slaughter ; but it is often observed that civil wars are carried on with a rancour and spirit of revenge much greater than those between indepen- dent states. The injuries received or supposed, in civil wars, wound more deeply than those of foreign enemies. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 7 7 It is, therefore, more necessary to guard against this abuse, and recommend that meekness and gentleness of spirit which is the noblest attendant on true valour. That man will fight most bravely who never begins to fight till it is necessary, and who ceases to fight as soon as the necessity is over. " ' Lastly, we would recommend to all the societies under our care, not to content themselves with attend- ing devoutly on general fasts, but to continue habitually in the exercise of prayer, and to have frequent occasional voluntary meetings for solemn intercession with God on this important trial. Those who are immediately exposed to danger need your sympathy ; and we learn from the Scriptures, that fervency and importunity are the very characters of that prayer of the righteous man that availeth much. We conclude with our most ear- nest prayer, that the God of heaven may bless you in your temporal and spiritual concerns, and that the pre- sent unnatural dispute may be speedily terminated by an equitable and lasting settlement on constitutional principles.' " During the struggle that ensued, after the Declara- tion of Independence, the Presbyterian communion were uniformly found on the side of freedom and the rights of men ; and it is generally allowed by those who are acquainted with the history of the period, that no pri- vate individual contributed more powerfully (through his great influence with that communion,) to the ultimate success of the Americans, than the Rev. Dr. Wither- spoon. President of New Jersey College, and after- wards Moderator of the first General Assembly of the American Presbyterian Cluirch. Dr. Witherspoon was a minister of the Church of Scotland,*' but had emigrated * He was first settled at Beith, in Ayrshire, and afterwards in Paisley. His work on Regeneration is well known, and his " Cha- racteristics," an able and popular satire on the general inefficiency of II -2 78 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION to America, on being elected President of the College of New Jersey — an office which was then illustrious even in England, from having been held so recently before by the celebrated Jonathan Edwards. Dr. W. was elected a member of the first American Congress, by the State of New Jersey ; and was one of the signers of the De- claration of Independence. All these facts were well known to the British troops and the American loyalists, and the Presbyterians were, therefore, the special ob- jects of their vengeance. Their churches were burnt, their property was laid waste, and certain even of their pastors were murdered as rebels. On the conclusion of the war, the Synod of New York and Philadelphia again addressed a pastoral letter to the churches under their care, in which they alluded feelingly to these circum- stances, of which the following is an extract : — " We cannot help congratulating you on the general and almost universal attachment of the Presbyterian body to the cause of liberty and the rights of mankind. This has been visible in their conduct, and has been confessed by the complaints and resentment of the com- mon enemy. Such a circumstance ought not only to afford us satisfaction on the review, as bringing credit to the body in general, but to increase our gratitude to God for the happy issue of the war. Had it been un- successful, we must have drunk deeply of the cup of suffering. Our burnt and wasted churches, and our plundered dwellings, in such places as fell under the power of our adversaries, are but an earnest of what we must have suffered, had they finally prevailed. " The Synod, therefore, request you to render thanks to Almighty God, for all his mercies spiritual and tem- poral ; and in a particular manner for establishing the a Large proportion of the clergy of his day ia Scotland, attracted the notice and the approbation of the celebrated Bisliop War- burton. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 79 independence of the United States of America. He is the Supreme Disposer, and to Him belong the glory, the victory, and the majesty. We are persuaded you will easily recollect many circumstances in the course of the struggle, which point out his special and signal interpo- sition in our favour. Our most remarkable successes have generally been when things had just before worn the most unfavourable aspect ; as at Trenton and Sara- toga at the beginning, in South Carolina and Virginia towards the end of the war.'"^ There was, properly speaking, no civil establishment of religion under the Dutch government of New York. The churches were built, as they are at present, by the joint contributions of the people. The pews were then sold, to reimburse the subscribers, or to pay off the ori- ginal debt of the church, and an annual rental was im- posed on each pew for the support of the minister. Colonel Nicolls, who, after achieving the conquest of the colony, became Governor, under the patent of his master the Duke of York, in the year 1664, established liberty of conscience immediately after his accession to the government, by the following proclamation : — " In all territories of his Royal Highness,liberty of conscience is allowed ; provided such liberty is not converted into licentiousness, or the disturbance of others in the exer- cise of the Protestant religion." By a subsequent pro- clamation, the people were authorized to assess them- selves for the support of their ministers, and enjoined to pay them what they had agreed to. In the year 169-2, however, the liberty guaranteed to the Dutch co- lonists began to be seriously infringed on, and a series of attempts were made by the Governors, at the instiga- gation of parties in the mother country, to proselytize the colony to the Church of England. In the year 1693, the Church of England was declared the esta- * Hist. Aincr. Prcs. Ch. vol. ii. 80 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION blished church of the colony, by an act of the House of Assembly, virtually forced upon it by the Governor, at a time when the members of that church were only a twenty "fifth part of the whole population ; and persons of all communions were accordingly assessed to provide for the maintenance of the Episcopal clergy. The Governor, Colonel Fletcher, even added insult to injury on the occasion ; for the Assembly having twice refused to pass an act for the support of the Episcopal clergy, his Excellency broke out upon them in the following choice diatribes : — " Gentlemen, the first thing that I recom- mended to you at our last meeting was to provide for a ministry," — as if they had had none before — " and no- thing is done in it. There are none of you but what are big with the privileges of Englishmen and Magna Charta, which is your right, and the same law doth pro- vide for the religion of the Church of England, against Sabbath breaking, and all other profanity." And again, " I recommended to the former Assembly the settling of an able ministry, that the worship of God may be ob- served among us."* By an able ministry, the Governor meant an Episcopal ministry, to be settled by his own authority exclusively, over the Dutch congregations ; but the House of Assembly resolutely refused to pass any such tyrannical enactments. Governor Fletcher, however, (whose character was that of a mean, avaricious man,) was quite out-done by one of his successors, Lord Cornbury, a fierce, tyrannical bigot, who endeavoured to deprive the Dutch of all their religious liberties, and to force them into the Episcopal communion, in pursuance of instructions he had received to "give all counte- nance and encouragement to the exercise of the eccle- siastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, as far as conveniently might be, in the province — that no school- master be henceforward permitted to come from this * History of the Evangelical Churches of New York. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 81 kingdom, and to keep school in that our said province, without the license of the said Lord Bishop of London," &c. I have already mentioned the imprisonment of the Rev. Francis M'Kemie, the father of the Presbyterian Church in America, by this petty despot. This clergy- man, having visited New York in the year 1707, had engaged to preach in the Dutch church ; but the Gover- nor having been informed of the circumstance, peremp- torily forbade. Having preached, however, to a small audience, collected in a private house in the city, he was apprehended and imprisoned for two months, by the Governor's order. At the expiration of that period, he was liberated on bail, and afterwards brought to trial.* " On his trial," Dr. Hodge states, " he was charged by the Attorney-General with contemning the Queen's ecclesiastical supremacy ; with using other rites and ceremonies than those contained in the Common Prayer Book ; with preaching without proper qualifications, and at an illegal conventicle, all which was declared to be contrary to the English statutes." I have already alluded to Mr. JNI'Kemie's masterly defence. He was acquitted of the high crimes and misdemeanours laid to his charge ; but by the Governor's express order, he was notwithstanding condemned to bear the whole expenses of the prosecution, amounting to three hundred dollars. f At that period, the whole population of the two colonies of New York and New Jersey, both of which were under the government of Lord Cornbury, did not exceed forty-five thousand persons ; and of these only eighteen hundred were Episcopalians ! This intolerant and anti- christian spirit was but little modified in the sequel ; for when the Scotch Presbyterians of New York at- tempted, again and again, during the two following reigns, to obtain a charter of incorporation to enable them to hold their church and burying ground in that * History of the Evangelical Cliurclies of New York, t Ibid. 82 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION city, they were not only opposed by the Episcopal Cor- poration of Trinity Church, but " the Bishop of Lon- don actually appeared repeatedly before the Committee of the Privy Council in opposition to their petition," and they were consequently obliged, for their own security, to have the property conveyed in trust to the Modera- tor and certain other members of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. These tyrannical proceedings, which were doubtless intended to strengthen the Church of England in the colonies, and to maintain their connexion with the mo- ther country, had necessarily quite the opposite ef- fect ; by leading the colonists to identify the Church of England with every thing that was hostile to their civil and religious liberties, and thereby weakening the ties that still bound them to the land of their fathers. The colonies of Maryland and Virginia were long employed by the mother country, for precisely the same purpose as that for which the settlement of Botany Bay has, in later times, been appropriated, and from which that settlement has obtained its unenviable notoriety. These colonies were also resorted to, at an early period, by many of the unfortunate cavaliers ; and from both of these circumstances they contained, till a compa- ratively recent date, a much greater number of episco- palians than the settlements to the northward. By the original charter of Virginia, that colony w^as constituted an exclusively episcopalian settlement ; and it was ac- cordingly enacted by the Grand Assembly, or colonial legislature, in the year 1623, " That there be an uni- formitie in our churche, as neere as may be to the canons of England, both in substance and circumstance, and that all persons yeild obedience unto them under paine of censure."* By a subsequent ordinance, this enactment was explained and enforced, so as to subject * lltmmin?;s' Laws of Virginia. PREVIOUS TO THE UEVOLUTION. 83 to immediate banishment from the colony all preachers and teachers who should not conform in every particular to the Church of England ; arid, in virtue of this ordi- nance, three Puritan ministers from New England were actually banished from Virginia, in the year 1643.* It would appear, however, that even this enactment, and the subsequent banishment of the Puritans, failed to secure to the colony a pious and exemplary clergy ! For, in the year 1631, 7th Car. I., it was enacted by the Grand Assembly, that " Mynisters shall not give them- selves to excesse in drinkinge, or riott, spendinge theire tyme idellye by day or night, playinge at dice, cards, or any other unlawfulle game, &c."f " Now, as every new law," says Dr. Priestley, " is made to remove some in- convenience the State was subject to before the making of it, and for which no other method of redress was effectual, the law itself is a standing and the most authentic evi- dence we can require of the state of things previous to it.":}: The state of things in Virginia must, therefore, have been particularly bad, to require such a law as I have just quoted, for the reformation of the only body of clergy that were permitted to worship God publicly in its sacred territory. It is melancholy, indeed, to think how little improvement really took place in that well-governed colony, notwithstanding this unexception- able law ; for, at a much later period. Sir William Berkeley, the governor, replies as follows to the query of the Lords of Plantations, " What provision is there made for the paying of your ministers?" " We have forty-eight parishes, and our ministers are well paid. But as of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us !''§ The original provision for the clergy of this colony, * Holmes' Annals, -f- Hemmings' Laws of Virginia. J Priestley's Lectures on History, vol. i. p. 149. § Appendix to neinmings' Collection. 84 VIEW OF THE STATE OF EELIGION as ordered by the Virginia Company, was a hundred acres of land as a glebe, in each parish, and £200 per annum as a salary, for each minister. It was after- wards ordered that the ministers should each receive yearly 1,500 lbs. of tobacco, and IG barrels of corn, which, together, were then valued at £200.* As the value of tobacco, however, had subsequently fallen, the yearly stipend of each minister was ultimately fixed, by Act of Assembly, S William III., 1696, at 16,000 lbs. of tobacco, exclusive of lawful perquisites. -|- And at this rate the stipends of the Virginian clergy were ac- cordingly paid, till the revolution. Towards the middle of last century, the Scotch- Irish had pushed up the Valley of Virginia, in such over- whelming numbers, from the western parts of Penn- sylvania ; and so many of the inhabitants of the eastern parts of Virginia had, in the mean time, fallen away to other communions, that the Episcopalians — who, in the eye of the law, had been the exclusive possessors of the soil for nearly a century and a half — were then only a third part of the whole population : and even this pro- portion was rapidly diminishing, from the general and deplorable inefficiency of their clergy. In these circum- stances, that eminent scholar and divine. President Davies, the immediate predecessor of Dr. Witherspoon, in the College of New Jersey, being then a recently ordained minister of the American Presbyterian church, was employed, under the synod of New York, to itine- rate in Virginia, on the express invitation of the nu- merous but scattered Presbyterians of that colony. This laborious duty Mr. Davies discharged with apos- tolic zeal, and corresponding success ; his labours hav- ing been abundantly blessed, to the conversion and sal- vation of many of the colonists. So earnestly had his arrival been expected, that the Presbyterians had got Holmes' Annals. f Ilemmings' Laws of Virginia. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 85 five places of worship, in as many different counties, erected and licensed before he reached the colony, in the year 1747. No difficulties were at that time thrown in his way ; but when, in consequence of his faithful and eloquent preaching, the number of non- conformists greatly increased, the Episcopalian clergy of the province immediately took the alarm, the co- lonial courts were moved to w'ithhold licenses for the future, and the Bishop of London was at length ap- pealed to, to get a stop put, by authority, to such ir- regular proceedings. After informing the Bishop that " seven meeting-houses, situated in five counties, had been licensed by the General Court, for Mr. Samuel Davies," his correspondent, one of the Virginian clergy, submits to him the following most interesting case of conscience : — " I earnestly entreat the favour of your lordship's opinion, whether, in licensing so many meeting houses for one teacher, they have not granted him a greater indulgence than either the king's instructions or the Act of Toleration intended. It is not to be dissembled, that several of the laity as well as of the clergy are un- easy on account of tbe countenance and encouragemen\ he has met with ; and I cannot forbear expressing mji own concern to see schism spreading itself through a colony which has been famous for the uniformity of religion. I had almost forgot to mention his holding forth on working days to great numbers of poor people, who generally are his followers. This certainly is in- consistent with the religion of labour, whereby they are obliged to maintain themselves and families ; and their neglect of this duty, if not seasonably prevented, may, in process of time, be sensibly felt by the government." The Bishops reply, of which the following is an extract, is notl ess characteristic than this appeal : — " The Act of Toleration was intended to permit dis- senters to worship in their own way, and to exempt I 86 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION them from penalties, but it never was intended to per- mit them to set up itinerant preachers, to gather con- gregations where there were none before. They are, by the Act of Wilham and Mary, to qualify in the county where they live ; and how Davies can be said to live in five different counties, they who granted the license must explain."* The Bishop would thus have willingly availed him- self, if he could, of the miserable technicalities of law, to prevent a zealous minister of the gospel from oc- casionally dispensing the ordinances of religion to whole congregations of professing Christians, widely separated from each other, in a thinly-inhabited country, for whom, moreover, it was impossible at the time to provide re- sident ministers for each congregation. This is only the more extraordinary, as, in a letter on the subject, addressed to the celebrated Dr. Doddridge, of date London, May 11, 1751, the Bishop characterises the Virginian episcopal clergy of that period, in perfect ac- cordance with the character which had been given their predecessors by Sir Wilham Berkeley, eighty years be- fore, in the following terms : — " Of those who are sent from hence, a great part are of the Scotch or Irish, who can get no employment at home, and enter into the service more out of necessity than choice. Some others are willing to go abroad, to retrieve either lost fortunes, or lost character."-!- I am sorry, from my own long and bitter experience, to be able to bear testimony to the accuracy of the Bishop's description, as one that will apply to colonial clergy, generally, even to the present day. The utter want of a missionary and apostolic spirit in the British churches prevents men of the right character and standing from going to the co- lonies as ministers of religion ; and the great majority * Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review for April, 1840. f Princeton Review, iibi supra. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 87 of those who do go to these interesting and important fields are still such men as the Bishop describes. The Rev. Dr. Hodge observes, that " the early eccle- siastical history of Maryland is very much of a riddle." It is easy, however, to solve the riddle, simply by con- sidering what political party was uppermost in England at each particular period in the history of its changes. I have already stated that the colony of Maryland was established in the year 1634, by Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic nobleman, of the court of Charles the First, who designed it principally as a place of refuge and settlement for persons of the Romish communion. George Calvert, a brother of his lordship's, accordingly carried out to the new settlement about two hundred Roman Catholics, at its commencement, and many others must have gone out to it thereafter, during the seventeenth century ; for, in the year 1694, there were six Roman Catholic priests resident in the colony. The Roman Catholics have always been exceedingly tolerant, when decidedly in the minority : Lord Balti- more accordingly established Christianity in Maryland agreeably to the old common law, as part and parcel 6f the law of the land, but without allowing pre-eminence to any particular sect.* In the year 1651, however, when the proprietary government was superseded by the authority of the English commonwealth, Pajnsts and prelatists were unjustly excluded from this general to- leration, by an act of the colonial legislature ; although it does not appear that actual persecution was ever resorted to by the local authorities, either under that enactment, or after the re-establishment of the royal authority. For although it is stated, in reference to the latter of these periods, by the Rev. Dr. Hawks, an eminent Episcopalian minister of New York, the bitter- ness of whose feelings, however, is more easily dis- * Holmes' Annals. 88 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION cernible than the elegance of his style, that " there was a sort of wandering pretenders to preaching, that came from New England and other places, which deluded not only the Protestant dissenters from our church, but many churchmen themselves, by their extemporary prayers and preachments, for which they were admitted by the people, and got money of them ;"* it does not appear that these jwetenders — in whom we are, of course, to recognize Puritan ministers from New Eng- land, and Presbyterians from Scotland and the north of Ireland — were actually banished from Maryland, as they had been from Virginia, in the year 1643, and as Dr. Hawks plainly insinuates they ought to have been there also. Nay, it even appears that the preachments of these pretenders had made a deep and general impression upon the colony of Maryland ; for, when the Episcopal church was finally established in that colony, by act of the colonial legislature, under authority from England, in the year 1700,f that no- torious insult upon the com.mon sense and Christian feelings of the colonial community was perpetrated in favour of considerably less than a twentieth part of the whole population. In short, grievous as the Protestant Episcopal Establishment has ever been to the great majority of the people of Ireland, it has never been so outrageously opposed to the voice of the public, even in that misgoverned country, as it long was in the co- lonies of North America. In the colony of William Penn, which, for a century and upwards, served as the principal inlet of the Scotch- Irish into the American colonies, there was no religious establishment — no pre-eminence of any particular de- nomination, from the first ; and as South Carolina was originally colonized, in great measure, by Presbyterians * Dr. Hawks, quoted by Dr. Ilodge, Hist. Amer. Presb. Cb. •f Holmes' Annals. PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 89 from Scotland and French Huguenots, it might perhaps have been deemed somewhat unreasonable and unnatural, if it had not unfortunately been the uniform practice of the times, to force an Episcopal establishment upon the people in that colony. In the year 1704, however, the governor, having doubtless received private instruc- tions from England on the subject, and being sufficiently zealous himself to be very little scrupulous about the means of accomplishing so desirable an object, suc- ceeded, by some manceuvring, in getting a majority of members elected to the legislature, whom he could count upon for any thing. By an assembly constituted in this manner, the Church of England was not only voted the established church of the colony of South Carolina, but every future member of the legislature was bound to belong to its communion and to take the sacrament, before taking his seat, as a proof of the fact. This obnoxious measure, by which the religious liberties of a whole colony were voted away, was carried, aftei much opposition, only by a majority of one. In con- sequence of the change which it effected in the eccle- siastical system of the colony, and of the emoluments which it held forth to conformists, two of the French Huguenot ministers passed over, with their whole con- gregations, into the communion of the Episcopal church ; being, probably, permitted to retain their own forms of worship while they continued to use the French language. The Episcopalians, however, were still a minority in the colony in the year 1710, not- withstanding this large addition to their communion ; for it appears from a letter written at Charleston, in that year, and quoted by Dr. Hodge, that they were still outnumbered by the Presbyterians and the Hugue- nots who maintained their attachment to the discipline of Geneva. It was thus to a system that not only identified the church with the world, but tended directly to eradicate I 2 90 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION. from the hearts of men all the finer feelings of humanity, to make them regard the profession of religion with a mean and mercenary spirit, and consider its holiest or- dinances as a mere stepping-stone to political employ- ment, that the Episcopal church was originally indebted for its civil establishment in all the colonies of America. It was impossible that religion could ever flourish, in any country, under such a system ; and it was, there- fore, a happy event, even for the American Episcopal church, as well as for the American people, that en- sured its discontinuance. CHAPTER III. HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE VO- LUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. It is universally believed in England, that the esta- blishment of the Voluntary System, or, in other words, the entire separation of Church and State, in America, was exclusively the work of the civil government of that country ; and that in the achievement of that work the American clergy were entirely passive, having no voice whatever in the matter. The whole credit of the measure is usually given to the celebrated President Jeiferson, who, if 1 recollect aright, was, on some oc- casion, lauded in the highest terms by the " Edinburgh Review," for the admirable tact he was said to have ex- hibited in his management of the affair ; the clergy being represented, at the same time, as having been fairly outwitted by that wily politician. I confess I entertained such ideas myself, up to the period of my visiting America ; and although somewhat predisposed to regard the operation of the voluntary system in the United States witli some degree of favour, as well from what I had heard and read on the subject as from my own experience of the operation and effects of a dif- ferent system in the British colonies, I had nevertheless a lurking suspicion as to the general tendency of the voluntary system in America, simply on account of the man with whom its introduction was thus associated in 92 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF my own mind. For I could not help reasoning in this manner : if the establishment of the voluntary system in the United States was a mere device of Satan, to keep religion out of the country, as it is generally be- lieved to have been by the members of the existing re- ligious establishments of Great Britain, then Mr. Jef- ferson — an avowed infidel and an enemy to all religion — was certainly, of ail men, the fittest to recommend such a measure, and to ensure its adoption. But if that measure was, in reality, the greatest benefit which was ever conferred either on the church of Christ or on any portion of the human race, as it is universally re- garded by the American Christians themselves, of all denominations, it seemed to me passing strange that such an agent as Mr. Jefferson should have been se- lected by Divine Providence to bring it into opera- tion. I happened, however, during my stay in America, to spend a day in the city of Richmond, in Virginia, on ray return from Charleston, South Carolina, to New York ; and having had access to the library of the State-house in that city, as well as to other sources of information of unquestionable authority, I ascertained that the general impression in England, relative to the origin of the voluntary system in America, was unfounded : for, in- stead of having been entirely passive in regard to the establishment of that system, as the American clergy are supposed to have been, the fact is, that the original introduction of the voluntary system was wholly and solely the work of a numerous and influential portion of the American clergy themselves ; and so far from the separation of Church and State having been carried, with a high and revolutionary hand, over the influence and opposition of the sacerdotal order, through the mere political manoeuvring of Mr. Jefferson, the fact is, that the legislature of Virginia, in which that important mea- sure was originally carried, and through whose influence THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 93 and example it was subsequently extended, gradually, over the whole Union, was itself borne into it unwillingly, by the clerical pressure from without. In short, the history of the establishment of the voluntary system in Ame- rica affords one of the most remarkable instances of en- lightened patriotism and generous self-denial to be found in the whole history of the church of Christ. It is not to be wondered at, however, that an event which took place in a remote and comparatively obscure pro- vince of a new-born republic, during a period of much political excitement, and at the close of a war equally disastrous and dishonourable to Great Britain, should hitherto have escaped the notice of English writers, and even of writers on America. But, as that event is not only extremely interesting in itself, but is likely to be attended with the most important results, through its future influence on a large portion of the human family, I trust I shall be excused for entering more into detail on the subject than, to some, at least, may seem at first sight absolutely necessary. With this view, I shall subjoin copies of the public documents of the period, relative to this important ecclesiastical revolu- tion, of which the originals are still extant, in the ar- chives of Virginia. I have already given some account of the ecclesi- astical establishment which had subsisted uninterrupt- edly in Virginia for upwards of a hundred and fifty years before the War of Independence ; and the reader will be able to form some idea of the general character of the Episcopal clergy of that province, during this long period, from the incidental notices on the subject with which we are furnished from various sources, and to which I have already referred : first, from the law of IG31 ; secondly, from the correspondence of Sir Wil- liam Berkeley, in 1770, with the Lords of Plantations ; and, thirdly, from the Bishop of London's letter to Dr. Doddridge, in the year 1751. At the breaking out of Ui? ins 7Br 94 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF the revolutionary war, the Virginian Episcopal clergy, generally, pursued a temporising policy, though for the most part, and for very obvious reasons, they were more than disaffected to the cause of the Americans. Some of them, indeed, embraced that cause so cordially, that, when they found there was little further prospect of adequate remuneration for their services as ministers of religion, they exchanged their gown and cassock for a military cloak and belt, and accepted commissions, under General Washington, in the American army. The reader will also have perceived, from the whole tenour of the loyal and patriotic address of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia to the Presbyterian churches under their care in the year 1775, that, while that body sympathized deeply with their oppressed countrymen, they were stedfast in their attachment to the British crown and connexion, till the national de- claration of independence, on the 4th of July, 17 76, had apprised them of the fact, that there was thence- forth another " power, ordained of God," in the land, to which their allegiance and affections were accordingly due. The first body of clergy, of any denomination, in America, that openly recognised that act, and thereby identified themselves with the cause of free- dom and independence, was the Presbyterian clergy of Virginia. That body, which was then comparatively numerous and influential, constituting the large Pres- bytery of Hanover, addressed the Virginian House of Assembly on the subject, at their first meeting after the declaration ; and in the course of their memorial, after urging their own claim for entire religious free- dom, recommended the establishment of the voluntary system, and the complete separation of Church and State in Virginia. The following is a copy of the me- morial referred to : — THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 95 "I. — Memokial presented in the year 17 76. " To the Honourable the General Assembly 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 determined that nothing in our power and influence 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 peaceable members of the civil government ; for which reason they have hitherto submitted to various eccle- siastical burdens and restrictions that are inconsistent with equal liberty. But now, when the many and grievous oppressions of our mother country have laid this continent under the necessity of casting off the yoke of tyranny, and of forming independent govern- ments upon equitable and liberal foundations, we flatter ourselves that we shall be freed from all the in- cumbrances which a spirit of domination, prejudice, or bigotry, hath interwoven with most other political systems. This we are the more strongly encouraged 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 Magna Charta of our commonwealth, that can never be violated without endangering the grand superstructure it was designed to sustain. There- fore, 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 dictates 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 griev- 96 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ances under which we have hitherto laboured, that they may no longer be continued in our present form of go- vernment. " It is well known that, in the frontier counties, which are justly supposed to contain a fifth part of the inhabitants of Virginia, the dissenters have borne the heavy burdens of purchasing glebes, building churches, and supporting the established clergy, where there are very few Episcopalians, either to assist in bearing the expense, or to reap the advantage ; and that through- out 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 restric- tions to which they have been subjected, annually pay large taxes to support an establishment, from which their consciences and principles obhge them to dissent : all which are confessedly so many violations of their natural rights, and, in their consequences, a restraint upon freedom 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 repre- sentatives will cheerfully concur in removing every species of religious as well as civil bondage. Certain it is, that every argument for civil liberty gains addi- tional strength when applied to liberty in the concerns of religion ; and there is no argument in favour of establishing the Christian religion, but may be pleaded, wnth equal propriety, for establishing the tenets of Mo- hammed 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 preference among the various sects that profess the Christian faith, without erecting a chain of infallibility, which would lead us back to the Church of Rome. " We beg leave, further, to represent, that religious establishments are highly injurious to the temporal THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 97 interests of any community. Without insisting upon the ambition, and the arbitrary practices of those who are favoured by government ; or the intriguing, sedi- tious spirit, which is commonly excited by this, as well as by every other kind of oppression ; such establish- ments greatly retard population, and consequently the progress of arts, sciences, and manufactures : witness the rapid growth and improvements 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 govern- ments, and a more barren soil, where they might enjoy the rights of conscience more fully than they had a prospect of doing in this. From which w^e infer, 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 pre- vented by her religious establishment. " Neither can it be made 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 dependence upon State power ; and, as his iveapons are spiritual, and were only designed to have influence on the judgment and heart of man, we are persuaded that, if mankind were loft in the quiet possession of their inalienable religious privileges, Christianity, as in the days of the apostles, would continue to prevail and flourish in the greatest purity, by its own native excellences, and under the all-disposing providence of God. " We would also humbly represent, that the only proper objects of civil government are the happiness and protection of men in the present state of existence ; the security of the life, liberty, and property of the K 98 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF citizens ; and to restrain the vicious and encourage the ■v'irtuous by wholesome laws, equally extending to every individual. Bat that the duty which v:e owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be directed by reason and coyiviction, and is nowhere cog- nizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge. " Therefore, we ask no ecclesiastical establishment for ourselves; neither can we approve of them when granted to others. This, indeed, would be giving exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges to one set (or sect) of men, without any special public services, to the common reproach and injury of every other deno- mination. And, for the reasons recited, we are induced earnestly to entreat that all laws now in force in this commonwealth, which countenance religious domina- tion, may be speedily repealed ; that all, of every re- ligious sect, may be protected in the full exercise of their several modes of worship ; and exempted from all taxes for the support of any church whatsoever, further than what may be agreeable to their own 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 to stand or fall according to merit ; which can never be the case, so long as any one denomination is established in preference to others. " That the great Sovereign of the universe may in- spire 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 me- morialists. " Signed, by order of the Presbytery, " John Todd, Moderator. " Caleb Wallace, Presb. Clerk." In the month of October, 17 76, and shortly after the presentation of this memorial, the legislature of Virginia THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 99 passed a law, in conformity with the petition which it embodied, exempting all non-conformists from contri- butions of any kind for the support of the Episcopal or established church. At the same time, the policy of a general assessment for the support of religion, on such principles as would afford that support equally to all denominations, was much and earnestly discussed in the legislature ; and the subject was at length referred by the General Assembly to the people, for the purpose of ascertaining their sentiments in regard to it. In con- sequence of this reference, the following memorial was presented to the Assembly, by the Presbytery of Hanover, in the year 1777. The Rev. Samuel S. Smith and the Rev. David Rice were the committee who framed it. " II. — To the Honourable the General Assembly of Virginia ; The Memorial of the Presbytery of Hanover humbly represents, " That your memorialists, and the religious denomi- nation with which we are connected, are most sincerely attached to the common interests of the American States ; and are determined that our most fervent prayers and strenuous endeavours shall ever be united with the exertions of our fellow-subjects,* to repel the assaults of tyranny, and to maintain our common rights. In our former memorial, we have expressed our hearty approbation of the Declaration of Rights, which has been made and adopted as the basis of the laws and government of this State ; and now we take the oppor- tunity of testifying that nothing has inspired us with greater confidence in our legislature, than the late Act of Assembly declaring that equal liberty, as well re- ligious as civil, shall be universally extended to the good people of this country ; and that all the oppres- sive acts of parliament respecting religion, which have * It seems the word cUizevs was not yet coined. 100 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF been formerly enacted in the mother country, shall henceforth be of no validity or force in this common- wealth : as also exempting dissenters from all levies, taxes, and impositions, whatsoever, towards supporting the Church of England as it now is or hereafter may be established. ^Ve would therefore have given our Ho- nourable Legislature no further trouble on this subject ; but we are sorry to find that there yet remains a variety of opinions touching the propriety of a general assess- ment, or whether every religious society shall be left to voluntary contributions, for the maintenance of the ministers of the gospel who are of different persuasions. As this matter is deferred by our legislature to the dis- cussion and final determination of a future assembly, when the opinion of the country, in general, shall be better known ; we think it our indispensable duty again to repeat a part of the prayer of our former memorial : * That dissenters of every denomination may be ex- empted from all taxes for the support of any church whatsoever, further than what may be agreeable to the private choice or voluntary obligation of every indi- vidual ; while the civil magistrates no otherwise inter- fere than to protect them all in the full and free exercise of their diff"erent modes of worship.' We there repre- sented, as the principal reasons upon which this request was founded, that the only proper objects of civil go- vernments 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 individual ; and that the dut}'^ which we owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be directed by reason and con- viction, and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge. " To illustrate and confirm these assertions, we beg leave to observe, that to judge for ourselves, and to en- THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 101 gage in the exercise of religion agreeably to the dictates of our own consciences, is an inalienable right, which, upon the principles on which the gospel was first pro- pagated, 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 no advantage, but an injury to the society to which we belong ; and as every good Christian believes that Christ has ordained 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 con- summation. 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 dis- honest, inconsistent part, were we to receive any emo- luments from human establishments, for the support of the gospel. " These things being considered, we hope we shall be excused for remonstrating 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 manner, if the legislature has any rightful authority over the ministers of the gospel in the exercise of their sacred office, and if it is their duty 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 they may think proper ; they are invested with a power not only to determine, 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 regulations and re- strictions upon religious societies that they may judge expedient. These consequences are so plain as not to be denied ; and they are so entirely subversive of reli- k2 102 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF gious liberty, that if they should take place in Virginia, we should be reduced to the melancholy necessity of saying with the apostles in like cases, * Judge ye whe- ther it is best to obey God or man,' and also of acting as they acted. " Therefore, as it is contrary to our principles and in- terest, and, as we think, subversive of religious liberty, we do again most earnestly entreat that our legislature would never extend any assessment for religious pur- poses to us, or to the congregations under our care. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, shall ever pray for, and demean themselves as peaceable subjects of civil government. " Signed, by order of the Presbytery, " Richard Sankey, Moderator. " Timber Ridge, April 25th, 1777." During the war of independence, of which Virginia was for several years one of the principal theatres, the business of legislation for the internal government of the country was necessarily interrupted. On the successful termination of the war, however, the Presbytery of Han- over immediately renewed their agitation for the esta- blishment of a system of complete religious liberty, and entire separation of Church and State, The Pres- byterians, and especially their ministers, had been par- ticularly obnoxious to the Royalist forces during the war, as it was well known that they had uniformly made common cause with the people after the Declaration of Independence — stimulating them to renewed sacrifices and exertions in the midst of their frequent reverses, as well by their disinterested counsels, as by their own patient endurance of sufferings and privations. The Episcopal clergy, on the contrary, were generally Royalists; for as they well knew, on the one hand, that the maintenance of the Royal authority was the only security they had for the preservation of their benefices, f THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 103 they were conscious, on the other, that they had no hold on the affections of the people, and they therefore hated their cause, and adopted every means which they could employ with safety to ensure their defeat. Naturally desirous, however, of standing well with the party that should eventually be uppermost, they adopted, for the most part, a temporizing policy, which, in such circum- stances as were then experienced, could not fail to give great offence. Evidences of this state of feeling will be found in the following memorial, which was presented to the legislature of Virginia immediately after the peace. It was the joint production of two able minis- ters of the period, the Rev. Messrs. Smith and Waddell. " III. — Memorial of the Presbytery of Hanover, in May, 178-4. *' To the Honourable the Speaker and House of Delegates of Virginia ; " The united clergy of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, assembled in Presbytery, request your atten- tion to the following representation. In the late arduous struggle for every thing dear to us, a desire of perfect liberty and political equality animated every class of citizens. An entire and everlasting freedom from every species of ecclesiastical domination, a full and perman- ent security of the inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment, and an equal share of the protection and favour of government to all denominations of Chris- tians, were particular objects of oiu* expectation and ir- refragable claim. The happy revolution effected by the virtuous exertions of our countrymen of various opinions in religion, was a favourable opportunity of obtaining these desirable objects without faction, contention, or complaint. All ranks of men, almost, felt the claims of justice, when the rod of oppression had scourged them into sensibility, and the powerful band of common dan- ger had cordially united them together against civil en- croachments. The members, therefore, of every reli- 104 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF gious society had a right to expect, and most of them did expect, that former invidious and exclusive distinc- tions, preferences, and emoluments, conferred by the State on any one sect above others, would have been wholly removed. They justly supposed that any par- tiality of this kind, any particular and illicit connexion or commerce between the State and one description of Christians more than another, on account of peculiar opinions in religion, or in any thing else, would be un- worthy of the representatives of a people perfectly free, and an infringement of that religious liberty which en- hances the value of other privileges in a state of society. " We, therefore, and the numerous body of citizens in our communion, as well as in many others, are justly dissatisfied and uneasy, that our expectations from the legislature have not been answered in these important respects. We regret that the prejudices of education, the influence of partial custom, and habits of thinking confirmed by these, have too much confounded the dis- tinction between matters purely religious and the objects of human legislation, and have occasioned jealousy and dissatisfaction by injurious inequalities respecting things which are connected with religious opinion, towards dif- ferent sects of Christians. That this uneasiness may not appear to be entertained without ground, we would wish to state the following unquestionable facts for the consideration of the House of Delegates. " The security of our religious rights upon equal and impartial ground, instead of being made a fundamental part of our constitution, as it ought to have been, is left to the precarious fate of common law. A matter of general and essential concern to the people is committed to the hazard of the prevailing opinion of a majority of the Assembly at its different sessions. In consequence of this, the Episcopal church was virtually regarded as the constitutional church, the church of the State, at the Revolution ; and was left, by the framers of our present government, in that station of unjust pre-emi- THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMElUCA. 105 nence which she had formerly acquired under the smiles of royal favour. And even when the late oppressive establishment of that church was at length acknow- ledged an unreasonable hardship, by the Assembly in 1776, a superiority and distinction in name was still retained, and it w'as expressly styled the Established Church, as before, which title was continued as late as the year 1778, and never formally disclaimed; our common danger at that time not permitting that oppo- sition to the injustice of such distinctions which it required and deserved. " But 'a seat on the right hand of temporal glory as the established mother church,' was not the only in- equality then countenanced, and still subsisting, of which we now have reason to regret and complain. Substantial advantages were also confirmed and secured to her, by a partial and inequitable decree of govern- ment. We hoped the time past would have sufficed for the enjoyment of those emoluments, which that church long possessed without control, by the abridg- ment of the equal privileges of others, and the aid of their property wTested from them by the hand of usurp- ation ; but we were deceived. An estate, computed to be worth several hundred thousand pounds, in churches, glebes, &c., derived from the pockets of all religious societies, was exclusively and unjustly appropriated to the benefit of one, without compensation or restitu- tion to the rest, who in many places were a large ma- jority of the inhabitants. " Nor is this the whole of the injustice we have felt in matters connected with religious opinion. The Epis- copal church is actually incorporated, and known in law as a body, so that it can receive and possess pro- perty for ecclesiastical purposes, without trouble or risk in securing it, while other Christian communities are obliged to trust to the precarious fidelity of trustees chosen for the purpose. The Episcopal clergy are J 06 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF considered as having a right, ex officio, to celebrate marriages throughout the State, while unnecessary hard- ships and restrictions are imposed upon other clergy- men, in the law relating to that subject, passed in 1780, which confines their exercise of that function to those counties where they receive a special license from the court by recommendation, for recording which they are charged with certain fees by the clerk ; and which exposes them to a heavy fine for delay in returning certificates of marriage to the office. " The vestries of the different parishes, a remnant of hierarchical domination, have a right by law to levy money from the people of all denominations, for certain purposes ; and yet these vestrymen are exclusively required by law to be members of the Episcopal church, and to subscribe a conformity to its doc- trines and discipline, as professed and practised in England. Such preferences, distinctions, and advan- tages, granted by the legislature exclusively to one sect of Christians, are regarded by a great number of your constituents as glaringly unjust and dangerous. Their continuance so long in a republic, without anim- adversion or correction by the Assembly, affords just ground for alarm and complaint to a people who feel themselves, by the favour of Providence, happily free ; who are conscious of having deserved as well from the State as those who are most favoured ; who have an undoubted right to think themselves as orthodox in opinion, upon every subject, as others ; and whose pri- vileges are as dear to them. Such partiality to any system of religious opinion, whatever, is inconsistent with the intention and proper object of well-directed government, and obliges men of reflection to consider the legislature which indulges it as a party in religious differences, instead of the common guardian and equal protector of every class of citizens in their religious as well as civil rights. We have hitherto restrained our THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 107 complaints from reaching our representatives, that we might not be thought to take advantages from times of confusion, or critical situations of government in an un- settled state of convulsion and war, to obtain what is our clear and incontestable right. " But, as the happy restoration of peace affords leisure for reflection, we wish to state our sense of the objects of this memorial to your Honourable House upon the present occasion ; that it may serve to remind you of what might be unnoticed in a multitude of business, and remain as a remonstrance against future encroach- ments from any quarter. That uncommon liberality of sentiment, which seems daily to gain ground in this enlightened period, encourages us to hope from your wisdom and integrity, gentlemen, a redress of every grievance and remedy of every abuse : our invaluable privileges have been purchased by the common blood and treasure of our countrymen of different names and opinions, and therefore ought to be secured in full and perfect equality to them all. We are willing to allow a full share of credit to our fellow-citizens, however dis- tinguished in name from us, for their spirited exertions in our arduous struggle for liberty ; we would not wish to charge any of them, either ministers or people, with open disaffection to the common cause of America, or with crafty dissimulation or indecision, till the issue of the war was certain, so as to oppose their obtaining equal privileges in religion ; but we will resolutely en- gage against any monopoly of the honours and rewards of government by any one sect of Christians more than the rest ; for we shun not a comparison with any of our brethren, for our efforts in the cause of our country, and assisting to establish her liberties, and therefore esteem it unreasonable that any of them should reap superior advantages for, at most, but equal merit. We expect from the representatives of a free people, that all partiality and prejudice on any account whatever 108 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF will be laid aside, and that the happiness of the citizens at large will be secured upon the broad basis of perfect political equality. This will engage confidence in govern- ment, and unsuspicious affection towards our fellow- citizens. We hope that the legislature will adopt some measures to remove present inequality, and resist any attempts, either at their present session or hereafter, to continue those which we now complain of. Thus, by preserving a proper regard to every religious denomina- tion, as the common protectors of piety and virtue, you will remove every real ground of contention, and allay every jealous commotion on the score of religion. The citizens of Virginia will feel themselves free, unsus- picious, and happy in this respect. Strangers will be encouraged to share our freedom and felicity ; and, when civil and religious liberty go hand in hand, our late posterity will bless the wisdom and virtue of their fathers. We have the satisfaction to assure you that we are steady well-wishers to the State, and your humble servants, " The Presbytery of Hanover." In the year 1784, the Act, alluded to in the pre- ceding memorial, was passed by the legislature of Vir- ginia, for the incorporation of the Episcopal church in that State ; and, in consequence of that memorial, a proposal was made, by certain influential members of the House of Assembly, to incorporate the Presbyterian church also ; the friends of the measure proposing that the charter of incorporation should be given to the clergy, independently of their people. " About the same time," observes the Rev. Dr. Rice,* " a general assessment for the support of religion was proposed, and was advocated by some of the most able * Illustrations of the Character of the Preshyterian Church in Virginia, by the Rev. .John Holt Rice, D.D., Minister of the First Presbyttrian Chnich, Richmond, Virginia ; Philadelphia, 181(5. THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 109 and popular men in Virginia ; and, among others, by Patrick Henry.* The general belief was, that the measure would be carried in spite of all opposition. Under this impression, the Presbytery resolved to at- tempt, by remonstrances to the legislature, so to modify the plan as to make it as harmless as possible. With this view, they presented the following memorial to the Assembly at its next meeting." In addition to what Dr. Rice has stated, it may be proper to observe, that while matters were in this critical situation, Patrick Henry, who was then one of the most influential men in America, had gained over to his views, on tlie subject of a general assessment for the support of religion, the Rev. John B. Smith, one of the ablest and most influential of the Presbyterian clergy. This, in conjunction with what Dr. R. has stated above, will account for the fact, that while the memorial referred to remonstrates against the proposal to incorporate the Presbyterian clergy, it presents a much feebler opposi- tion to the principle of an assessment, which the Pres- bytery at this juncture appear to have altogether de- spaired of opposing successfully. * Patrick Henry, Esq., afterwards Governor of the State, waS then a leading member of the House of Assembly in Virginia. Some time previous to the Declaration of Independence, when tho measures of the British government, in taxing the American people without their consent, were under discussion in tlie Virginia House of Assembly, Patrick Henry exclaimed, in the course of a long and animated speech, "Ca;sar had his lirutus ; Charles the First had his Cromwell; and George the Third" Mr. Henry then paused for a moment, and cries of " Tieason ! treason!" were heard from various parts of the House. When these liad ceased, and the feel- ings of all present were wound up to the highest pitcli, in expecla- lion of the announcement of some really treasonable sentiment, Mr. H. adroitly concluded his sentence by adding, — " and George the Third should profit by their example " 110 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF IV. — Memorial. " The Presbytery of Hanover to the Assembly, in October, 1784. To the Honourable the Speaker and House of Delegates of Virginia. " Gentlemen, " The united clergy of the Presbyterian Church of Virginia, assembled in Presbytery, beg leave again to address your Honourable House upon a few important subjects in which we find ourselves interested as citi- zens of this State. " The freedom we possess is so rich a blessing, and the purchase of it has been so high, that we would ever wish to cherish a spirit of vigilant attention to it in every circumstance of possible danger. We are anxious to retain a full share of all the privileges which our happy revolution affords, and cannot but feel alarmed at the continued existence of any infringement upon them, or even any indirect attempt tending to this. Impressed with this idea, as men whose rights are sacred and dear to them ought to be, we are obliged to ex- press our sensibility upon the present occasion ; and we naturally direct our appeal to you, gentlemen, as the public guardians of your country's happiness and liberty, who are influenced, we hope, by that wisdom and jus- tice which your high station requires. Conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, and the strength of our claims, we wish to speak our sentiments freely upon these occasions, but at the same time with all that re- spectful regard which becomes us, when addressing the Representatives of a great and virtuous people. It is with pain that we find ourselves obliged to renew our complaints upon the subjects stated in our memorial last spring. We deeply regret that such obvious griev- ances should exist unredressed in a republic, whose end ought to be the happiness of all the citizens. We pre- sumed that immediate redress would have succeeded a THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. Ill clear and just representation of them, as we expect that it is always the desire of our Representatives to remove real grounds of uneasiness, and allay jealous commo- tions among the people. But as the objects of the memorial, though very important in their nature, and more so in their probable consequences, have not yet been obtained, we request that the House of Delegates would be pleased to recollect what we had the honour to state to them in that paper at their last session ; to resume the subject in their present deliberation ; and to give it that weight which its importance deserves. The uneasiness which w^e feel from the continuance of the grievances just referred to, is increased under the prospect of an addition to them by certain exceptionable measures said to be proposed to the legislature. We have understood that a comprehensive incorporating act has been, and is at present, in agitation, whereby minis- ters of the gospel, as such, of certain descriptions, shall have legal advantages which are not proposed to be extended to the people at large of any denomination. A proposition has been made by some gentlemen in the House of Delegates, we are told, to extend the grace to us amongst others, in our professional capacity. If this be so, we are bound to acknowledge with grati- tude our obligations to such gentlemen for their in- clination to favour us with the sanction of public authority in the discharge of our duty. But as the scheme of incorporating clergymen, independently of the religious communities to which they belong, is inconsistent with our ideas of propriety, we request the liberty of declining any such solitary honour should it be again proposed. To form clergymen into a distinct order in the community, and especially where it would be pos- sible for them to have the principal direction of a con- siderable public estate by such incorporation, has a tendency to render them independent at length of the churches whose ministers they are ; and this has been 112 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMEN'T OF too often found by experience to produce ignorance, immorality, and neglect of the duties of their station. " Besides, if clergymen were to be erected by the State into a distinct political body, detached from the rest of the citizens, with the express design of ' enabling them to direct spiritual matters,' which we all possess the right to do without such formality, it would naturally tend to introduce that antiquated and absurd system, in which the civil government is owned, in effect, to be the fountain-head of spiritual influences to the church. It would establish an immediate, a peculiar — and, for that very reason, in our opinion, illicit — connexion be- tween government and such as were thus distinguished. The legislature in that case would be the head of a religious party, and its independent members would be entitled to all decent reciprocity, to a becoming, pater- nal and fostering care. This, we suppose, would be giving a preference, and creating a distinction between citizens equally good, on account of something entirely foreign from civil merit, which would be a source of endless jealousies, and inadmissible in a republic, or in any other well directed government. The principle, too, which this system aims to establish, is both false and dangerous to religion ; and we take this opportu- nity to remonstrate and protest against it. The real ministers of true religion derive their authority to act in the duties of their profession from a higher source than any legislature on earth, however respectable. Their office relates to the care of the soul, and preparing it for a future state of existence, and their administrations are, or ought to be, of a spiritual nature, suited to this momentous concern. And it is plain, from the very nature of the case, that they should neither expect nor receive from government any permission or direction in this respect. We hope, therefore, that the House of Delegates shares so large a portion of that philosophic and liberal discernment which prevails in America at THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 113 present, as to see this matter in its proper liglit, and that they will understand too well the nature of their duty, as the equal and common guardians of the chartered rights of all the citizens, to permit a connexion of the kind we have just now mentioned, to subsist between them and the instructors of any religious denomination in the State. The interference of government in reli- gion cannot be indifferent to us, and as it will probably come under consideration at the present session of the Assembly, we request the attention of the Honourable House to our sentiments upon this head. " We conceive that human legislation ought to have human affairs alone for its concern. Legislators in free States possess delegated authority for the good of the community at large in its political or civil capacity. " The existence, preservation, and happiness of so- ciety should be their only object ; and to this their public cares should be confined. Whatever is not ma- terially connected with this, lies not within their pro- vince as statesmen. The thoughts, the intentions, the faith, and the consciences of men, with their modes of worship, lie beyond their reach, and are to be referred to a higher and more penetrating tribunal. Their in- ternal and spiritual matters cannot be measured by hu- man rules, nor be amenable to human laws. It is the duty of every man for himself to take care of his immor- tal interests in a future state, where we are to account for our conduct as individuals ; and it is by no means the business of a legislature to attend to this, for there Governments and States, as collective bodies, shall no more be known. " Religion, therefore, as a spiritual system, and its ministers, in a professional capacity, ought not to be under the direction of the State. " Neither is it necessary to their existence that they should be publicly supported by a legal provision for the purpose, as tried experience hath often shown ; al- L 2 114 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT CF though it is absolutely necessary to the existence and welfare of every political combination of men in society to have the support of religion and its solemn institu- tions, as affecting the conduct of rational beings more than human laws can possibly do. On this account it is wise policy in legislators to seek its alliance, and solicit its aid in a civil view, because of its happy influ- ence upon the morality of its citizens, and its tendency to preserve the veneration of an oath, or an appeal to Heaven, which is the cement of the social union. It is upon this principle alone, in our opinion, that a legisla- tive body has a right to interfere in religion at all ; and of consequence we suppose, that this interference ought only to extend to the preserving of the public worship of the Deity, and the supporting of institutions for in- culcating the great fundamental principles of all religion, without which society could not easily exist. Should it be thought necessary at present for the Assembly to exert this right of supporting religion in general, by an assessment on all the people, we would wish it to be done on the most liberal plan. A general assessment of the kind we have heard proposed is an object of such consequence, that it excites much anxious speculation amongst your constituents. " We therefore earnestly pray that nothing may be done in the case inconsistent with the proper objects of human legislation or the Declaration of Rights as pub- lished at the Revolution. We hope that the assessment will not be proposed under the idea of supporting reli- gion as a spiritual system, relating to the care of the soul and preparing it for its future destiny. We hope that no attempt will be made to point out articles of faith that are not essential to the peace of society ; or to settle modes of worship ; or to interfere in the internal government of religious communities ; or to render the ministers of religion independent of the will of the people ichorn they serve. We expect from our Representatives THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 115 that careful attention to the political equality of all the citizens which a republic ought ever to cherish ; and that no scheme of an assessment will be encouraged which will violate the happy privilege we now enjoy, of thinking for ourselves in all cases where conscience is concerned. " We request the candid indulgence of the Honour- able House to the present address ; and their most favourable construction of the motives which induce us to obtrude ourselves into public notice. We are urged by a sense of duty — we feel ourselves impressed with the importance of the present crisis — we have expressed ourselves in the plain language of freemen, upon the in- teresting subjects that called for animadversion — and we liope to stand excused with you, gentlemen, for the manner in which it is executed, as well as for the part we take in the public interests of the community. In the present important moment, we conceived it criminal to be silent ; and have, therefore, attempted to dis- charge a duty which we owe to our religion as Chris- tians ; to ourselves as freemen ; and to our posterity, who ought to receive from us a precious birthright of perfect freedom and political equality. " That you may enjoy the direction of Heaven in your present deliberations, and possess in a high degree the spirit of your exalted station, is the prayer of your sincere well-wishers, " The Presbytery of Hanover." So important was the crisis at which this document was received for the establishment of entire religious liberty in all time coming in America, and so successful had the advocates of a general assessment been in re- commending that measure to the legislature, that " A Bill to provide for the support of Religion," on the principle of such an assessment, had actually been read a second time, and was engrossed for the third reading 116 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF when the meinorial was presented. In consequence of that memorial, however, the third reading of the bill was postponed, with a view to the further consideration of the measure. " This," observes Dr. Rice, " gave an opportunity for such an expression of public sentiment as completely decided the matter." A petition to the legislature was drawn up by the Rev. John B. Smith, the writer of the preceding memorial, remonstrating against the principle of an assessment for the support of religion, and soliciting the establishment of complete religious liberty, and the entire separation of Church and State. This petition was signed by not fewer than TEN THOUSAND ViRGiNiANs ; the Original document and the preceding memorial being both in existence still, in the hand-writing of Mr. Smith, in the office of the Clerk of the House of Delegates of Virginia. In the month of May of the following year, the Pres- bytery of Hanover held a meeting at a place called Bethel ; and in the records of that meeting is to be found the following minute : — "Bethel, May 19, 1785. " A petition was presented to the Presbytery from the Session of Augusta congregation, requesting an ex- planation of the word liberal, as used in the Presbytery's memorial of last fall : as also of the motives and end of the Presbytery in sending it to the Assembly. Messrs. Hoge and Carrick are appointed a Committee to pre- pare an answer to the above petition, and report to the Presbytery." The part of the memorial to which this petition re- ferred was the following : " Should it be thought neces- sary at present for the Assembly to exert their right of supporting religion in general, by an assessment on all the people, we would wish it to be done on the most liberal plan." The expression was certainly ambiguous, THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 117 as the word liberal might refer to the amount of assess- ment to be raised, and of stipends or salaries to be paid, as well as to the churches or denominations eligible to receive it. It is evident, however, from the subsequent proceedings of the meeting, that the petitioners merely desired to bring the whole subject of an assessment once more before the Presbytery ; for immediately after the minute above quoted, the following entry appears upon the records of the Presbytery : " On motion, the opinion of Presbytery was taken as to ' Whether they do approve of any kind of an assess- ment by the General Assembly for the support of reli- gion ? ' Presbytery are unanimously against such a measure." " It has been supposed," observes Dr. Rice, ** from the tenor of the latter part of the preceding memorial, that the Presbytery of Hanover was in favour of an as- sessment of some kind ; when, in fact, it was only their purpose, as before stated, to render a measure, which they thought inevitable, as powerless as possible. If any doubt remains yet in the minds of any one, it will be completely dissipated by the following extract, which in the records of the Presbytery immediately succeeds the preceding one : " On motion, the opinion of Presbytery and likewise of several members of different congregations present, was taken, ' Whether a general convention of the Pres- byterian body was expedient, in our present circum- stances?' It was unanimously agreed to, and an invitation was accordingly signed by the ministers and several private members of the Presbyterian Church to the whole body, to send representatives to a Convention proposed to beheld at Bethel, on the 10th day of next August." A convention of the Presbyterian Church in Vir- ginia was held, accordingly, at the time and place ap- pointed ; at which, among other proceedings, the follow- ing memorial was adopted, to be presented to the Gene- 118 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ral Assembly, or House of Delegates, at its next meet- ing. It was given in charge for that purpose to the Rev. John B. Smith, one of the ablest ministers of the American Presbyterian Church at the time, who not only presented it in person, but was heard, in support of \t,for three successive days, at the bar of the House. V. — " To the Honourable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia. " The Ministers and Lay Representatives of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, assembled in Conven- tion, beg leave to address you. " As citizens of this State, not so by accident, but choice, and having willingly conformed to the system of civil policy adopted for our government, and defend- ed it with the foremost at the risk of every thing dear to us, we feel ourselves deeply interested in all the mea- sures of the legislature. " When the late happy Revolution secured to us an exemption from British control, we hoped that the gloom of injustice and usurpation would have been for ever dispelled by the cheering rays of liberty and inde- pendence. This inspired our hearts with resolution in the most distressful scenes of adversity, and nerved our arm in the day of battle. But our hopes have since been overcast with apprehension, when we found how slowly and unwillingly ancient distinctions among the citizens, on account of religious opinions, were removed by the legislature. For, although the glaring partiality of obliging all denominations to support the one which had been the favourite of government was pretty early withdrawn, yet an evident predilection in favour of that church still subsisted in the Acts of the Assembly. Pe- culiar distinctions and the honour of an important name were still continued ; and these are considered as equally partial and injurious with the ancient emoluments. Our apprehensions on account of the continuance of these, which could have no other effect than to produce jea- THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 119 lous animosities, and unnecessary contentions among different parties, were increased when we found tliat they were tenaciously adhered to by government, not- withstanding the remonstrances of several Christian so- cieties. To increase the evil, a manifest disposition has been shown by the State, to consider itself as pos- sessed of supremacy in spirituals, as well as temporals ; and our fears have been realized in certain proceedings of the General Assembly at their last session. '\ he engrossed bill for establishing a provision for the teachers of the Christian religion, and the act for incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church, so far as it secures to that church, the churches, glebes, «&c., procured at the expense of the whole community, are not only evidences of this, but of an impolitic partiality which we are sorry to have observed so long. " We, therefore, in the name of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, beg leave to exercise our privilege as freemen, in remonstrating against the former abso- lutely, and against the latter under the restrictions above expressed. " We oppose the bill, " Because it is a departure from the proper line of legislation. " Because it is unnecessary, and inadequate to its professed end — impolitic, in many respects, — and a di- rect violation of the Declaration of Rights. " The end of civil government is security to the tem- poral liberty and property of mankind, and to protect them in the free exercise of religion. Legislators are invested with powers from their constituents for these purposes only ; and their duty extends no furtlier. Re- ligion is altogether personal, and the right of exercising it inalienable ; and it is not, cannot, and ought not to be resigned to the will of the society at large, and much less to the legislature, which derives its authority wholly from the consent of the people, and is limited by the original intention of civil associations. J 20 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF " We never resigned to the control of government our right of determining for ourselves in tb.is important article, and acting agreeably to the convictions of rea- son and conscience, in discharging our duty to our Crea- tor. And, therefore, it would have been an unwarrant- able stretch of prerogative, in the legislature, to make laws concerning it, except for protection. And it would be a fatal symptom of abject slavery in us, were we to submit to the usurpation. " The bill is also an unnecessary and inadequate ex- pedient for the end proposed. We are fully persuaded of the happy influence of Christianity upon the morals of men ; but we have never known it, in the history of its progress, so effectual for this purpose, as when left to its native excellence and evidence to recommend it, under the all-directing providence of God, and free from the intrusive hand of the civil magistrate. Its divine Author did not think it necessary to render it dependent on earthly governments. And experience has shown that this dependence, where it has been effected, has been an injury rather than an aid. It has introduced corruption among the teachers and professors of it, wherever it has been tried, for hundreds of years ; and has been destructive of genuine morality, in proportion to the zeal of the powers of this world in arming it with the sanction of legal terrors, or inviting to its profession by honours and rewards. " It is urged, indeed, by the abettors of this bill, that it would be the means of cherishing religion and morality among the citizens. But it appears from fact, that these can be promoted only by the internal conviction of the mind, and its voluntary choice, which such establish- ments cannot effect. " We further remonstrate against the bill as an im- politic measure. " It disgusts so large a proportion of citizens, that it would weaken the influence of government in other respects, and diffuse a spirit of opposition to the rightful THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 121 exercise of constitutional authority, if enacted into a law. " It partially supposes the Quakers and Mennonists to be more faithful in conducting the religious interests of their societies than the other sects — which we ap- prehend to be contrary to fact. " It unjustly subjects men who may be good citizens, but who have not embraced our common faith, to the hardship of supporting a system they have not as yet be- lieved the truth of; and deprives them of their property, for what they do not suppose to be of importance to them. " It establishes a precedent for further encroachments, by making the legislature judges of religious truth. If the Assembly have a right to determine the preference between Christianity and the other systems of religion that prevail in the world, they may also, at a convenient time, give a preference to some favoured sect among Christians. " It discourages the population of our country by alarming those who may have been oppressed by religious establishments in other countries, with fears of the same in this ; and by exciting our own citizens to emigrate to other lands of greater freedom. " It revives the principle which our ancestors con- tested to blood, of attempting to reduce all religions to one standard by the force of civil authority. " And it naturally opens a door for contention among citizens of different creeds, and different opinions re- specting the extent of the powers of government. " The bill is also a direct violation of the Declara- tion of Rights, which ought to be the standard of all laws. The sixteenth article is clearly infringed upon by it, and any explanation which may have been given of it by the friends of this measure in the legislature, so as to justify a departure from its literal construction, might also be used to deprive us of other fundamental prin- ciples of our government. M 122 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF " For these reasons, and others that might be pro- duced, we conceive it our duty to remonstrate and pro- test against the said bill, and earnestly urge that it may not be enacted into a law." [The next four paragraphs relate to the proposed Act for incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church, and are of lesser consequence.] " That Heaven may illuminate your minds with all that wisdom which is necessary for the important pur- poses of your deliberation, is our earnest wish. And we beg leave to assure you, that however warmly we may engage in preserving our religion free from the shackles of human authority, and opposing claims of spiritual domination in civil powers, we are zealously disposed to support the government of our country, and to maintain a due submission to the lawful exercise of its authority. " Signed by order of the Convention, " John Todd, Chairman. " Attest, Daniel M'Calla, Clerk. "Bethel, Augusta County, 15th August, 1785." The result of this long-continued agitation, on the part of the Presbyterian clergy of Virginia, was that the Bill for the support of religion, by means of a ge- neral assessment, from which that body of clergy would have derived precisely the same pecuniary advantages as their Episcopalian brethren, was thrown out in the House of Assembly, after it had passed the second reading and been engrossed for the third. And, as all the acts of the British Parliament, as well as all the enactments of the old colonial legislature, establishing the Episcopal church in Virginia had, in the meantime, been repealed, the Voluntary System became thence- forward the law of the land. Not that there was any law establishing or enforcing that system. It required THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 123 none ; all that was necessary in the case, viz., the repeal of positive enactments in favour of a particu- lar church, having been already effected. The case of Virginia in this most important affair was, therefore, totally different from the somewhat equivocal case of Dissenters, either in Great Britain or Ireland, expressing their conscientious objections against the principle of a civil establishment of religion, and demanding that that principle should be renounced, and the existing establishments reduced to the Voluntary level. In other words, it was not the case of men, as it is quite possible the other may be, crying that the grapes were sour because they could not get at them. On the contrary, it was the case of a comparatively large and influential body of clergy who, when offered by the State all the immunities and emoluments of a civil establishment of their church, on the same footing with that of the most favoured in the land, deliberately refused them, because they conscientiously believed the possession and enjoyment of them to be prejudicial to the best interests of the Clnnxh of Christ. In short, the case of the Presbyterian clergy of Virginia, at this important crisis in the history of their country, was, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of the Church for the Christian principle and the self-denial it exhibited in a season of peculiar temptation. It is right, therefore, that the credit of this most im- portant measure should be given to those to whom it is thus most justly due. The establishment of the Vo- luntary System, and the entire separation of Church and State in Virginia, was no infidel and revolutionary measure of Mr. Jefferson's, but the work of eminently pious, devoted, and Christian men. It was not a mea- sure which the Presbyterian clergy of that State were obliged to accept with the best grace they could, be- cause they could get no better ; but the one of their own solemn, deliberate, and unanimous choice. These 124 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF considerations will not be without their weight among all candid and disinterested men, whatever they may think of the efforts of our own Dissenters. The error of ascribing this measure to Mr. Jefferson has probably arisen from the circumstance of his having mtroduced the law establishing the famous statute of mortmain in Virginia, in the year 1776. By this law, however — for the enactment of which Mr. Jefferson cer- tainly did take some credit to himself, and doubtless with good reason — the principle of a religious establish- ment was left untouched ; as it merely prevented the bequeathing of real estate in all time coming to reli- gious or other corporations, by declaring such corpora- tions incapable of holding it. The right of the legisla- ture to impose a general assessment for the support of one or more established churches remained unquestioned by that law ; the j)rinciple of an establishment was left entire in the theory of the government. It was pre- cisely this right, however, that the Presbyterian clergy called in question ; it was the principle of an establish- ment that they attacked, and attacked successfully. The transcendant importance of this measure, not only to all America, but eventually even to the Old World, will not appear at first view to the English reader, who regards it as applying merely to Virginia. It is a beautiful and most interesting peculiarity, however, of the American political system, and one which, perhaps, more than all others besides insures its stability, that when any important principle in the science of govern- ment, of which the operation is found beneficial to so- ciety, has been wrought out, discovered, or developed in any one part of the Union, it gradually, but most certainly, becomes the property and possession of the whole. At the period in question, Virginia was the leading State of the South, if not of the whole Union. Its proceedings were carefully watched, and its exam- ple generally followed by the smaller adjoining States THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 125 of Maryland and Delaware on the one hand, and by the Carolinas and Georgia on the other. Whenever, there- fore, the new system of leaving religion entirely to itself had been duly tested and found to work well in Vir- ginia, it was successively adopted by each of these States. And so general had the feeling in favour of that system become, almost immediately after its intro- duction, that when the Federal Government was con- stituted in the year 1789, one of the fundamental stipu- lations of its Constitution was, that it should never have the power to erect an Established Church in the United States. I have already observed, that in the little Baptist State of Rhode Island, as well as in the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania, there had been no church establish- ment from the first. But these communities had had comparatively no influence in this particular on the neighbouring States. It was the struggle with power- ful and opposing influences for the establishment of a great moral principle in Virginia, that attracted general attention throughout the Union ; it was the successful operation of that principle when actually established, that carried conviction, and insured its universal adoption. The English Independents have long been endea- vouring to persuade the world that they have uniformly been the warm advocates of civil and religious liberty, and the only and consistent opponents of Religious Establishments. When other Christian people recollect, however, how easily " Cromwell's own clergy" were persuaded to accept the " sequestered" benefices of the Church of England, they will doubtless drop a tear of pity over the frailty even of Independents. But what will they think when they are told that, even in New England — the place where the principles of the Inde- pendents were the soonest planted, and the most widely spread, in America — the principle of a Religious Esta- blishment was, nevertheless, the most firmly rooted, and M 2 126 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF the most difficult to eradicate. It is quite edifying to hear the venerable Cotton Mather, the historian of New England, who will surely be acknowledged as a sound Congregationalist, talking in his own antique style, not only about the advantage, but about the honour and the dignity of a Religious Establishment. " Ministers of the gospel," says this excellent man, " 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 Massachusetts) 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 plantation ; that the person elected by the majority 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 king's minister ; and the salary raised for him, is raised in the king's name, and is the king's allowance unto him."* In short, as there are certain books which every de- nomination of Christians will naturally wish, for their own credit, to have been in the keeping of the caliph Omar, when he burnt the library of Alexandria, it is natural for the English Independents to wish that cer- tain of those ancient volumes, that treat of the doings of their brethren in New England, in the cause of civil and religious liberty, had long ago been consigned either to oblivion or to the flames. In the year 1631, only eleven years after the congregation of Mr. Robin- son landed on Plymouth Rock, and established the colony of Massachusetts, it was ordered by the General * The Rev, Cotton Mather's " Ratio Disciplinse ; or faitliful account of the discipline professed and practised in the churches of New England." 1726. Page 20. THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 127 Court of that colony, that " no person be admitted to the freedom of the body politic, but such as were members of some of the churches within its limits."* In the year 1634, Roger Williams, of Salem, holding tenets which were considered heretical and seditious, " tending equally to sap the foundations of the Esta- blishment in Church and State," was banished that colony. The tenets he held were those of the modern Baptists, and the place he went to, when exiled from Massachusetts, was Rhode Island, where he planted the little colony of that name. In the year 1G44, a more stringent law, condemning Anabaptists to impri- sonment, whipping, and banishment, was enacted by the same General Court; and, in 1 056, twelve Quakers were banished under a similar statute ; of whom two, having subsequently returned to the colony, were actually hanged for heresy alone, in the year 1659.^ It is melancholy to think, also, of the number of alleged witches that were afterwards burnt in this peculiarly Congregational colony, under the authority of the civil magistrates ; although it must be confessed, that the same horrible barbarity was practised, at the same time, in almost all parts of Europe. In short, arguments from the practice of our forefathers are often the most unfavourable in their bearing to those who are the readiest to use them. It was long after the War of Independence, and only in consequence of a series of hard struggles on the part of other communions, that the example of Virginia, in establishing the voluntary system, was acted upon in Massachusetts, and the old Congregational Establish- ment of that State entirely overthrown. The Episco- palians had been relieved from contributions to the Standing Ministry, and their congregations had been + Holmes' American Annab. Ibid. 128 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF erected into Incorporated Societies, or poll-parishes, previous to the Revolution ; but, although the consti- tution of 1 780, which maintained the old assessment for religious worship, allowed every person to appro- priate his taxes to whatever society he pleased, it was still held by the courts of Massachusetts, till the year 1811, under a statute passed in 1799, "That a member of a territorial parish (which is a corporation) could not withdraw his taxes, imposed for support of religious worship, for the purpose of applying the money to the maintenance of a teacher of an unincor- porated society."* By the statute of 1811, which was afterwards amended in 1823, a duly attested certificate of membership in any other religious society, whether incorporated or not, was sufficient to relieve the holder from all taxes for the support of the territorial establish- ment of the Congregational Church j but it was still the law and practice of Massachusetts, in perfect conformity to that of England, even under the last of these statutes, to regard all persons, in any town or parish, who be- longed to no religious society whatever, as regular members of the Congregational Church, and taxable for the support of its clergy. -j- And it was only ten years ago, or in the year 1830 — after the Voluntary System had been in operation for half a century in Virginia, and in most of the other States of the Union — that it was at length fully established in Massachusetts, and an entire separation effected, throughout the Union, be- tween Church and State. In short, it was the Congre- gationalists of New England who held on to " the * Notes to a Sermon on Religious Liberty, preached on the day of the annual fast of Massachusetts, April 3, 1828, by the Rev. AVilliam Cogs'vvell, A.M., Pastor of the South Church at Dcdham, Massachusetts. Second edition; Boston, 1831. Dr. Cogswell is now Secretary to the American Education Society. t Ibid. THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 1 29 wedge of gold and the goodly Babylonish garment," to the last : the Presbyterians, even in their day of small things, resolutely refused them both, when they were pressed upon them by the rulers of their country. It remains to be ascertained how they have fared for their pains. CHAPTER IV. GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES— CHURCH ACCOMMODA- TION. If an American citizen from the State of Massachusetts, the most densely peopled in the Union, were to land hi Great Britain, to make inquiries relative to the provi- sion for the dispensation of the ordinances of religion in this country, and to fix his residence, with this view, in the parish of Loch Broom, in the county of Ross, in Scotland — a parish which is sixty miles in length, and forty in breadth, which is intersected by arms of the sea, and for whose thinly-scattered and small popula- tion there is only, at this moment, or at least there was till lately, only one parish minister to dispense the ordi- nances of religion — what would be thought either of the understanding or of the honesty of such a person, if he were to represent that parish, on his return to America, as a specimen of the manner in which the maintenance of religious worship is provided for in Scotland ? Why, if he were not set down at once as a very ignorant or a very unprincipled man, he would immediately be told that Loch Broom was the excep- tion, and not the rule, in Scotland ; and that that ex- ception had necessarily arisen from its peculiar circum- stances — its great extent, and the thinness of its popu- lation. And if he ventured to reply, he would, doubtless, be silenced at once with the additional information, that, although there was but one minister in the parish CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 131 of Loch Broom, there were three or four churches, in all of which he officiated by turns. And yet the very men, who will at once recognise the reasonableness of such a state of things in Scotland, will, in all likelihood, exclaim loudly against the efficiency of the Voluntary System in America, because in districts of country in the United States, in which the same amount of popu- lation is scattered, perhaps, over three or four times the extent of the large parish of Loch Broom, one does not meet with parish churches and settled pastors at every turn. The vast territory that now constitutes the States of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and the region of Florida, was only acquired by the United States since the commencement of the present century ; and had previously been possessed exclusively, and partially colonized, by the French and Spaniards. And, with the exception of the towns of this territory, which are still few and far between, the actual popula- tion is very thinly scattered over its vast extent. Besides, the rapidity with which population advances into the vast western wilderness, constitutes another peculiarity in the circumstances of the American churches, to which there is no parallel in this country. Within the last three years, the Rev. Mr. Blackman, an old Presbyterian clergyman of the State of Indiana, who had come to collect funds in the city of Phila- delphia, for the establishment of a college in that State, mentioned at a public meeting in Philadelphia, that from the summit of a hill near Pittsburgh, on the west- ern frontier of Pennsylvania, where he was born, he could lake in, when a boy, with a single glance of his eye, almost the whole of the population which was then located to the westward of the Alleghany moun- tains, and which at that time did not exceed twenty thousand souls. The population to the westward of the Alleghanies is now estimated at five millions ! With a domestic population, therefore, increasing upon 132 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. them at a rate unprecedented in Europe, and requiring additional churches and ministers every year in propor- tion to that rate of increases the citizens and churches of the Atlantic States of America have thus been called on, in the course of a single lifetime, to provide for the religious instruction of other five millions of people in addition to theii' own — people located far beyond their own frontier, and expanded over a terri- tory equal in extent to half the size of Europe. The State of Ohio, for example, the first to the westward of the Alleghany mountains, of which the population is now a million and a half, was only admitted into the Union — an event which then implied an actual popu- lation of 30,000, or thereby — in the year 1802 ; that of Indiana, situated immediately beyond Ohio, and of which the population is now 750,000, in 1816 ; and that of Illinois, still farther to the westward, in 1818. The last mentioned of these States comprises a terri- tory of 53,000 square miles, that is, more than two- thirds the size of all England ; and its population, at the census of 1830, was only 157,445 ; and yet, in the year 1835, when, allowing that the population had actually doubled itself by immigration during the in- terval, it could only have amounted to 314,890, the following provision had already been made for the reli- gious instruction of the comparatively few and widely scattered inhabitants of Illinois : — RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS IN ILLINOIS IN THE YEAR 1835. MetJwdist Epyiscopal Church — G 1 circuit preachers j 308 local preachers ; 15,097 members. Baptists — 22 associations; 260 churches; 160 preachers ; and 7,350 communicants. Presbyterians — 1 synod, containing 8 presbyteries; 80 churches ; 60 ministers ; and 2,500 commu- nicants. Congregationalists—\ association or presbytery; 12 to 15 churches ; number of ministers not known. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 133 Methodist Protestants — 22 ministers ; number of members not known. Cumberland Presbyterians — 2 or 3 presbyteries ; J 2 or 15 preachers. Covenanters and Seceders — 4 or 5 churches. Episcopal Church — 1 bishop; 8 or 10 churches; 7 or 8 ministers. Lutherans — several congregations ; besides smaller bodies of Moravians, Friends, Campbellites, Tun- kers, and Mormons. Homan Catholics — 8 or 1 priests ; with a popu- lation, however, estimated at not above 6,000 al- together, and consisting of old French villagers, and Irish labourers on the Illinois canal. And yet this is one of the States of which Captain Marryat speaks, when he tells us that, " With the ex- ception of certain cases to be found in western Vir- ginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, the whole of the States to the westward of the Alleghany mountains, comprising more than two-thirds of America, may be said to be either in a state of neglect and darkness, or professing the Catholic religion."* Of the religious denominations enumerated above, the Presbyterians are only the third in point of number ; the Methodists and Baptists being considerably more numerous. And yet, in a State still more recently formed than that of Illinois, — I mean the State of Mis- souri, to the westward of the Mississippi, — the Presby- terians have for several years past had a college for the education of ministers of religion of their own denomi- nation for that State. I saw one of their ministers, who had come as a Delegate from Missouri to the General Assembly, at Philadelphia, in tlie end of May last — a distance of 1,600 miles. Captain Marryat's statement is, therefore, utterly unfounded : tlie Protestants of America * Diary in Amciica, Amcr. edit., p. 219. N 134 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. have not neglected the west. They have not left it either in darkness or Popery, In the older States of Indiana and Ohio, the pro- vision for the support of the ordinances of religion is still better than in Illinois, and the churches are in a more settled condition. In all these States, however, and in those of the West generally, a large proportion of the ministers of religion are in the first instance merely missionaries, supported either by the general benevolence of the particular denomination to which they belong, through their Societies for Domestic Mis- sions, or by that of particular congregations. As an instance of the extent to which this most praiseworthy practice obtains in the American churches, I will men- tion a circumstance related to me by Mr. Primrose, a Scotch gentleman now settled at the town of Raleigh, in North Carolina, but who had been for several years past a member of the Presbyterian church under the pastoral charge of the Rev. Dr. M'Auley, an eminently devoted minister in the city of New York. The Sun- day-school attached to Dr. M'A.'s church, in which Mr. Primrose had been one of the teachers, consists of upwards of 200 pupils ; and these pupils, acting under the superintendence of the teachers, have a sort of Missionary Society of their own, for the support of the Christian ministry in feeble congregations of recent formation in the Far West. They raise 450 dollars per annum for this purpose, and with that amount they maintain a Christian ministry, in not fewer than four churches in the western wilderness ; giving 200 dollars per annum to one, where the people are able to raise only 100 themselves ; 150 to a second ; and 50 each to other two. In the first of these cases the minister, finding the people to whom he had been sent able to contribute only the small amount of 100 dollars,^ and loth to call upon his benevolent supporters for a larger CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 185 allowance than they had at first thought necessary, in addition to the contributions of the people, informed them that he feared he should be obliged, although very unwillingly, to leave the station altogether, in consequence of the utter inability of the congregation to support his family. Being then requested to state what sum would be necessary for his support in the locality in question, he replied that he could live com- fortably in that part of the country for 300 dollars per annum. The sum which had previously been allowed him was therefore immediately raised to 200 dollars. As I was desirous of ascertaining the comparative value of money in Scotland, and in such localities in America as those above referred to, and as the Ameri- cans themselves could give me no information on the subject, I applied to a very intelligent and respectable Scotchman, of tiie name of Bell, who was engaged at the time, as an architect, in erecting the United States' arsenal at Fayetteville, the head of the navigation of Cape Fear River, in North Carolina. Mr. Bell in- formed me, therefore, that he had had a wife and several children previous to his emigration to the United States — a circumstance which implied some experience in the expenses of housekeeping ; that his salary in Scotland had been 100/. a year, and that he could live more comfortably in North Carolina for 300 dollars than he could in Edinburgh for 100/. sterling. One hundred a year is certainly but a small salary for a minister of the gospel ; but how many excellent men are there not in Scotland, both in the Church and among the Dissenters, who would consider themselves " passing rich" even with such a salary ? The advantage which is likely to accrue to the Chris- tian church, especially in such a country as America, from thus instilling, as it were, the principle of bene- volence into the youthful heart, is evident and unques- tionable : and this principle, Mr. Primrose informed me, is kept alive and strengthened, moreover, by occasional 136 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. letters and visits from the ministers of the churches that are thus planted in the West; from nhich the pupils de- rive interesting and often highly exciting information respecting the spiritual destitution of the country, the benefits that have been derived from their Christian benevolence, especially in cases of conversion or revival, and the efforts of the congregations that have thus been formed to impart to others the blessings they have them- selves so freely received. The following letter, which I extract from " The Watchman of the South," a religi- ous newspaper, published weekly at Richmond, in Vir- ginia, by the Rev. Dr. Plumer, minister of the First Presbyterian church in that city, illustrates the manner in which recently formed churches, in the more thinly settled parts of the country, are thus led to contribute towards the great work of extending to others, in less favourable circumstances, the benefits and the blessings of our holy religion. The letter I refer to is from a Presbyterian minister in the South, notifying certain contributions to the General Assembly's Board of Pub- lication, from a brother minister, the pastor of three churches in one of the more recently settled districts of North Carolina. The letter is also interesting in another point of view, as it exhibits something of the internal machinery of the Gaelic portion of that State. SEMI-CENTENARY THANK-OFFERING. "Brother Plumer, — In addition to what has formerly been reported, in relation to this fund, v.ill you please to give publicity to the following small collections, de- signed for the General Assembly's Board of Publication, viz. Dollars. " Contribution of the Bluff congregation 21 11 \ Tirza " . 11 17f Mount Pisgah . 5 80 38 75 CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 137 " These contributions were put into my hands by the Rev. Allan McDougald, pastor of the above named churches, and will be forwarded to Philadelphia, by one of the commissioners of the Presbytery of Fay- etteville, to the General Assembly. " Yours fraternally, "COLIN McIVER. « Fayetteville, (N. C.,) 20th April, 1840." In a postscript, the writer notifies a contribution of eight dollars and a quarter from the " Bluff" congrega- tion, one of the three above mentioned, to the General Assembly's Board of Foreign Missions. In short, the western and southern portions of the United States of America, can only be regarded as bearing the same relation to the older Atlantic States, as the British colonies to Great Britain and Ireland. The only difference is, that our colonies are separated from the mother country by wide oceans, while those of Ame- rica form part and parcel of the common country, and are bound up, so to speak, in the same national volume. It would, therefore, be equally absurd to attempt to run a parallel between the valley of the Mississippi on the one hand, and Great Britain on the other, as it would to attempt to institute comparisons between Canada or the Cape Colony, and the best cultivated and most densely peopled districts of our own country.* The * In a recent letter to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, the Synod of Canada in- form the Assembly that they liavo more than a bundled locali- ties witbin tbcir bounds in wliicli they could immediately settle ministers if they had them ; or in otber words, that tlicy have a hundred vaccmt churches in their territory ! And yet the very men in Scotland, who have neitlicr gone themselves, nor done any thing worth mentioning in tlie way of sending others to supply this gieat spiritual destitution in our own Canadian colony, are not ashamed at their public meetings, and in their religious journals, to reproach tbc Americans, and to cry out against their Voluntary System, because there are still vacant churches also in their great n2 138 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. cities, towns, and large villages of America, and the more thickly settled districts of the older Atlantic States, are the only parts of that country that ought ever to be compared with Great Britain, in regard to provision for religious worship. I proceed, therefore, to institute such a comparison, in a few cases, in which its legitimateness will scarcely fail to be acknowledged by every candid reader. The three States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, in New England, occupy a belt of land, bounded to the eastward by Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, of a hundred and fifty miles in length, and a hundred in breadth. The united popula- tion of the three States amounts to twelve hundred thousand souls ; and as the land is for the most part comparatively unproductive, like that of Scotland, this population is employed partly in agriculture, partly in manufactures, partly in commerce of all kinds, and partly in fisheries and navigation.* The region I refer to is also the principal region of the United States for colony of five millions of people in the \\est ! Besides, the Ame- rican colony is the more recent of the two. * The bleak hills and long winters of New England are unfavour- able to the most extensive and profitable agricultural pursuits, while the extensive and deeply indented sea coasts, abounding with har- bours, headlands, rivers, and inlets, naturally produce an impulse towards the ocean, which, conspiring with the original adventurous character of the population, sends them roving from the arctic to the antarctic circle, till the wide world is laid under contribution by their enterprise. Their numerous streams and waterfalls furnisli the cheapest means for moving machinery, and thus manufactories spring up wherever, in their expressive phraseology, there is icater power ; and steam supplies local deficiencies of moving force. In- genuity, conspiring with a general system of education, is excited under such culture, to produce numerous inventions, and hosts o young men seek their fortunes successfully abroad as mechanics, seamen, traders, instructors, and politicians, who thus operate pow- erfully, and, we trust, beneficially, on other communities. — Sugrjes- tions rekUive to the Philosophy of Geology^ by Profesior Sillimaii, of Yale College, Connecticut. New Have//, 1839. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 139 emigration ; and its Educational Institutions, wheflier of a higher or of an elementary character, are similar to those of Scotland, if not superior in point of general efficiency.* The only natural products of the country which are worth exporting are granite and ice ; the former heing exported to the Atlantic cities to the south- ward, as far as Charleston, and the latter to all civilized countries either within or bordering upon the torrid zone — a cargo of this perishable article having been recently sent from Boston even to New South Wales. The quantity of manufactured goods of all kinds, however, and the number of well-educated men that are annually exported from this tract of country are very great. In short, one could scarcely desire a fairer subject for com- parison with any part of Scotland of similar extent and population. In the three States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, there are, therefore, 1540 churches altogether,t viz. : — Congregational Presbyterian . . . 608 Baptist 318 Methodist 213 Episcopalian . . . . . .123 Quakers' Meetings . . . . .46 Smaller Denominations .... 42 Unitarian . . . . . .142 Universalist . . . . . .66 Abstracting from this account the heretical denomi- nations, of which I shall speak more particularly here- after, there are, therefore, upwards of 1300 places of * My fellow-student, the late John Morrison Duncan, A. M,, in liis " Travels in America," a work publislied about fifteen years ago, draws a parallel between the University of CJlasgow and Harvard, or Cambridge University, in M.issachusctts, and Vale College, in Con- necticut ; in which he docs not hesitate to give the preference, in point of etlicicncy, to the New En^daiid lustilutions. f The Roman Catholics have been omitted in this enumeration, but they aro very few in number. 140 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. orthodox worship in a tract of country in New England of only one hundred and fifty miles in length and one hundred in breadth. Of the character and appearance of these places of worship, taking them altogether in town and country, I have no hesitation in asserting that they look as well, and are just as creditable to the country as the great majority of those of Scotland. Many of the private houses in New England, even those of people of a respectable standing in society, are built of wood ; and from being generally painted every year, and having trees surrounding them, they have a neat and gay appearance, which the traveller can scarcely fail to associate with a high degree of comfort and com- parative independence. Many of the churches are also of this material, with neat spires or belfries ; the walls painted white, and the window-blinds green. On pass- ing a church of this description in a New England village, similar to hundreds I had seen throughout the country, I asked an intelligent American what such a building would cost in that part of the country ? He replied, about 3500 dollars ; i. e. little more than ^700. It must be recollected, however, that these buildings, though less costly than either stone or brick buildings, do not last a quarter of the time. Tlie real cost of church edifices is, therefore, m.uch the same in New England as in Scotland ; and in America churches are totally consumed by fire about a hundred times more frequently than in this country. This arises partly from the extreme cold of the American winter, and the consequent necessity of having them heated by internal fires ; and partly from the extremely combustible nature of the American pine timber, which enters so largely into the construction of all their buildings. During the year 1838, about a fourth part of the whole city of Charleston was destroyed by fire, including four or five churches ; but all these churches, with a single excep- tion, had been rebuilt in a superior style previous to my CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 141 visit during the present year. Tiiey were all of brick, stuccoed over, which is the usual style of building in Charleston. In regard to the provision for the support of the or- dinances of religion in these churches, there are 1150 ministers of the Congregational Presbyterian Church in the six New England States. Allowing, therefore, only one-half of these ministers to the three more populous States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecti- cut, the number of ministers of this communion alone in these States will be 575, or nearly one minister for each church. Indeed, the case of a pastor having more than one church under his care is a very rare occur- rence in the States in question ; while in the more thinly settled districts of America it is the general rule. Indeed, my inquiries led me to conclude that the parishes of New England, and especially of the three States under consideration, are, with very few exceptions, well supplied with a resident ministry ; and the neat appearance of the churches, the universal attention to religious worship, and the strict and even puritanical observance of the Sabbath, confirmed this conclusion. In a tract of country, therefore, in the United States of America, of half the extent and with half the popu- lation of Scotland, and in which, moreover, the circum- stances and general character of that population, are remarkably similar to those of the people of Scotland, we find an amount of church accommodation, and a supply of evangelical ministers, even under the opera- tion of the Voluntary System, such as no part of Scot- land can equal. I have only, indeed, given the number of the resident clergy of one of the leading denomina- tions — the one that was formerly the established church of the country ; but I have every reason to believe, that the 318 Baptist, and the 2i5 Methodist, and the 123 Episcopalian churches of the three States in ques- tion, are just as well supplied with a resident ministry, as the 608 Congregational Presbyterian. The propor- 142 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. tion of ministers to churches in the Baptist communion in the United States, is as *2 to 3 ; and in the Episcopa- lian, as 8 to 9 ; while in the Congregational Presby- terian, it is as 11 to 13. Even at this rate, therefore, which however applies rather to the thinly settled dis- tricts, than to those of denser population, the number of resident ministers of the principal orthodox denomi- nations in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connec- ticut, will be as follows, viz. Congregational Presbyterian . . .514 Baptist 212 Methodist 143 Episcopalian . . . . . .109 Total . .978 It is unnecessary to ask whether such a list can be exhibited in the one-half of Scotland. The salaries of the country clergy of the Congrega- tional Presbyterian Church of New England, are gene- rally about 500 dollars per annum.* In addition to this salary, they have usually a manse and glebe. In the city of Boston, the salaries of the clergy of all the leading communions vary from 1500 to 3000 dollars — from 300/. to 600/. — per annum. I have already ob- served that there was formerly an assessment for the support of religion in New England ; and Captain Marryat ascribes the rehgious and moral influence still observable in that portion of the Union to this fact. The fact is, (for I took particular pains to ascertain it,) that the salaries of the New England clergy have im- proved materially since the assessment was abolished ; the sum contributed for the support of religion being * In the country parts of New England, living is remarkably fheap ; and a salary of the amount above mentioned, -will in reality be equal to 160/. or thereby, in Scotland. In the cities, living is very expensive in all parts of America. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 143 considerably greater now than it ever was in that coun- try. The influence of an establishment, however, could surely not have operated where no establishment ever existed ; but such was the case, not only in the State of Rhode Island, as I have already remarked, but in the city of Boston also, the capital of New England. The first minister of that city, and author of the New England Ecclesiastical System, was " the famous Mr. John Cot- ton," as he is styled by his worthy descendant, the Rev. Cotton Mather. Mr. Cotton was settled at Bos- ton in the year 1G33. Some time thereafter an assess- ment for the support of religion was voted by the le- gislature ; but as Mr. Cotton had objections to this method of supporting religion, and expressed his desire that Boston should be left under the operation of the Voluntary System, which he had found to work suffi- ciently well, that city was accordingly exempted from the public assessment. And so highly was the memory of this venerable man revered in succeeding times, that no assessment for the support of religion was ever im- posed on the inhabitants of Boston to the present day. The population of Boston, by a census taken in 1835, was 80,3-20. For this population, there is the follow- ing amount of church accommodation. Congregational Presbyterian Churches . 14 Unitarian ...... 13 Episcopalian 7 Baptist (including one African) 5 Roman Catholic . 4 Universalist o Christian Societies . 2 Friends' Meeting 1 Swedenborgian . 1 Restorationist .... 1 Total . .58 144 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. The church edifices in Boston, especially those of the Congregational and Episcopalian denominations, are of a highly creditable character : most of them havinsT lofty spires or towers, and bells. Besides the Unitarian churches expressly enumerated above, the people who call their meetings Christian Societies are, I understand. Baptist Unitarians. It is worthy of re- mark, however, that the first church in Boston that be- came avowedly Unitarian — that did so also thirty years before the heresy was acknowledged in other quarters — was an Episcopal church, called " The King's Chapel."* The incumbent of this church, and his whole congrega- tion, openly avowed Unitarianism in the year 1785. They still retain the English Liturgy, expurgated, of course, according to the approved maxims of Socinian theology. But I shall reserve the remarks I have to oiter on the origin, extent, and prospects of this apostacy, till a sub- sequent chapter. At present I shall only observe, that notwithstanding the appalling number of the Unitarian churches in the preceding list, the great majority of the population of Boston belong to the orthodox commu- nions. Deducting, therefore, the whole motley company of Unitarians, Universalists, Christian Society people, Roman Catholics, Swedenborgians, and Restoration- ists-|- — a large majority of whom would in all likeli- hood have either been Socialists or Nothing-at-all-ists, if they had been in England, and not in the chief city * This churcli was erected at the expense of the British govern- ment, T)revious to the revolutionary war. It has a singular and un- sightly appearance, having a row of very small windows on each side, with a row of much larger ones above them. The small win- dows look like gun-ports in a ship's side ; and a New Englander, on seeing them for the first time, accordingly observed, that " he had often heard of the canons of the churchy but had never seen her ports before." ■f The most of these heretical denominations consist of mere handfuls of people. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 1 45 of a Puritan State in America — there are still tliirty- four places of orthodox and highly evangelical Pro- testant worship in the city of Boston for a population of eighty thousand souls ; that is, one such place of worship for every 2350 persons of the entire popu- lation. Now 1 will venture to affirm that there is not a single city of similar population, even in Scotland, better provided with orthodox places of worship, and orthodox clergy, than this provision implies. Let Paisley or Dundee, for example, of both of which the population is nearly equal to that of Boston, be com- pared with the New England city, and I am confident the result will be found highly favourable to the latter. In fact, the number of people in both of these Scotch towns, who go to no place of worship at all, and live ill a state of practical heathenism, is notoriously and lamentably great, and far exceeds the sum total of all the heretics of Boston. As to the attendance in the orthodox churches of Boston, and the tone and character of society generally in that city, after having gone to one of the Unitarian churches in the morning of the Sabbath I spent there* — less, I acknowledge, as a worshipper than from motives of curiosity — I went in the afternoon to Park- street church, one of the orthodox Congregational Presbyterian churches of the city. It is a large build- ing, of plain but substantial architecture, with a hand- some spire. The basement story contains a lecture room — a uniform and most useful appendage to an American church — and Sunday-school rooms. The church itself is fitted up in quite a superior style, with * I went to hear the celebrated Dr. Channing, but actually heard the Rev. Mr. Pierpont, as I found Dr. C. was not to preach, having resigned his charge the week before, in consequence of age and increasing infirmities. In resigning his charge, Dr. C. spontiiie- ousli/ resipned all Ids salary and emoluments in favour of his suc- cessor I But this is by no means an uncommon occurrence in such cases in America. 146 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. carpets and cushions, and a fine-toned organ, and will easily contain two thousand persons. The congregation actually present, evidently consisting of a highly re- spectable class of the community, must have amounted to at least fifteen hundred. The minister who officiated was a stranger. There was nothing remarkable in his sermon. It was a plain, practical, evangelical discourse, and was evidently listened to with devout attention. In the evening of the same Sabbath, I attended divine service in the Old South church, also of the Congre- gational Presbyterian communion. It was a service, I understood, taken by turns by the orthodox city minis- ters of that denomination. Sabbath-evening services, however, are not popular among the descendants of the Puritans. They very properly prefer staying at home to instruct and catechise their families. The congre- gation was respectable in appearance, but not nume- rous, although I was given to understand that the regular congregation of the church was one of the largest in the city. The clergyman who officiated — the Rev. Dr. Jenks — is eminent in Boston as a lite- rary man, as well as an able and orthodox divine. His discourse was at the same time evangelical and practical, although I confess his manner was rather heavy. I had also an opportunity, in the course of the same Sabbath, of attending divine service in a Baptist church. It was not half the size of the Park- street church, but was quite full. The congregation was of a humbler class in society than the other two, but equally devout, though apparently more excitable, the minister being evidently a Revivalist preacher. In short, I was much gratified with a Sabbath in Boston. Indeed, I never saw the SabDath better observed any where. I never saw a larger portion of the population of any city turn out to attend divine service in some place or other. As a specimen of the manners of the place, I shall only add, that I lodged during my stay at the CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 147 Marlboro' House, a highly respectable hotel, conducted on strict Temperance, or rather Abstinence, principles. The breakfast hour was seven o'clock. At half-past six the bell was rung every morning for family worship, which consisted of singing, reading the Scriptures, and ex- tempore prayer. On these occasions, the boarders, as persons residing at an hotel are usually styled in Ame- rica, are expected to attend ; and one morning I counted as many as fifty in the two large rooms that were thrown into one for the occasion. The landlord of the hotel always conducts the singing himself ; and if no clergyman is present, the other parts of the srr- vice also. We have no such hotels in Scotland. The city of Salem, situated about fourteen miles from Boston, and containing a population of IG, 000 souls, has long been pre-eminent among the American cities for its spirit of maritime adventure, and is still the wealthiest for its size in the Union. It was too near the Pontine marshes, however, to escape the influence of the malaria of Unitarianism. The following is the amount of Church accommodation it affords : — Congregational Presbyterian Churches . . 4 Unitarian. . . . . . .4 Baptist ....... 2 Episcopalian ...... 1 Methodist ...... 1 Friends' Meeting . . . . , i Universalist . ..... 1 Mariner's Church, (supplied by Congreg.) . 1 Total 15 that is, deducting the five heretical assemblies, one place of orthodox worship for every IGOO souls. Like the Arians in Belfast, the Unitarians of Salem have about three-fourths of the wealth of the city in their hands. Wcalih, indeed, has long had a sort of ] 48 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. elective attraction for diluted or heretical forms of Christianity ; and the men whose touch turns every- thing into gold usually resemhle Midas in another par- ticular — in having something wrong with their organs of hearing. The Unitarian portion of the population of Salem is but small, however, and their congregations still smaller. The poor have the gospel preached to them there as in other places, and they hear it gladly. I was grieved to see the first church erected by the Pilgrims, or rather the modern edifice which occupies its site, transformed into a Unitarian place of worship ; and on meeting in the city with a highly respectable merchant of that denomination who, I was told, was a lineal descendant of the famous Rogers, the martyr, who was burned alive at Smithfield, I could not help thinking, at the moment, from the striking contrast which the cir- cumstance presented, that if the cold and heartless system of his offspring had been held by the sainted reformer, the "fire," which, in the words of old Latimer, "lighted all England," would most assuredly never have been kindled ! The Americans call a town what we should call a parish, township, or district ; and they call a city what we should only call a town. The city of New Haven, at the mouth of the Quinnipiac river in the State of Connecticut, is one of the pleasantest towns of New England. It is quite the Athens of America. Here is Yale College, presenting literally a series of " Academic groves," from the beautiful trees in the midst of which its venerable buildings are embosomed : there is the Statehouse — the Halls of Learning, and the Halls of Legislation. I had the pleasure of meeting here a whole knot of American worthies — the venerable Colonel Trumbull, the Aide-du-camp and companion of Washington, and the celebrated painter of his exploits; Dr. Noah Webster, the famous author of the Spelling Book and the English Dictionary ; Professor Silliman, CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 149 the editor of the Scientific Journal which bears his name, and is so well known to men of science in Eu- rope ; Professor Olmsted, the Astronomer ; the Rev. Leonard Bacon, a man of learning and taste, and one of the most popular preachers in America ; President Day, of Yale College, a man of patriarchal simplicity of manners ; and the Rev. Dr. Taylor, who has already given his name, or rather, has had it given for him, to a system of divinity in which it is alleged he undermines certain doctrines of our holy religion, which, however, some of his own pious friends assured me, he is on the contrary most anxious to establish. Although upwards of eighty years of age, Colonel Trumbull still occasionally resorts to the practice of his " divine art." His last picture, which he finished only a few months ago, and which I had the pleasure of admiring in the collection of his paintings which he has recently presented to Yale College, has for its subject the Deluge. Like Sterne in his famous picture of Slavery, he has taken a single family for the illustra- tion of his noble idea, and planted it on the summit of a solitary rock, which the rising waters are threatening to submerge. The family consists of three generations : there is the old grandfather, the husband and wife, and a little child. The child is lying dead, from cold and hunger, on its mother's lap. The husband, in despair, is leaping from the rock into the waters; but the wife is gazing so intently and so affectionately on her dead child that she docs not observe him. The forked lightning is in the meantime throwing its frightful glare athwart the lurid sky, and the old grandfather, who has just witnessed the act of his son, is gazing fiercely at the thunder-cloud from which it is ever and anon seen to break, and, stretching forth his withered arm in the attitude of defiance, is reproaching the Almighty for the vastness of the desolation. It is certainly a sublime idea, and the concentration of feeling which it produces o 2 150 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. is unquestionably much more intense than the detached groups of miserable beings that usually figure in pictures of the deluge are calculated to excite. Colonel Trumbull's paintings are exhibited in the library of Yale College at a small charge for each visitor. The proceeds of the exhibition are to go to his wife if she survives him, and afterwards to the College, to which he has most patriotically presented them in perpetuity. It was to Yale College that the celebrated Bishop Berkeley presented his valuable library. Dr. Webster is a most interesting old man. He entered upon the great world, he told me, during the Revolutionary War. His father, whom the war had ruined, could only give his son Noah an eight-dollar bill to set him afloat, like his great namesake, in the world, and from the depreciation of the currency which had taken place during the war, the bill was in reality worth only four dollars, or about seventeen shillings. He was thus put upon his shifts very early, and, pour gagner sa vie, he wrote a Spelling Book, and stipulated with the publishers to receive half a cent, or about a farthing of our money, for each copy that should be sold. The spelling book, he told me also, has educated twice the number of the present inhabitants of the Union ; and though it has been repeatedly pirated, to evade the half-cent to the author, it has maintained his family in comfort and respectability for thirty years, and afforded him during that long period literary leisure sufficient for the vast labours of his dictionary. Al- though it will be understood from this episode that Dr. Webster is somewhat garrulus, like most other old men, he is by no means an exclusive laudator temporis acti, in the poet's sense of the phrase. On the contrary, I have seldom seen any man, even in the vigour of manhood, enter with more life and feeling into whatever was likely to promote the general amelioration of society and the progressive advancement of the human race. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 151 The family of Edwards, the descendants of the vene- rable Jonathan, belong to New Haven. One of the grandsons of the great philosopher and divine was lately Governor of the State of Connecticut ; another is now a judge in New York, and I had the pleasure of meet- ing at Charleston with a third, a merchant fro*n Canton, who resides at New Haven. I attended a meeting of the State Legislature of Connecticut, which happened to be in session, during the short period of my stay in New Haven. The population of the State is about 350,000. The number of members in its House of Representatives is 200, and the senate consists of about 22 members. The Representatives appeared for the most part respectable, intelligent New England farmers, and the whole pro- ceedings seemed to be conducted with great propriety and decorum. The subject before the House was that of arrest for debt, and the right feeling that evidently characterised the assembly on that important subject could not fail to have been gratifying in the highest degree to any honest man. The idea of imprisoning a man for debt merely was scouted by all the speakers ; the only question was whether the creditor should have the power of arrest, in so far as to oblige the debtor, whom he might suspect of unfair play, to go before a magistrate to exhibit such a statement of his affairs as would show whether he really was or was not an honest man. Mr. Sherman Baldwin,* an eminent * Mr. Sherman Baldwiu is tlie grandson of Roger Sherman, one of the ]\Icinbers of Congress for Connecticut, who signed the Dechi- ratioQ of Independence. Mr. Sherman had originally been a shoe- maker. When earning his livelihood in this humble occupation, he happened to have a lawsuit with one of his neighbours, and on going to consult a lawyer on the subject be presented him with a written statement of the case which he had drawn up himself. The lawyer was a shrewd man, and at once discovered on reading the statement the slioemakcr's y'o/Vc, which, he told him, was not to make shoes, but to deal with matters of law. Mr. Slierman took 152 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. lawyer of Connecticut, took the affirmative on this question, and showed in a sober, business-like, and peculiarly luminous speech, which was listened to w'ith profound attention, that if the law^ refused such a power, it would just be tantamount to rendering the State a general asylum for all the fraudulent debtors and swindlers of the Union. No honest man, he contended, could suffer from the power which the law already granted in the case ; no creditor could be safe if it were taken away ; and the character of the State, moreover, w'ould in that case suffer materially in the estimation of their whole country. The case before the Senate, which appeared to con- sist chiefly of merchants of a higher class, and men of property, was a petition for a divorce, from the w-ife of a man who it seems had got himself into the State prison for felony. The divorce was applied for on the ground of the infamy to which the wife's connexion with such a person consigned herself and her children, and the miserable life they would otherwise be doomed to lead, on the liberation of her husband. The petition was supported with considerable volubility by a smart Senator, of rather youthful appearance, who frequently, and, as it seemed to me, quite in character, quoted Shakespeare as his favourite authority in matters of law. He was soon, however, put down by the graver members of the Senate, several of whom very briefly, but very pertinently, stated their opinions on the subject. I was the hint, and, having studied law, became in time not only one of the first lawyers, but one of the most eminent patriots and statesmen of his country. During the war of independence he happened to be the chairman of a committee of congress appointed to investigate certain charges of peculation in the Commissariat department ; and in presenting the Report of the Committee, he stated that it would be observed in perusing it that he had dwelt particularly on the article of shoes : the reason of this was simply that having been bred a shoemaker himself, it was the subject with which he might be supposed to be best acquainted. He had no idea of being ashamed of the gentle craft. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 153 much pleased with tlie remarks of one of them. He stated that they had, hi various instances, granted di- vorces ; but he had reason to beheve they generally regretted it afterwards, as he was confident they had been influenced rather by their feelings than by their sense of propriety. Tbe divorce was refused ; and I understood, in the course of the proceedings, that a somewhat similar application, which had come before the Senate the day before, had shared the same fate. I was much pleased at the good sense and the high moral feelingthat seemed to characterise both branches of the Connecticut Legislature : and it struck me very forc- ibly, when sitting in the Halls of Legislation, that a go- vernment which rested for its support on not fewer than twenty-six little parliaments, like the one I then saw — each exercising its distinct sovereignty in its own sepa- rate territory, and silently communicating to all the rest every improvement it had effected in the science of government — was not likely to be easily overthrown. A single successful insurrection in London or Paris would, at any time, be sufficient to overturn the govern- ments of Great Britain or France. But an insurrection at Washington, that might prove successful, for the moment, in overturning the existing government of the United States, would be absolutely powerless all over the Union. The insurgents would have twenty-six sovereign and independent States successively, and perliaps simultaneously, arrayed against them — States, whose interest it is to be united, and which it would be ruinous to dissever. It is a singular fact, in connexion with the subject of this digression, that tlie government of Coimecticut has subsisted, without change or modification of any kind whatever, since it was first established, literally in the way of a social compact, by the Pilgrim Fatliers, who first settled in the country upwards of two hundred years ago. Even at the Revolution, the governor and 154 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. legislature were unanimous in declaring that George the Third had forfeited the rights of Sovereignty, and, in proclaiming their independence ; and with the single exception of substituting the name of the State, for that of His Majesty, the whole framework of the govern- ment, and the officers by whom it had been previously administered, in the king's name, remained the same thereafter as before. There is, therefore, something stable in America, notwithstanding the insatiable appe- tite for change and innovation with which the country has been so frequently reproached by superficial ob- servers. So simple are the manners of the people of this " land of steady habits," as Connecticut is usually de- signated in America, that the present governor, W. Ellsworth, Esq., is actually a practising barrister. He could not afford to give up his profession for the mo- derate emoluments of office ; and while he is, therefore, seen to-day receiving the deputations of the two branches of the legislature, to submit for his approval the enactments they have passed, he may be seen to- morrow pleading before a judge, who holds his appoint- ment under his own seal of office. Of course, he is precluded from appearing in any case in which he has jurisdiction as Governor. I mention this case for its singularity ; not to hold it up for imitation elsewhere. Indeed, I know of no other country in which such a thing could be practised with safety, much less with propriety. But the duties of each particular office are so well defined, and every person's official place in society is so well understood in Connecticut, that it occasions no surprise, no inconvenience. The population of New Haven is 13,000. The pro- vision, for religious worship is as follows :-— CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 155 Congregational Presbyterian Churches . . 5 Episcopalian ...... 2 Methodist 2 Baptist ....... 1 Roman Catholic . , . . .1 African . . . . . .1 Bethel Church for Seamen . . .1 Total 13 Tliere is, therefore, in the city of New Haven, church accommodation afforded, under the voluntary system, at the rate of one place of worship for every thousand inhabitants, of all classes and ages. The principal Episcopal church is a handsome building, of Gothic architecture, with a square tower. The Congregational Presbyterian churches have generally tall spires, and look very much like parish churches in the county towns of Scotland. The Methodist and Baptist churches, in the United States generally, are less frequently adorned with either towers or spires ; but they are often built in the style of Grecian temples, with massy columns in front, and have nothing of the barn-like appearance that is so offensive to the eye of taste in the chapels of these communions in England. I have already observed, that there is only one Unitarian place of worship in Connecticut. It is not at New Haven. New York is the first of the Middle States to the southward of New England. Exclusive of Long Island, which is 150 miles in length, and is inhabited by a thickly-settled population, the State of New York is somewhat of the form of an isosceles triangle, having the south-eastern shore of the lakes of Canada and the river Niagara for its base, and the city of New York for its apex ; the base line and each of the sides of this triangle being at least 400 miles in length. Its superficial extent is 46,000 square miles — nearly as 156 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. large as England ; and its population, judging from the usual rate of increase since the last census, must now be at least 2,300,000, nearly equal to that of Scotland. The Americans call it the Empire State ; and whether we regard the fertility of its soil, or the wonderful faci- lities it affords for foreign commerce and inland navi- gation, it well deserves the appellation. But I shall leave it to others to describe its beautiful bay, its noble river, its romantic highlands, and its blooming dales, and hasten to pourtray a few of those beauties that are still discoverable in its moral scenery, notwithstanding the ravings of Captain Marry at, — those beauties that are never observable but in immediate connexion with the churclies of Christ. For a population, therefore, nearly as large as that of Scotland, inhabiting a country nearly equal in ex- tent to all England, there are 2250 ministers of reli- gion of all denominations in the State of New York ; and of these, I was informed by the Rev. Dr. Beman, of Troy, that one half are Presbyterians. Indeed, although the progress of colonization within the limits of this State, since the commencement of the present century, has been altogether unprecedented, the efforts that have been made by the different evangelical com- munions to supply " the mixed multitude" with the regular dispensation of the ordinances of religion have been truly astonishing, and such as may well put to the blush the fairest churches of Britain. The Rev. Dr. M'Auley, of W'hom I have already spoken, and whose zealous and indefatigable labours in the city of New York have been abundantly blessed, informed me that in the year 1798, when he first arrived in the country, there was only one Presbyterian minister settled in the State beyond either Albany or Utica, — I forget which. There are now upwards of three hundred and ninety, and many of these ministers supply three or four small churches, like the minister of Loch Broom. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 157 In the year 1835, the population of the city of New York was ascertained to be 269,873. It is now estimated at 300,000. I have already observed that the substratum of this population consisted of Holland- ers and Huguenots. To use the language of geology, this substratum was overlaid with a thick bed of New Englanders ; and there has since been superinduced upon the whole surface an immense accumulation of diluvial rubbish from all nations. Still, however, the primitive and transition rocks of the Dutch and Puritan formations are ever and anon seen peering upwards amid the surrounding mass, and casting the shadow of their influence far around. To a foreigner arriving in New York on the morning of the Sabbath, and bearing in mind that, of all the cities of America, New York is the one to which the rnauvais siijets, the men of broken fortunes and shattered character, from every large city in Europe, regularly resort, and to which, moreover, there is annually directed a large amount of semi-pauper emigration ; and observing, as he cannot fail to do, with astonishment, the stillness of the great city, and the regular church-going habits of the great majority of its population ; it must appear strikingly obvious that tlie moral and religious principles of the earlier inhabitants of the country must have been deeply seated, and permanent as well as powerful in their operation, to exercise so mighty an influence, as they have unquestionably done, over so heterogeneous a mixture of nations, in reducing the discordant mate- rials to habits of order and decorum. Before 1 had landed in New York, a French gentle- man of the Romish communion, who had resided many years in America, supposing that, as a foreigner, I would sympathise with him, told me " he had never seen so unsocial and fanatical a people as the inhabitants of New York, and e.-pecially the Presbyterians j for instead of enjoying themselves on the Sunday after p 158 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. morning prayers, they kept moping in their houses all the rest of the day, neither visiting their friends nor receiving visits from them." An English gentleman, an Episcopalian, from London, with whom I also met in similar circumstances, confirmed this account, and added, that "of late the English and other foreigners in New York had determined to put this unsocial and fanatical spirit down, and to show the Americans they were not to dictate to them in these matters." In short, as M. de Tocqueville justly observes, although in a somewhat different spirit, " Nothing strikes a fo- reigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than the regard paid to the Sabbath."* And I need not inform the Christian reader, that the observance of the Sabbath may always be taken as the best test of the moral and religious character of any people. If the Americans were not a people who studied utility in every thing, one would imagine, from the number of churches of all communions in New York, that most of them had been built, like many in Lon- don, as well as elsewhere in this country, rather for ornament than for use. But the idea of a minister continuing to preach to bare walls, where there is no endowment to support him, independently of his con- gregation, is out of the question. If the people per- manently desert a particular place of worship, it must be sold, or pulled down, or converted to some other purpose. The Americans have but a very imperfect idea of holy ground, i. e., of ground possessing the quality of inherent holiness. They reason in this way, and perhaps they have divine warrant for doing so, •' The church was made for man, and not man for the church." The extent of church-accommodation in New York may be inferred from the following enumeration of * Democracy in America, 2nd Amer. edit, page 421. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 159 the churches or other places of worship now belonging to the different religious denominations in the city ; — Presbyterian — American and smaller denomi- nations . . . . . .41 Do. Dutch Reformed . . . . ^4 Episcopal . . . . . .27 Methodist — of various denominations . .18 Baptist — including smaller denominations . 18 Roman Catholic . . . . .8 African — (Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, Pres- byterian) ...... 9 Friends' Meeting Houses . . . .5 Lutheran ....... 3 Moravian ....... 2 Jews' Synagogues . . . . .3 Unitarian ....... 2 Universalist ...... 3 German, Welsh, and smaller denominations not known ...... 4 Mariners' Churches . , . . .2 Total 159 There is thus one place of worship in New York for every 1886 persons, young and old, of all classes of the population. The increase of the population during the present century has been unprecedented ; but the increase of church-accommodation for the different communions of the city has kept pace with it in the most remarkable manner. In the year 1809, for example, there were only three Presbyterian churches in the city, under the superintendence of the American General Assembly. There are now thirty-one. Many of these churches are large, and of an architecture that would bear com- parison with the best of our parish churches in Scot- land ; while not a few of them are fitted up internally 160 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. in a style of elegance to which we are quite unaccus- tomed in this country. The Tabernacle church, in Broadway, which was built originally as a Free church, is the building in which the New York religious anni- versaries are held, and will contain upwards of three thousand persons. I have seen at least two thousand attending divine service in it myself on an ordinary occasion. The Mercer-street church, a recent erection, is in size, form, material, and internal arrangement, a fac-simile of St. John's church in Glasgow, of which the Rev. Dr. Chalmers was for some time pastor, with the exception of being fitted up internally in a much more costly style. Dr. M'Elroy's church in Grand- street, formerly of the Scotch Secession, but now under the General Assembly, cost 80,000 dollars, and the ground 35,000, or 115,000 dollars altogether — a sum equal to £24,437 lOs. sterling. A manse or parsonage for the residence of the minister, has been erected at a cost of 21,000 dollars, and a school connected with the church, costing 8000. The congregation had derived a large portion of this fund from the sale of their former church-property, which was situated in a less eligible part of the city, and it was proposed by some of the members, at a meeting held to deliberate on the best mode of laying the money out, to expend a smaller amount on the church-buildings, and to form an en- dowment with the remainder for the support of the minister. To this, however, the older and more influ- ential members of the church were strongly opposed ; observing that " they had paid for the gospel all along themselves, and they desired that their children should do so also." The idea of an endowment was therefore abandoned, and the whole of their funds expended in the erection of their church and other ecclesiastical buildings. The churches of the Episcopalian and Dutch com- munions in New York can scarcely be adduced as CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 1 6 I an illustration of the working of the Voluntary System, as both of these communions, especially the former, possess extensive and valuable property in the city, from which they derive large amounts for the erection of churches, while the Presbyterian Church has no property what- ever. The salaries of the Episcopal clergy are, in part at least, derived also from the same source. Those of the Presbyterian clergy, who depend entirely upon their people', vary from i^400 to £G00 sterling per annum. In regard to the oft-reiterated assertion that " the Voluntary System makes no provision for the spiritual instruction of the poor,"* there is a singular proof to the contrary in New York ; where not fewer than seven Presbyterian churches have been successively erected during the last twelve or fifteen years, on the principle of charging nothing for pew-rent at all, and distributing the water of life " without money and without price " to the poorest in the land ; the salaries of the ministers of these churches being paid, and the other expenses of divine worship defrayed by a few philanthropic and Christian men, who look for no pecuniary return what- ever for their outlay, but whose reward is undoubtedly in heaven. It has been found, however, that this sys- tem has not answered the end proposed. Church ac- commodation, like education, is not valued even by the poor when it is not paid for ; and as no man of vir- tuous character and industrious habits in America can long be unable to pay for church accommodation, it is not to be expected that those who are of opposite character and habits will long continue to attend divine service at all. In the Broadway Tabernacle, or Sixth Presbyterian Free church, the pews in the area are now let to a regular * " There is another very strong objection, and a most important one, to the Voluntary System, Avhich 1 have delayed to hring for- ward ; ■which is, that (ficrcis no provision fur the j'oor in the Ameri- can Voluntary Church System. Thus only those uho are rich and able to aitonl religion cau obtain it." — JMarryaCs Diary^'^ui i; Aaier, edit. p. 211), r 2 162 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. congregation, while those in the galleries remain free. I question, therefore, whether there has been anything like the amount of free church accommodation afforded to the poor in any city in Great Britain, in proportion to its size, that there has been for the last fifteen years under the Voluntary System in the city of New York. In other cities of the Union the same benevolent object is pursued by the different Evangelical communions — for it is nowhere lost sight of — in a different way. During my short stay in the city of Philadelphia, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Rev. J. Allen, a regularly ordained Episcopal clergyman, of a truly devoted and apostolic spirit, whose sole duty it was to search out and to administer the consolations of religion to the poor, the friendless, the sick and the dying in that great city, as the General Agent of the City Mission. Nay, so much is the duty of " remembering the poor," and pro- viding for their spiritual and eternal welfare, considered a necessary part of the duty of every Christian church in America, that even the Unitarians of Boston — and the reader has no reason to exclaim, Credat Judceus ! for it is a positive fact — have their City Mission too ! It is true that this mission has degenerated, as one would naturally expect such a mission should in their hands, into a mere secular course of lectures on Natural History and Science, illustrated with specimens and drawings, and so forth ; but the fact that it was thought necessary in such a quarter to get up a city mission at all — of course to save appearances and to be like other people — sufficiently demonstrates the universality of the practice of "remembering the poor," even under the Voluntary System in America. On the left bank of the Hudson, about seventy miles from New York, the rising town of Poughkeepsie — the American corruption of the Aboriginal name of an In- dian village — looks down from its eminence on the noble river. Dutchess county, in which it is situated, CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 1C3 is one of the most fertile in the State of New York ; and, besides forming an outlet for the agricultural pro- duce of that county, Poughkeepsie has already become distinguished for its manufactures. Its population is 9000. The number of its churches is as follows : — Presbyterian, including one Dutch Episcopal . . . . . Methodist Quakers' Meeting Houses . Baptist . . . . . Unitarian . . . . . African . . . . . Total . .12 Or, one place of worship for every 750 persons of the entire population. The Dutch church is the largest in the place ; it is well endowed, and the con- gregation are about building a second. The congrega- tions of the four last denominations mentioned are very small. The only other place to which I shall refer for the amount of church accommodation, provided under the Voluntary System, in the State of New York, is the city of Troy, situated also on Hudson's River, about 1 .50 miles from New York city ; and I refer to the case of Troy in particular, for this reason, that as it has risen entirely out of the great American wilderness during the last twenty-five or thirty years, it cannot be said, as Captain Marryat pretends to do, most preposterously however, of New England, that its morality and religion are owing, in any degree, to its ante-revolution esta- blishment. The city of Troy is beautifully situated on the left bank of the noble river that empties its waters into the Bay of New York, with Mount Ida, dwindled, however, into a n)ere hill of very moderate elevation. 164 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. rising behind it. Being at the head of the navigation of the Hudson, and at the commencement of the Erie Canal, it forms a convenient entrepot for the rapidly in- creasing commerce of the Great Lakes, and has a large extent of fertile country besides in its immediate vi- cinity. It is a well planned, well built city, and con- tains a very large number, comparatively, of houses of a respectable exterior. Its present population is 25,000, and the following is the amount of its church accommodation : — Presbyterian Churches . . . .6 Episcopal ....... 3 Baptist ....... 2 Methodist 2 Quakers' Meeting House .... 1 Roman Catholic . . . . .1 Total . .15 That is, one place of worship for each 1666 persons of the whole population. These churches, and espe- cially those of the Presbyterian and Episcopal com- munions, are all of a most respectable appearance in point of architecture, and greatly superior, taken alto- gether, to what one would expect to find in any town of equal population in England. Having had the pleasure of meeting with the Rev. Dr. Beman, the pastor of the First Presbyterian church in Troy, during his visit to England in the summer of 1839, I officiated for him on part of the Sabbath I spent in the city. Dr. B. and his brother, who is also a Presbyterian clergyman, are the sons of staunch Epis- copalians, and were both intended for the ministry in the Episcopal communion. During their college course, however, they both entered the Presbyterian church ; of which Dr. B., who is alike eminent for CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 165 piety and talent, is now one of the most distinguished ministers. His congregation is the largest in the city, amounting to upwards of fifteen hundred persons ; and so highly have his labours been blessed among his people, that, at the last communion previous to my visit, he had admitted not fewer than seventy new communi- cants to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Recent as the modern city of Troy is in its origin, Dr. Leman's church is, nevertheless, the second that his congregation have erected ; and I mention the cir- cumstance particularly, as it serves to throw some light on the nature and progress of American civiliza- tion. The first church was, probably, a wooden build- ing, of small dimensions and humble appearance, well suited, however, to the infancy of the settlement. In twenty years or thereby, this church had fully served its purpose, and was accordingly pulled down to make way for a better. The present edifice cost 40,000 dollars, or 8500/. It is built in the Grecian style, with a row of massive columns in front. The interior is hand- somely and even elegantly finished ; the dome and the recess behind the pulpit being finely painted in fresco. The basement story, besides affording the usual accom- modation for a lecture-room and Sabbath-school, con- tains two rooms commodiously fitted up as a study for the pastor. Wlien the city of Troy was first settled, Mr. Van Der Heyden, the old Dutch Patroon, or lord of the manor, gave the Presbyterian church two build- ing allotments of ground in the city, in addition to what was required for the church itself. On the erection of the new church, these allotments were sold, that the congregation might be under no temptation to form a permanent endowment for the pastor, which the Ame- rican Presbyterians now almost uniformly regard as a permanent evil. Dr. B.'s salary is 2000 dollars per an- num. It is raised, as those of the Presbyterian clergy in America generally are, by a voluntary assessment of six per cent, on the original price of the pews. The 166 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. law in America would, doubtless, compel the payment of such an assessment, when once agreed to, just as it does the fulfilment of any other lawful contract between man and man ; but the thing is unheard of: any man ■would be disgraced in society who should refuse to pay his pew-rent ; any minister would lose caste, even in his own order, who should resort to such m.eans of en- forcing payment. In short, as the Roman historian observes of the ancient Germans, "good morals are more influential among the Americans than the best laws elsewhere." Yindice nullo, Sponte sua, sine lege, fides rectumque coluntur. At the same time, it often happens, that when fami- lies, who have occupied a pew in a church, experience reverses of fortune, and become really unable to pay their proper rate, they are silently passed over by the church managers, and their proportion made good from the general funds of the congregation. I was told of a church in one of the American cities, in which some of the best pews were occupied by families in reduced circumstances, who paid no pew-rent at all. The pre- ceding generation of these families had, in more favour- able circumstances, been eminent supporters of the church ; and it was deemed unworthy of the congrega- tion to require them to give up the pews they had occu- pied in such circumstances, merely because they had become poor. The city of Newark, in the state of New Jersey, has a population of about 30,000. The following is its amount of church accommodation : — Presbyterian Churches, including one Dutch 7 Methodist 3 Baptist ....... 2 Episcopal ....... 1 CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 167 Bethel Church for Seamen African Universalist Roman Catholic Total 17 New Jersey, from having been settled chiefly from Scotland, has all along been one of the most thoroughly Presbyterian States in the Union. The population of Philadelphia, the chief city of the great State of Pennsylvania, amounted, in the year 1830, to 167,8il. It is now estimated at 200,000. The following is the number of the churches in this city :— Presbyterian, nicluding thre e African . 35 Episcopal, „ one African . 19 Methodist, „ three African . . 26 Baptist, „ three African . 18 Quakers, „ four Orthodox . . 8 Roman Catholic . . 6 Lutheran 4 Moravian . Independent Unitarian . Christian Society Universalists 2 Philadelphia Christia lis Reformed Episcopal Bible Christians Mariner's Church , United States Naval A sylum Chapel Jews' Synagogue . • Total 128 168 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. Many of these churches are large handsome struc-= tures both externally and internally ; some of them being built entirely of Pennsylvania marble. As to attendance, the congregation present in the First Pres- byterian church, Washington-square, where I attended divine service twice during my stay in Philadelphia, must have amounted at all events to 1500 persons: and the congregations of the Rev. H. Boardman, and the Rev. Dr. Cuyler, also of the Presbyterian Com- munion, and the Rev. Dr. Tyng, of the Episcopal Church, appeared to be almost equally numerous. Dr. Cuyler's church is of marble, and the interior is fitted up in a style of corresponding elegance. Very few of these churches, however, have either spires or towers. Indeed, there is a strange dislike to all erections of this kind, of which the direct utility is not apparent, in the Quaker city ; the view of which from the only remark- able eminence in its vicinity, the reservoir of the noble waterworks on the Schuylkill river, consequently pre- sents to the eye as dead a level as can well be conceived. At the same time, the more recently erected divisions of the city, in which the basement story of the houses, the steps in front, the door-posts and lintel, and the window sills are all of white marble, have an air of Hghtness and elegance quite attractive. The effect of this species of architecture is much heightened by the practice common to most American cities, of having a row of trees on each side of the street at the edge of the trottoir, or pavement ; the beautiful green foliage of w'hich not only contrasts agreeably with the buildings on either side, but affords a most delightful shade in a hot summer's day. In North and South Carolina, the tree generally employed for this purpose is the pride of India, a tree which grows luxuriantly in the poorest soil, and is equally grateful to the eye from the beauty of its foliage and to the whole system from the refreshing coolness of its shade. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 169 The churches of the Datch Reformed Communion, in America, are generally furnished with organs. A considerable number of the Presbyterian churches have instrumental music also. I should certainly not object very strongly to the use of the organ in divine service, if it were used merely to guide and to accompany the human voice, although at the same time I consider it quite unnecessary ; but when it is so used, either with or without a choir of professional singers, as in great measure to supersede the singing of the congregation, I cannot help regarding it as a positive evil, and a dan- gerous innovation. I thought there was too much of this in some of the churches in which I attended divine service, both in Philadelphia and elsewhere. There was silence in the church, and 1 heard a voice from the organ gallery. Now, there certainly is such a passage in Scripture as " Praise the Lord with the organ ;" but there is surely no such passage as " Let the organ praise God.'' In the Thirteenth Presbyterian Church, of which the congregation consists chiefly of persons of Scotch or Irish origin, and in which, I am happy to state, the number of communicants is from 600 to 700, I was much more gratified at the simple melody of the congregation, the whole of which joined heartily in the devotional parts of the service, than at the choicest performance of the organ elsewhere. The pastor of the Thirteenth Church is the Rev. Mr. Tudehope, formerly a minister of the Relief Church in Annandalc, in Scotland. Mr. T.'s congregation had just lost their church, at the time I refer to, in a very singular way. It had been erected for the congregation, in pursuance of the will of a Mrs. Duncan, one of its former members, to belong to the comiminion of the Associate Presbi^terian Synod, to which the congregation had then also belonged. But a large majority of that Synod, including the representatives of tiie congrega- tion for whom the church was erected by Mrs. Duncan, Q 170 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. having subsequently resolved to dissolve their body, and to unite with the General Assembly of the Ame^ rican Presbyterian Church, the small minority who were opposed to the union re-organized their synod, after its dissolution, and brought an action against Mr. Tude- hope's congregation, for the possession of their church, on the ground of its original destination. The decision of the Court was against the congregation ; but, so far from being at all disconcerted at their loss, the latter immediately commenced a subscription for the erection of another church, which they had, accordingly, very nearly completed, of a much superior architecture, and in a much more eligible situation, at the period of my visit. Perhaps there is no city in the world better supplied with water than Philadelphia. Previous to the intro- duction of this great purifier, the city used to be visited occasionally with yellow fever. There has been no visitation of that disease, however, since the completion of the Schuylkill water-works. These works owe their existence to the inventive ingenuity of a New Eng- lander ; who, at a bend of the river, where the stream is diverted by a ledge of rocks, running in an oblique direction across its channel, availed himself of these rocks to form a permanent dike or dam, thereby throw- ing a large portion of the stream, or rather the whole of it, when the river is low, upon a series of water- wheels, by the motion of which the vvater is forced up, by very simple machinery, through a series of pumps, into a large reservoir, situated on the summit of a hill in the neighbourhood. It was an admirable idea, and not less admirably executed. But there are no people who understand, so well as the Americans, the means of availing themselves of the advantages of water- power. The churches in Philadelphia are at present served by resident ministers, in the following proportions, viz. :— = CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 171 Presbyterian . . . . . .35 Episcopalian . . . . . .19 Roman Catholic (bishop, priests, and as- sistants) . . . , . .13 Methodist . . . . . .25 Baptist (three churches vacant) . .14 Lutheran . . . . . .4 Smaller denominations . . . .14 Total . . . .124 There is, therefore, in the city of Philadelphia, a place of worship, and a resident pastor, for every 1562 persons, young and old, of all denominations; and it is not to be denied, moreover, that the whole of this ample provision for the religious instruction of the community has been made solely through the Voluntary System ; for there was never any civil establishment of religion in Pennsylvania, from the very first. Now, I appeal to the intelligent reader, whether there is any parallel to such a provision in any of the great cities of our own country. The cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow are, perhaps, better supplied with the ordinances of religion, than any of the other large cities of the British empire ; but knowing the state of these cities well, I am confident 1 speak the truth when I assert, that neither of them will stand a moment's comparison, in this most important respect, with the city of Philadelphia.* * During my stay in Pliiladclpliia, I visited the library and other rooms of the American Philosophical Society ; which was in- stituted, 1 believe, at the instance of the celebrated Benjamin Franklin. Franklin's own libiary-chair is still preserved in the Committee-room, and is always occupied by the chairman, at the meetings. It is an old high- backed arm-chair, stuffed, and covered with black leather, now much tarnished. 1 was amused at a sin- guLar ])cculiaiity in its construction, remarkably characteristic of its original owner. I observed that the apron of the chair, or the bar in front, reached somewhat lower than usual, and was wondering why it 1 72 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. The instances I have hitherto given of the working of the Voluntary System in America have been taken from the free States, wiiere the people are universally educated, and highly intelligent. I shall now give an instance, also, from each of the four Slave States, of Maryland, Virginia, and the two Carolinas. And as I have thus far dealt chiefly in large cities, I shall select two of these instances from second or third rate towns. The city of Baltimore, in Marjiand, contained, at the census of 1880, a population of 80,625. Its po- pulation is now estimated at 100,000. One- fourth of this amount is of African origin, and one-fourth are Roman Catholics — partly native Americans, but chiefly Irish and Germans. Baltimore is beautifully situated on the Patapsco river, which, like the Delaware, the Po- tomac, and James' River in Virginia, empties itself into the great inland sea, called the Chesapeake Bay. Its trade consists chiefly in the exportation of flour and tobacco ; and the vessels that are employed in the latter of these branches of trade, between Baltimore and the German ports, regularly return to the United States with whole cargoes of the smoking population of Germany. About 100,000 Germans have arrived, in this manner, in Baltimore, during the last eight years, or 12,500 per annum ; of whom, according to the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, President of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, one-third are Roman Catholics. The German population of Balti- more, as well as of Maryland generallj-, is therefore had been so awk%yardly constructed, when the librarian, John Vaughan, Esq., a most interesting old gentleman — an octogenarian, but still a perfect devotee of literature and science, who remembers Franklin, and all the other American wortliies, perfectly — showed me that the bottom of the chair moved upon a pivot, and that, when turned up against the back, it formed a ladder, by means of steps fixed to it beneath, to enable the philosopher to reach the higher shelves of his library, without being incommoded witli an additional, and somewhat inelegant, piece of furniture in the room. CIIUllCH ACCOMMODATION. 173 very considerable. I am sorry, however, I neglected, when on the spot, to ascertain particularly the amount of church accommodation for this part of the popula- tion, as well as for the smaller communions generally, with the exception of a Unitarian congregation, whose place of worship I happened to pass. The principal denominations are as follows : — Methodist Churches . . . . .15 Do. African ...... 4 Episcopalian . . . . . .6 Presbyterian, including one African . . 6 Roman Catholic, including a cathedral . . C Baptist ....... 4 Unitarian ....... 1 Total 42 Deducting, therefore, the Roman Catholics and their six places of worship, and estimating the Protestant Germans, who are sufficiently numerous in Baltimore to have a religious newspaper of their own, called " The Lutheran Observer," at fifteen thousand, there will re- main, independently of the places of worship of the smaller denominations, (the number of which 1 did not ascertain,) thirty-six churches for 60,000 souls ; or one for each IGGG persons. The Methodists are now by far the most numerous denomination in what was once the Roman Catholic State of Marsland. Their churches have a much more respectable appearance, both externally and internally, than the Methodist chapels generally in England. There happened to be divine service in one of them on a week-day evening, when I was spending a day in the city on my return to it from Charleston, and I embraced the opportunity of attending. I was much pleased with the dij-course. It was a plain, practical, Q 2 174 KESDLTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. evangelical appeal to the understanding and the heart ; in which there was an absence of every thing like ex- travagance and fanaticism ; and the congregation was evidently of a higher standing in society than that of the generality of the members of Wesleyan congrega- tions in England. The African Methodist Churches are large and well attended. One of them, I was told, had not fewer than four preachers attached to it ; and they hold their distinct Annual Conference at the same time with the whites. I happened to pass the African church in which the Conference was to be held the day fol- lowing, on my return from divine service in the White Man's Church. I found a number of negroes and mu- lattoes busily engaged in washing and cleaning it for the occasion. It was a brick building, of highly credit- able appearance, both externally and internally ; much more so indeed than hundreds of the barn-like places of worship we meet with in the villages of the mother country. A gentleman accustomed to such calculations in- formed me that the average cost of the churches of all denominations in Baltimore might be estimated at 25,000 dollars each. Some have cost as high as 100,000 and upwards. The second Presbyterian church, of which the Rev. Dr. Robert Breckinridge is the pastor, cost this amount, including the cost of the manse and ground. The First Presbyterian church must have been a still costlier building, although no!: quite so large, as the Second will easily accommodate 1500 persons. I happened to arrive in the town of Fredericksburgh, in Virginia, on a Tuesday evening ; having descended the Potomac river for about seventy miles from the city of Washington in a steam-boat, and then crossed over in a stage-coach for about ten miles to the commence- ment of the great Southern railroad, at the head of the navigation of the Rappahannock river, on which Fred- CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 17o ericksburgh is situated. Tlie stage-coaches had been delayed a few minutes beyond their usual time, and the Locomotive had started with the mail before our arrival ; we had consequently to remain at Fredericks- burgh all night. The population of this town is from 4000 to oOOO,andforthat population there are four places of worship, viz. of the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Metho- dist, and Baptist communions. The Presbyterian church is the largest of the four. Both it and the Episcopal church are furnished with spires, of a very creditable ap- pearance. I walked out in the evening to see the town, and found a considerable congregation, amounting to about 150 persons, assembled for divine service in the lecture-room of the Presbyterian church — a large and commodious room, fitted up expressly for such week- day services, in the basement story of the building. The pastor of the church is a Dr. Wilson, but it was a stranger, whose name I did not ascertain, who was officiating. I was too late for the text, but the object of the part of the discourse I heard, was to press upon the audience the important truth, that if they were living merely in a state cf unconcern and indifference about their spiritual and eternal welfare, however they might stand with the world, they were not only liable to the wrath of God, but condemned already. The preacher concluded with a most earnest and affectionate exhor- tation to all present to examine themselves as to whether they were not really in such a situation ; and if they were, to lose not a moment in escaping from it, and to use every means they could employ to urge it upon their friends and relations, and all whom they could influence, to escape also. After passing through the city of Richmond, the capital of Virginia, a city containing a population cf 30,000 souls, delightfully situated at the head of the navigation of James' River ; and crossing that river at the Falls on a wooden bridge, erected in the first style 176 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. of American architecture, the great Southern railroad leads on to Petersburgh, a busy commercial town of 15,000 inhabitants, beautifully situated, also, at the head of the navigation of the river Appomattox. From thence, diverging somewhat to the eastward, and passing through a considerable portion of the State of Virginia, it strikes the Roanoke river in North Carolina. Rich- mond and Petersburgh afford results, in regard to church accommodation, precisely similar to those 1 have already detailed, and it would only occupy the reader's time to no purpose to enter into particulars respecting them. From Roanoke to Wilmington, North Carolina, the rail-road traverses the low, barren, swampy country I have already described, as bounding the Atlantic ocean in that part of America ; the land being as level, for ihe most part, as a bowling-green, and the course of the road for fifty miles and upwards on a stretch, as straight as an arrow. It is flanked on either side by gloomy Cypress trees, growing often in the midst of stagnant water ; or, where the land happens to be a little higher, by the Carolina pine, of which millions are tapped an- nually by the woodmen, in the same way as the sugar- maple, for its sap, to form turpentine. The distance from Roanoke to Wilmington is 16 l| miles. There is only one track on the line, and the road is formed in a much less costly style than the rail- roads in England. The festivities on its completion had just been held at Wilmington, the day I arrived at its southern terminus. Having afterwards had the pleasure of meeting with General Owen, an elder of the Pres- byterian Church at Wilmington, and Chairman of the Railway Company, I took the liberty to ask him what might have been the cost of its construction ? The General replied that it had cost exactly 7500 dollars per mile. This may appear incredible in England, where a railroad costs, I believe, 15,000/. sterling per mile : but the land, in such situations in America, costs nothing, CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 177 and the rails are laid on wooden sleepers, the timber for which is procured upon the spot, and costs nothing more than the labour. At regular distances along the road, there are stopping-places, where a double-line is laid for a little way to enable the cars travelling in op- posite directions to pass each other ; and as there are comparatively few cars travelling on so long a route, it is not difficult so to arrange their hours of arrival and departure at these stations, as to pre- vent their meeting each other on the single line. When this happens, however, as is sometimes the case, one of the engines has to move back with its train to the last turn-off. They are prohibited, by an Act of Congress, from travelling at a more rapid rate than fifteen miles per hour. It struck me very forcibly, in travelling along this line, that it would be comparatively easy to establish similar lines of communication over a vast ex- tent of country in New Holland, and I have no doubt it will be done very soon. The timber of that country is equally abundant, and is far better suited for such pur- poses than the American pine ; and in those seasons of drought, to which the Australian colonies are so pecu- liarly subject, and during which communication with the interior is almost entirely cut off", from the difficulty of procuring subsistence for beasts of burden, a railroad communication would be of greater importance to the population than perhaps in any other part of the world. The town of Wilmington, North Carolina, is situated at the head of a long inlet formed by the embouchure of the Cape Fear river, which is navigable from thence by steam-boats and small coasting vessels to Fayette- ville. Its trade consists almost entirely in the expor- tation of sawn timber, turpentine, and tar. Tliere are a few cotton plantations on the coast, but they are nei- ther numerous nor important. There are five steam saw-mills at Wilmington, each of which cuts 10,000 feet of timber daily. The proprietor of one of them, Mr. Law, one of the ciders of the Presbyterian church, 178 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. was travelling to Washington, on my return to the north- ward, to procure a patent for a machine he had just invented, and found to answer remarkably well, for the manufacture of staves. The machine, it seems, takes up a rough billet of w'ood, and turns it out a perfectly formed stave, with all its requisites. The formation of the railroad has as yet been too recent to influence the population of Wilmington materially, although it will doubtless do so very soon. It amounts at present to four thousand ; and for this population there is an Epis- copal, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Baptist church ; the Episcopal church and congregation being the largest of the four. The Episcopal church is a handsome struc- ture, with a tower of massive architecture, and will con- tain about a thousand persons. It is just finished. The Presbyterian church has been built about twenty years. It has a neat spire, and will contain about eight hundred persons. The Baptist church has a square tower or belfry, but is not quite so large ; the Methodist church being rather a more humble edifice than the others, and attended chiefly by the coloured population. I arrived in Wilmington on a Thursday evening. There was divine service in the Methodist church ; for week-day evening services are common to all denomina- tions in America, and people would be thought no Chris- tians at all, in most parts of the country, if they wor- shipped God publicly only on the Sabbath. It was a beautiful moonlight evening, and in walking along through the town, I could not help feeling gratified ex- ceedingly, even in that land of slavery, at the groupes of negroes I beheld in all directions, amusing themselves in various ways on the public streets with obstreperous mirth ; for the Father of mercies does not withhold his proper meed of enjoyment even from the slave. At nine o'clock, the town bell, which was suspended from a tree — the town-house and a large part of the town hav- ing been burnt down a few months before — was rung, and immediately the negroes disappeared. I continued CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 179 my walk, however, through tlie now solitary streets — for the Americans are early risers and go early to bed — and on hearing the sound of solemn words, as I passed a hum- ble cottage of wood, I paused for a moment to listen, and ascertained, with deep emotion, that it was the fa- ther of a negro family offering up his evening devotions to Him " who hath made of one blood all the nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" — ex- pressing, in humble but appropriate language, his heart- felt thankfulness for the mercies of the day, and soliciting the fatherly protection of the Almighty for himself and his household during the silence of the night. Dreary as is the condition of slavery, it sometimes affords opportunities for the exercise of the most ex- alted benevolence. Upwards of thirty years ago, a Moorish negro, of the Foulah nation, who had been kidnapped on the west coast of Africa, was carried to America, and sold as a slave. He had been a prince in his own country, and had received a superior educa- tion ; being able to read and write the Arabic language with fluency and correctness. Disdaining the servile employment to which he was destined, he twice escaped from his master, and on being apprehended the second time in the woods, was lodged in the gaol of Charleston as a good-for-nothing and incorrigible offender. Hav- ing heard something of his case and history. General Owen, whom I have already mentioned, purchased him, while yet in gaol, from his master, who was glad to gel rid of him on any terms ; and taking him home with him to North Carolina, treated him kindly, had him taught English, and instructed in the Christian religion, allowing him in the mean time to live as he pleased. Umorro, for this was the Moorish negro's name, finally renounced the Koran, in the principles of which he had been well instructed, and embraced Christianity ; and the Rev. Mr. Eels, the pastor of the Presbyterian church to which he belongs, informed me he had been one o| the most pious and consistent Christians he had ever ] so RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. known. A few years ago one of the agents of the Ame- rican Colonization Society expressed his desire that Umorro should return to Africa, where he thought he might be useful in extending the knowledge of our holy religion among his own kindred, and in conciliating their friendship to the American missionaries. But Umorro could not be persuaded to emigrate. He preferred, even to the land of his birth, the land in which he had been born again, and resolved to live and die in Ame- rica. On my return from Charleston, I preached in the Presbyterian church at Wilmington, and had Umorro for one of my most attentive hearers. On the Monday morning thereafter, he paid me a visit before the train started for the North, and brought me a copy of the twelve last verses of the Book of Revelation, which he had transcribed for me, as a memorial of our short ac- quaintance, from his Arabic Bible. The Episcopal church at Wilmington cost 20,000 dollars, or upwards of 5000/. The former edifice had been erected by the British authorities previous to the Revolution, and had been used as a block-house during the war. It was long in a ricketty condition, and the vestry had been for years talking about getting a new one, but " doing nothing in it" all the while, to use the language of Governor Fletcher. At length the Rev. Mr. Drain, the rector, who told me the circumstance himself, proposed to take the matter into his own hands. This was gladly acceded to by the vestry ; and accord- ingly calling successively on the humbler portion of his congregation, before asking any of the wealthier to sub- scribe at all, Mr. D. showed the latter what the others had contributed — a comparatively large amount — and thereby induced them to give considerably more than they would otherwise have done ; for it is true in Ame- rica, as well as elsewhere, that it is not always those who are ablest who give most for such purposes. Mr. Drain is a highly evangelical clergyman — 1 am sorry to add, almost the only one of his own communion in CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 181 North Carolina — and is mncli and deservedly re- spected. The Presbyterian church in Wilmington was burnt the year after it was first erected, and the pastor having gone to Charleston to solicit assistance in re-building it, had received, among others, a letter of introduction to a re- spectable merchant, of the Jewish persuasion, in that city ; not expecting, however, that a Jew would contri- bute for the re building of a Christian church. But the merchant volunteered a subscription of his own accord ; observing to the clergyman, " Mr. , I un- derstand your church has been burned down, and that you are raising funds to build another. Tell my friend, Mr. Lazarus, to put a roof upon the new one, and charge it to me." The present Presbyterian church at Wilmington was therefore roofed at the expense of a Jew. Indeed, there is every where observable in America a degree of good feeling and brotherly-kind- ness among the members of different religious commu- nions towards each other, that we seldom meet with in this country — where the churchman too often regards himself as a sort of Brahmin or member of a higher caste, and the dissenter as a contemptible Pariah ; and where the latter too often also regards the churchman with feelings of alienation and hostility, as being pos- sessed of exclusive privileges and immunities, to which he has in reality no better title than himself. The effect which the mere removal of this invidious distinc- tion, and the consequent equalization of all classes of the community, produce upon the peace of society, and the manifestation of kindly feeling between man and man, which is the general result, are truly astonishing. A meeting of a Presbytery requiring to be held during my stay in America, in a town in Virginia, where the Presbyterian church was inconveniently situated for the purpose, an offer was immediately made to the Presby- tery of their respective places of worship, by the Epis- 182 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. copalian, Baptist, and Methodist communions of the place. I could not help thinking at the time, that such a circumstance could scarcely have occurred in the mother country ; and yet, the members of these different communions in America are as firmly and as conscien- tiously attached to their respective peculiarities, as any Christians can be in England. From all I could learn from others, as well as from the result of my own observations, I am satisfied that the towns of Wilmington and Fredericksburgh are a fair specimen, in regard to their amount of church-accom- modation, and their provision for the sustentation of the ordinances of religion, of all the towns and villages of North Carolina and Virginia. In one part of the country one denomination predominates ; in another, another ; but I have never seen a single country village in America without its church, of some denomination or other. It is the number of these buildings, and their respectable appearance, considering the circumstances of many a neighbourhood, and not their paucity or their paltry character, that strike the foreigner with astonish- ment when travelling in the United States of America. Having been tv>ice in the Brazils, — at Rio Janeiro and at Pernarabuco, — and having witnessed in these localities what the united energies of the two greatest enemies of humanity, — I mean Popery and slavery, — could accomplish to depress, to degrade, and to brutalize our species, I confess I was somewhat curious to ob- serve the state of things in the famous city of Charles- ton, the capital of the Slave State of South Carolina. To my no small surprise, therefore, I still found myself, on my arrival in that city by the steam-boat from Wil- mington, in the midst of a peaceful, orderly, church-going people. The amount of church-accommodation, which I subjoin, provided of course under the Voluntary Sys- tem, bears indirect, and therefore the best, evidence of the fact. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 183 The city of Charleston has much more the appear- ance of an English town than most of the American cities, and its public buildings, — its churches especially, — are of large dimensions and substantial architecture. It is built on a point of land stretching out to seaward between the Astley and Cooper rivers, whose embou- chure forms the Bay of Charleston ; the part of the city, which is situated beyond what constituted its original boundary, being called The Neck. The bay of Charles- ton is protected to seaward at a distance of about six miles by Sullivan's island, a mere sand bank, to which the wealthier inhabitants of Charleston generally re- sort for summer quarters, when the pestilential malaria from the surrounding marshy country renders the city uninhabitable to all but the natives. Charleston is very nearly in the same latitude as Sydney, in New South Wales, in the Southern Hemisphere. But no two climates can be more dissimilar. The cold in winter and the heat in summer are much greater in Charleston than in Sydney ; and while the climate of the Australian town is the very extreme of aridity, the humidity of the clim.ate in the American city is inconceivable to those who have not witnessed its effects. I met a Scotch convict in the streets of Charleston, who, after having, by a course of penal service in New South Wales, ob- tained conditional freedom in the colony as a reward for his good conduct, and attained a tolerably good bu- siness as a general dealer in the town of Sydney, had nevertheless made his escape to America, merely be- cause he was not wholly free and could not leave the colony, like other people, when he chose. He told me he bitterly regretted the step he had taken, for he could now neither return to New South Wales nor to Scot- land, and was therefore under greater restraint than ever. He had been some time both in New York and Philadelphia, and had met a considerable number of British convicts in the United States, who, like himself. 184 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. had escaped thither from New South Wales. They are very khid, it seems, to each other. The population of Charleston, by the census of 1830, amounted to 30,289. It is now estimated at 40,000 ; and of these one half are of African origin. The church accommodation for this population is as follows : Episcopal Churches. Pastors, Dollars. Rev. Mr. Spear . . . Ann. Sal. 2500 Rev. Dr. Gadsden, Bishop of S. Carolina „ 2800* Rev. Mr. Hanckel . . „ 2000 Rev. Mr. Barnwell . . „ 2000 Recent erec- tions in the sub- urbs, supposed salary each . .1500 Presbyterian Churches. Dollars. St. Michael's St. Philip's . St. Paul's . St. Peter's . St. Stephen's Rev. Mr. Trapier St. Thomas's Rev. Mr. Howard : Pastors, First Presbyterian, or Old Scots church .... Rev. Mr. Forrest . Ann. Sal. 2500 Second ditto . . . Rev. Mr. Smythe . „ 2000 Third ditto .... Rev. Mr. Dana . . „ 1500 Circular ditto . . Rev. Dr. Post . . „ 2500 Mariners' ditto . . Rev. Mr. Yates . . „ 1000 French Protestant church .... vacant „ 2000 German Lutheran church .... Rev. Dr. Bachman ,, 2500 Baptist Rev. Dr. Brantly . „ 2000 Unitarian .... Rev. Mr. Gilman . „ 2250 Methodist Churches. Four, — of which the pastors are subject to a some- * Dr. Gadsden, who lias just been elected Bishop, derives either 800 or 1300 dollars of this amount from the State Episcopal Fund. CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 185 what diiferent arrangement in regard to their salaries, but are equally well paid with the other clergy. Roman Catholic Churches. St. Finbar's, Rev. Dr. England (Bp.) Salary not known. St. Mary's. A third church in the suburbs. Jews' Synagogue. A handsome building, nearly finished, the former one having been burnt in the last great fire — in 1838. There is therefore in the city of Charleston one church or place of worship for every 1734 persons of the entire population. I question whether even my native town of Greenock, in Scotland, of which the population is nearly equal to that of Charleston, is better supplied in this respect, whether as regards church-room or an efficient Protestant ministry.* I am quite sure at all events that the amount of clerical duty performed by the evangelical ministers of all denominations, even under the burning sun and in the deadly climate of Charleston, is at least equal to that performed by the ministers of Greenock — and there are no men more ex- emplary than they are in Scotland — for in addition to the stated services of the Sabbath, every Evangelical Church in Charleston has its lecture-room, which is, in * The following is a statement of the amount of cliurch accom- modation in a few of the larger cities of England, extracted from the si)eech of E. Baincs, Esq.,^M.P. for Leeds, on the recent mo- tion of Sir K. IT. Ingli?, :\I.P., in favour of Church Extension. It will be seen from it, that the proportion of church accommoda- tion to the population in the six English is greatly below what it is in the twelve American cities. PI. of Worsliip. Population. Liverpool 75 for 10}J,175, or one for 22 1-2 Manchester 100 „ 272,7 Gl ,, 2726 Birmingham 64 „ 146,986 „ 2296 Leeds 38 „ 82,121 „ 2055 Sherticld 40 „ 71,720 „ 1793 Nottingham 28 „ 55,680 „ l^^^ R 2 186 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. reality, merely a separate and smaller church be- longing to the large one, and appropriated exclusively to Sabbath evening and week-day services, for which the church itself would be too large for the congregation. The lecture-room of the Second Presbyterian church in Charleston is a separate building situated in the centre of the city, half a mile from the church, and cost 10,000 dollars, that is upwards of 2000/. The whole property of this church, including ground and buildings, cost 140,000 dollars altogether. The lecture-room of the Third Presbyterian church is a building of similar form, and is also in the same populous neighbourhood, at a considerab.e distance from the church. The Evangelical Episcopal churches have their lecture-rooms also. In these httle chapels, which will hold generally from 200 to 400 persons, there are meetings for divine service once, and oftener twice, during the week, — the one a Bible class or prayer meeting, and the other a regu- lar service, but usually in a more familiar style than the Sabbath services of the church. In short, the Ame- rican clergyman regards the lecture-room as the nursery of his church. It is like a tender to a man of war, and serves to bring in many a prize into the Church of God, that would in all probabihty have eluded the chace of the larger vessel. Charleston is the only large city in the United States in which the Episcopalians are the most numerous religious denomination. This has arisen in great measure from the comparative inefficienc}'', for a long period, of the most influential portion of the Presby- terian church in that city. The Presbytery of Charleston consisted originally of ministers from Scotland, and had no connexion with the Presbyterian church in the Middle States. After the war of independence, when such a connexion was formed for the first time, the congrega- tion of the First or principal church still continued to look to Scotland for their pastors. But the missionary CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 187 spirit being then well ni^h extinct in Scotland, the men that were sent out to them in that capacity were some- what like those whom Sir William Berkeley complained of as having been sent to Virginia — the most indifferent specimens of the clerical " commodity." One of them, although a gontleman and a scholar, and, I suspect, a nationalist also, had so little regard even for appear- ances, as not to maintain the worship of God under the roof that covered him ; while another, the nephew, or other near relative, of some minister in Edinburgh who had been deputed to send the people apastor and betrayed his trust not many years ago, was so notoriously unfit for his office, and of such questionable character also, that the congregation were obliged to get rid of him, and to send him back where he came from. In such circum- stances, the Presbyterian church in Charleston neces- sarily declined, and many of its best members aban- doned it in disgust, from time to time, for the commu- nion of the Episcopal church. Things are certainly much better under the present pastor, who has hitherto kept aloof, however, from the American Presbyterian church, and still maintains his connexion with the Church of Scotland. But I was sorry to observe that the Scots church had no lecture-room and no extra services, like the evangelical churches of the city ; that to preside at balls, masquerades, and theatrical amuse- ments was not regarded as inconsistent even with the eldership in its communion ; and that one of its office- bearers had been permitted to retain his office even after he had married the sister of his deceased wife — a practice which, however abhorrent to the law of God and our British feelings, is, I am sorry to say, not sufficiently decried even by the clergy in America. In short, the connexion of this solitary church in the United States with the Church of Scotland has appa- rently been permitted to subsist since the war of inde- pendence, to demonstrate to the American Presbyterians, 188 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. what, I confess, is the real fact, that the standard of religion in the Church of Scotland has for a long period been much lower than in their own. There are no African churches in Charleston : for it is a singular fact, that the prejudice against the African race is much stronger in America in the States in which the negroes are entirely free, than in those in which they are still in bondage. The interchange of kindly feelings and kindly offices between the two races is unquestionably much more frequent and cordial in the slave-holding than in the free States. And one of the grand objects of the Christian ministry in such a state of society ought certainly to be to promote this interchange by every possible means, and thereby to hasten the ultimate liberation of the negro. It is impossible to say how much the benign influence of Christianity already has effected in this way in Ame- rica — how often it has warmed into kindly feelings the heart of the master ; how often it has sweetened the " bitter draught" of the slave ! The coloured portion of the congregations of the churches in Charleston uniformly occupy the gallery, while the whites are accommodated in the lower part of the building. Now I confess I did not see anything so peculiarly enormous in this arrangement, as is seen by many. If we look at home, we shall find something not very dissimilar in our own country, even where it is little suspected. Let a poor man, for instance, venture to intrude into that portion of our own churches which is appropriated either for the noble or the wealthy, and he will find himself repelled with precisely the same feelings as the American negro is doomed to experience who intrudes into the white man's pew. And is there anything, I ask, less irrational, less unchristian, less inhuman in the aristocracy of birth or wealth than in the aristocracy of colour ? So long as the enormous wrong of keeping the African race in CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 189 bondage continues to be perpetrated by whole commu- nities in the United States, the lesser evil of the general proscription of that race will be perpetrated also. Wherever the two races have been brought within Christian influence in America, in something like an equal degree, it has uniformly been observed that the number of genuine and consistent converts has been greater among the Africans than among the whites. Of the whole number of communicants in the First Presbyterian or Scots Church in Charleston, upwards of 200 are people of colour, and there are upwards of 100 in the Second. I did not impute the smaller number in the latter case to an inferior degree of ministerial efficiency, but simply to their having had to pass through a " finer sieve." I did not ascertain the number of the coloured members of any of the other churches of Charleston. From the preceding review, it will be evident to the candid reader, that, as far as church accommodation is concerned, the Voluntary System has been wonderfully efficient in America ; and that therefore, so far from there being any danger to be apprehended from leaving religion entirely to itself in the world, there is good reason to believe, from the extraordinary results of that system in the great Transatlantic Republic, that the Church or Spouse of Christ is, in reality, " wlien unadorned" with State patronage, " adorned the most." CHAPTER V. GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA.— MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. In the able essays of the Rev. Dr. Chalmers on the Civic Economy of Large Towns, there is developed, with all the eloquence and the power that distinguish the productions of that truly eminent man, the princi- ple that constitutes the ground-work of his subsequent plea for Church endowments. That principle is simply as follows : — " In regard to all the articles or commodities that are indispensably necessary for the sustenance or the comfort of man's physical life, there will always be an urgent demand on the part of society, and that de- mand will both ensure and regulate the supply. In re- gard, however, to all that is indispensably necessary for the sustenance or the comfort of man's spiritual life, there is no antecedent demand on the part of society, and, as men would otherwise perish everlastingly, such a demand must be created by insuring a supply in the first instance from without. There will always, for example, be an urgent demand for w beaten bread in any neighbour- hood, and that demand will ensure an adequate supply of bakers to manufacture and to dispose of the article on terms mutually advantageous to themselves and to so- ciety ; but there is unfortunately no antecedent demand for spiritual bread — for the bread of life — and, in order to save men from perishing of spiritual inanition, such a de- mand must be created by insuring an adequate supply MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 191 in the first instance from without ; or, in other words, by- setting up a Public Bal^cry, and supplying the famishing multitude at the expense of the State." Dr. Chalmers was doubtless led to entertain these sentiments, from viewing the spiritual destitution of the numerous and neglected population of the outskirts of the great city of Glasgow, on his first arrival in that city from the parish of Kilmany, in Fifeshire. He there saw thousands and tens of thousands, who had nevertheless grown up under the shadow of the best Church Establish- ment in Christendom, perishing for lack of the bread and the water of life. There was no demand for spiri- tual nourishment on the part of this people on the one hand, and "no man gave unto them" on the other! Now, nothing struck me so forcibly during my stay in America as the complete contrast presented by the lan- guage and sentiments of the American clergy of all deno- minations to the views I have just detailed of the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, and the whole body of the Established clergy of Scotland. The difference, I soon discovered, originated in the totally different developments of Ameri- can society, under the influence and operation of the Voluntary System. " Man," observed the Rev. Dr. Robert Breckinridge, of Baltimore, who, having been born in the State of Kentucky, one of the more recently settled of the United States, was well acquainted with the habits and feelings of men on the frontiers of civilization — " Man is a religious being. There is a sense of weak- ness and dependency implanted within him by his Creator, which leads him to seek the help and guidance of superior powers. And if he is not directed to the knowledge and worship of the true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, he will form to himself lords many and gods many, the idols of his own heated ima- gination, and tax and afflict himself to the utmost, un- der the guidance of every debasing superstition, to do them acceptable worship." 192 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. " It must be a strange state of society, indeed,*' ob- served the Rev. Dr. Plumer, of Richmond, Virginia, who was also born in the Far West, where his parents had re- peatedly to fly from the incursions of the Indians, and who was, therefore, equally well acquainted with the views and feelings of men in a rude state of society, — " It must be a strange state of society, indeed, where people are able to live comfortably, but are unwilling to support the ordinances of religion, when its ministers are known to be good men, and willing to live as they do themselves." " We are not of two opinions on these subjects here^" observed His Honour Judge Jones, of Philadelphia, who did me the honour to invite me to reside with him during my stay in that city : " we are all agreed that re- ligion requires no support from the State, and can derive no benefit from connexion with the civil power." Judge Jones is a representative of the old Welch Presbyterian emigration of the seventeenth century, and, I am happy to add, an eminently Christian man. He has a brother, a Presbyterian clergyman, in the city of Philadelphia, in whose former congregation at New Brunswick, in the State of New Jersey, there was a remarkable revival of religion a few years ago. But the clergyman who expressed himself the most decidedly on this subject, and who, moreover, from his age and experience, as well as from his high character, his acknowledged talents, and the valuable results of his researches into the history of the Church, was doubt- less the best qualified to offer an opinion upon the sub- ject, was the Rev. Dr. Miller, Professor of Ecclesiasti- cal History in the Theological Seminary of the Ameri- can Presbyterian Church, at Princeton, New Jersey. On requesting Dr. M. to inform me what were the general sentiments of the Presbyterian clergy of the United States in regard to a civil establishment of re- ligion, " Why, Sir," he replied with some degree of MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 1 93 surprise at the question, "if the Government of the United States were to propose to the Presbyterian clergy of this country that they must either become an Esta- blished church, or be persecuted by the State, I am sure, from what I know of their opinions on the subject, they would prefer even persecution to a civil establish- ment." The benefits resulting from the entire freedom of re- ligion, as the absence of all connexion between Church and State is significantly designated in America, are so universally felt and acknowledged throughout the United States, as to constitute a frequent and favourite subject of self-gratulation at the great religious anniversaries of the land. At the annual meeting of the American Foreign Evangelical Society, held in New York in May last, and numerously attended, the Rev. Dr. Bethune, of Philadelphia, one of the ministers of the Dutch Re- formed Church, described in glowing language the be- nefits and the blessings the Christians of America de- rived from this happy condition of things, as compared with the miserable vassalage, and the consequent ineffi- ciency of the churches of Europe ; urging it upon the meeting, in testimony of their gratitude to Almighty God, for their own inestimable privileges, as well as of the high value they set upon that " liberty wherewith Christ had made them free," to do all that in them lay for the moral renovation of those European nations that were still lying under the yoke of bondage, and espe- cially by sending forth Christian missionaries to regene- rate France. As a specimen of the universally-received sentiments of the American clergy on this important subject, I shall subjoin the following brief extract from an eloquent " Discourse on the Formation and Development of the American Mind, delivered before the Literary Society of Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, on the '29th of September, 1837 ; by Robert J. Breckinridge, A.M., 1 94 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. formerly Attorney and Counsellor at law, and member of the legislature of Kentucky, now pastor of the Second Presbyterian church, Baltimore, Maryland :" — " If man is free in view of earth, who shall bind his soul in view of heaven ? If it be good to deprive the State of power to bind man's will and acts, except so far as clear necessity requires in temporal things, that rule applies with far more force and clearness in spiritual things. For, if the State desire an engine to oppress its people, none has been more near at hand or more effectual in every age than a State religion ; or if a faction should desire to use the State for evil purposes, no principle resides in man, to which so many and so effectual appeals have been made, as to a perverted religious sentiment. Then if people or governments desire security, let every State and all religion be always separate. Not that a State shall have no God ; for then most surely will God reject that State. But as factions in the State are not the constitution — so let not sects in religion become the government. And as all political opinions are free, so also let all religious opinions be : but as all overt acts that endanger the public security, peace, or order, are to be punished though they be called political, and even proceed from settled principle, so also overt religious acts that threaten or hurt society are not to be allowed, although men say they have exclusive reference to God. Religion of all things may be most free, because of all things most of its varieties may well consist with public security, which is the great end of law. " In religion, then, absolute freedom and thorough independence of the State is best for itself, and safest for the world. The State must punish acts of open wrong, and suppress practices which hurt the publid peace or decency ; not because they are irreligious acts or practices, but because they are hurtful, indecent, or unjust. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 195 " Religion is the strongest necessity of tlie human soul ; no people have done without it, none ever will. Rather than have no God, men worship things which they themselves see to be both corrupt and despicable. Sooner than be destitute of some settled faith, they will attempt to credit things too gross to be believed, and do things too gross to be detailed. They who at any time have escaped this mighty influence, have done so only after having discovered the vile delusions by which they had been misled, and the terrible pollution of those who seduced them into sin, professing to guide them to God ; and even these have soon returned again submissive to the all-pervading power of nature ; which, even while they pretended to cast off, they showed their proneness to obey by every freak of superstition and credulity. All commonwealths may trust as im- plicitly that man must be religious, as that he is capable to rule himself. His rule may be unwise — his religion false and corrupt ; his rule may be subverted, and his religion itself destroyed. But as there is no better security on which to build a State than to rely on his ability to rule himself; so there is no certainty so great and yet so safe that religion will exist as to rely on man's proneness to it. Here ends the duty of the State, and here begins that of the church of God. The way is free and wide ; the heart of man, tossed to and fro, is panting for that it never finds but in the peace of God ; and here the heavenly messenger is sent to teach, to guide, to quicken, sanctify, and save. Here is our commonwealth, and there our church. Here is our agent to consolidate our freedom, to secure our rights, to guard our growing greatness, to watch and provide the means whereby the humblest citizen may be prepared for honest competence, and real though obscure usefulness. But yonder is our home, our last and blessed abode, not built of men, but God ; and He, his word, his Spirit, his messenger, his glorious grace. 196 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. need little help of human governments, far less their guidance, titles, power and riches, and least of all their glittering swords or noisome dungeons, to win our Father's children to the skies. A stranger's voice they do not know ; a stranger's steps they will not follow ; and from the voice of man's authority their spirits shrink ; and at the sound of the armed tread of power the timid bird of peace flies backward into heaven. Oh! that the wise would learn, that in their carnal wisdom they are but fools with God ; and the strong know that God's weakness is mightier than their strength! " The Voluntary System effectually secures the Ame- rican churches against the intrusion of those numerous individuals, who, under every existing establishment, enter into the holy ministry from unworthy motives, and for mere secular ends. There are no prizes in the American churches, for the man of secular ambition, or the covetous man. There is no otium cum dignitate for the lover of ease. A salary of 2500 dollars per annum is, with very few exceptions, the highest salary a minister can expect, in any communion ; and even this amount, as the Rev. Dr. Tyng, an eminent Epis- copal clergyman in the city of Philadelphia, justly observed to me, " is but a mere subsistence, and will barely enable a city minister to maintain and educate his family." On the other hand, the man who feels himself possessed of the talent requisite to enable him to rise in the w-orld, and to influence his fellow-men, has every facility afforded him in America. There is no privilege of birth to obstruct his progress, as in Eng- land ; there are no monopolies of place and power, to wither his energies at the thought, and to blast his prospects. Every avenue to preferment lies open before him, and the sovereign democracy are ever ready to shoulder their idol into the highest offices of the State. While the man of mere worldly ambition, therefore, is MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 197 repelled from the church, in America, he is not less strongly attracted in another direction. Besides, in all the leading communions in the United States, no person is allowed to become a candidate for the ministry, who has not given satisfactory evidence of personal piety. In the Church of England, as is well known, no such test is required ; and, till lately at least, matters were very little different even in that of Scotland. The multitude of those who had pressed into the " priest's office," in both churches, " for a piece of bread," or for other ends equally unworthy, was so great, that the standard of religion came, at length, to be publicly lowered in both establishments, hy the voice and injiuence of the majority. There is one department of the public service in this country, in which, agreeably to the maxim of our great naval hero, " England expects every man will do his duty." But that department is certainly not the church ; otherwise, England forms most unreasonable expectations, in supposing that the duty will be done, while no adequate means are taken to insure its performance, and while the strongest temptations are held forth to its neglect. But, under the voluntary system, America not only expects that every man will do his duty, in the church also, as well as in the navy, but actually sees that he does it. The standard of ministerial character and duty is unquestionably much higher in the United States than it is in this country — even in Scotland. Even Captain Marryat bears un- conscious testimony to the superior efficiency of the voluntary system, in this respect, when he tells us, that " the American clergy are, in the mass, equal, if not superior, to any in the world ; they have to struggle with difficulties almost insurmountable, and worthily do tliey perform their tasks."* " Never, since the days of * Diary, pail i. Aiucr. odil., page 20(>. s 2 198 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. the apostles," obsen^es the Rev. Calvm Colton, quoted with approbation by Captain M., " was a country blessed with so enlightened, pious, orthodox, faithful, willing clergy, as the United States, at this moment." In short, the labours of the American clergy are " in season, and out of season ;" and I am quite sure, from what I uniformly observed, myself, in eleven of the States, that they are stimulated to these labours rather by their own zeal, and their high sense of duty, than by any idea of the supervision of the people.* Every where, from Salem to Charleston, along an extent of a thou- sand miles of country, 1 found no religious denomination of any pretensions to Evangelical character, resting satisfied with the performance of divine service only on the sabbath. In every congregation there was a con- cert for prayer, at which the minister presided, and communicated interesting religious intelligence to his people, on the evening of the first iNIonday of every month. There was a weekly Bible-class meeting for the more advanced of the younger members of the con- gregation. There was a public lecture every Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evening. The lecture-room was a never failing appendage of the church, and the * The Rev. Calvin Colton, a minister of the Congregational Presbyterian Church in New England, who recently renounced the communion of that church, and became an Episcopal minister, principally because tltey gave him too much to do, is a most unexcep- tionable witness as to the labours of the American clergy. " There is another serious evil," observes Mr. Colton, in his Apologv for himself, "in the Presbyterian and Congregational denomination? which has attained to the consequence of an active and highly influ- ential element of these communities. I refer to the excessive amount of labour that is demanded of the clergy, which is under- mining their health, and sending scores to their graves everv vear, long before they ought to go there." I do confess there is nothing like this under the establishment principle. There is no class of men wlio have better liveSy to use the phrase of the insurance-office, than the established clergy. We never hear of their being ivorhd to death. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 199 sabbath-school machinery was uniformly plied by a most efficient corps of volunteers. In the Rev. H. Boardman's (Presbyterian) church in Twelfth-street, Philadelphia, the number of the pupils in the sabbath- school averaged from 280 to 300, both male and female. In one part of the school, I observed a young lady, who had a more advanced class, explaining to her pupils tbat " suffering was in every instance the con- sequence of sin." In another, a young gentleman, who had a class equally advanced, was illustrating the na- ture of justification, and the anti-scriptural character of the Popish dogmas on the subject ; showing, at the same time, that there was no evidence in Scripture of the Apostle Peter's having been in Rome, and that tlie Romish doctrine, in regard to the precedence and au- thority of that Apostle, was altogether unfounded. In the course of his remarks, he recommended to his class to memorize* (an Americanism for to commit to me- mory,) all the passages of Scripture they found to prove the particular doctrine or subject of the lesson, as they would find the practice exceedingly useful ; adding, that he had known people who had memorized the whole of the New Testament. Even in the African Presby- terian church in Franklin-street, New York, I found a most efficient corps of Sabbath-school teachers, both male and female, all of African origin. One young woman, of unmixed African blood, was explaining to her class of little negro girls the verse which they had had to commit to memory in the lesson of the day, " Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of * Cur ego acquircrc pauca Si possim, invideor; si lingua Catonis ct Enni Putrium sermonem ditavcrit, ct nova reruui Nomina protuleiit? — Ilurat. Ars Poet, In other words, why should the Americans he precluded from striking off a few new Euglisli words at the IMiiladelidiia Mint, in addition to the current coin of the old country ? I dislike the word memorize, however ; and the American word vulcbledncss, for obli- gation, I diirlike still more. 200 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. God, and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacri- fice of fools." Perhaps it was rather too metaphorical a passage to be selected for the instruction of children. I was m.uch pleased, however, with the simplicity and. the pertinency of the young woman's remarks ; which were made with the view of enabling her little charge to comprehend and feel the difference between mere outward worship, and the worship of the heart and af- fections, which alone God requires and will accept. At the close of divine service, which I afterwards at- tended, in the African church, the regular pastor, a pure negro, for whom a brother minister, a mulatto of inter- esting and respectable appearance, had been officiating, announced a prayer-meeting to be held at his own house during the course of the week, and earnestly pressed upon his congregation the duty of attending upon such means of grace ; telling them — as there had been a signal revival of religion in the churches of New York during the preceding winter, of which the excitement was then just beginning to subside — " that there was a more urgent necessity for such attendance after the re- vival than during its continuance, as a season of temp- tation would most assuredly succeed to the season of enjoyment, in which Satan would, in all likelihood, come to steal away the good seed that had been sown in their hearts." I confess, I could not help thinking on this, as well as on other occasions, on which I had opportu- nities of witnessing the developments of African in- tellect and piety in America, how completely a single exhibition of the kind gives the lie, in the estimation of any candid person, to the whole impudent philosophy of the Facial Angle, that would degrade the African to the level of the brutes. It carries conviction at once incomparably better than a whole volume of ar- gument, and vindicates the title of the African to all the rights of men. Most of the Evangelical churches of the Episcopal MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 201 communion in Philadelphia have weekly meetings for public prayer, in addition to the weekly evening lecture ; and even in Charleston, the attendance on these week- day services was greatly better than I anticipated. The evening 1 attended the weekly lecture of the Second Presbyterian church, the Rev. James Adger, a young clergyman, who had recently returned to Charleston, from a visit to Palestine, conducted the service, and in the course of it gave a most interesting description of the modern city of Jerusalem, and of the state of re- ligion, or rather of superstition, in that city. Mr. Adger is the son of a wealthy merchant in Charleston, originally from the North of Ireland, and has a brother, also a Presbyterian minister, a missionary in Smyrna ; and it was in the course of a visit to him, and the other Ame- rican missionaries in the East, that he had embraced the opportunity of visiting Jerusalem, and traversing a por- tion of the Holy Land. 1 had been present at the meeting of the Commission of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, held at Edinburgh, in the month of December last, when two of the members of the Scotch Deputation to the Jews in the East gave some account of their journey. I confess, however, I found the narrative of the young American preacher, who had gone to Jerusalem of his own accord, and at his own charges, and who delivered his personal narra- tive without any previous flourish of trumpets, and appa- rently unconscious that he was doing any thing extraor- dinary, much more interesting, and much better calcu- lated to make a deep and salutary impression upon the heart.* * !Mr. Adger had a plan of Jerusalem and its environs on a pretty large scale, recently published in America, on wiiich he pointed out the relative situations of the localities he described ; proving at tho same time, that there was no reliance to be placed ou tiie relations of the priests and monks of the modern city, in regard to tlie local- ities thcv exhibit as the scenes of the cnicilixion, and of the Savi- 202 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTE.Vf. In the article of preaching, therefore, the average amount of duty among the American clergy of all the evangelical communions is to preach at least three times a week, besides having various other public duties to discharge. Dr. Breckinridge, of Baltimore, informed me that, during the eight years he had been in the ministry in that city, he had preached regularly four times every week. I am aware, indeed, that Dr. B.'s name is somewhat unpopular in this country, simply because his opinion as to the best mode of labouring for the abolition of slavery in America happens to be somewhat different from that of the British and American Anti-slavery agitators. But when I inform the reader that Dr. Breckinridge and his two brothers, who are also Presbyterian clergymen, and the sons of an extensive slave-holding proprietor in the State of Kentucky, emancipated the whole of the slaves that were divided among them as their respective portions of their father's property at his death. Dr. B.'s opinion on such a subject will doubtless appear to the reader not altogether unworthy of attention, while his philan- our's sepulchre, &;c. For although the great natural features of the scenery around the holy city still remain the same as ever, the city itself has heen so often turned upside down, as it were, even physi- cally, in the course of the numerous sieges to which it has heen sub- jected, during the last eighteen hundred years, that there is now no possibility of recognizing most of the spots referred to in Holy Writ, while there is the strongest reason to believe that the local- ities shown by the monks as the scenes of the great events connected with our salvation, are not those at which these events were trans- acted. Mr. A. then pointed out the evident object of Divine Pro- vidence in concealing from men the exact localities in question, viz. to teach us that that worship which alone could be acceptable to God, was the worship of the heart — a worship which could derive no sacredness from any thing external ; contrasting at the same time, the privileges which American Christians enjoyed, as compared with the spiritual darkness, and the moral debasement of those who were actually inhabiting the spot that was once hallowed by the pre- sence of the Son of God. There were a good many coloured people present on the occasion. MINIHTEEIAL CHAKACTKK ANU hFFICILNCV. 20.'J thropy will be acknowledged to be accompanied with the genuine Christian attribute of self-denial, wliich, it must be confessed, is somctiines a wanting even in the case of very eminent anti-slavery agitators. Indeed, the article of self-denial is one of the very strongest points in favour of the American clergy of all denominations, who have been trained up under the voluntary system, as compared with those in our own country who have been reared under the principle of an establisliment. And in saying so, I do not refer merely t^j the High Churchmen in England or the old Moderate party in Scotland, whose whole connexion with the venerable eatahliahme-ntH to which they respectively belong is a matter of thorough and unmingled secu- larity ; I refer to the professed evaufjeiical clergy of both communions. In reading, for example, the life of the late Bishop Heber, of Calcutta, I confess I was mortified and vexed beyond measure at the good man's hesitation on his appointment to that important station, on wxount of the fiulary and other ernolurntntH, which he did not think sufficient, and at his higgling and manoeuvring for more ! I confess this single circum- stance spoiled the whole book in my estimation, and damaged the bishop's character exceedingly. Of the manner in which the American clergy act in somewhat similar circumstances, I shall give a few examples from hundreds of a similar kind that might be adduced. Tiie Rev. Dr. M'Crosky, Rector of St. Paul's Church, Philadelphia, a very popular preacher and a man of high standing in other respects in the American Episcopal Church, was elected a few years ago Bishop of Michigan, which was then one of the most recently fonned of the new States, and consequently a mere wilderness, with a few paltry settlements thinly scattered over its extensive surface. All the salary that wag promised him in this capacity was 800 dollars per annum, and that salary he was to derive as Rector of 204 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. the Episcopal Church in the town of Detroit, the capital of the State. His salary m Philadelphia, a highly intellectual and polished city, was 2500 dollars per annum. He hesitated, therefore, like Bishop Heber, on his appointment to Calcutta, at the idea of leaving so eligible a situation for the back woods in Michigan ; and while in this state of mind he consulted his friend, the Rev. Dr. Bethune, one of the ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church in Philadelphia, as to the course he should take. Dr. B. told him that, " as a plain Presbyterian, he could not be supposed capable of prescribing for an Episcopal conscience, but that if he himself were in Dr. M'C.'s situation, and held his opinions on matters of church-government, he would not hesitate for a moment, but would accept the appointment at once." Dr. j\rC. accordingly took Dr. Bethune's advice, and went to Michigan as a bishop on a salary of 800 dollars a-year, resigning his salary of 2500 dollars in Philadelphia. The present Bishop Griswold, of the Eastern District, was for a long time the only bishop of the American Episcopal Church in New England, and derived his salary of about £300 sterling per annum, as Rector of a particular church. His Episcopal duties, in conse- crating churches and administering the rite of confirm- ation, had therefore to be discharged gratuitously, and in discharging these duties over the extensive district entrusted to his superintendence, the apostolic bishop — having no coach and four with outriders, any more than the apostle Paul — was frequently to be seen trudging along on foot, with his travelling bag slung upon his staff over his shoulder ! When the Rev. Dr. M'Auley, of New York, was pastor of one of the Presbyterian Churches in Phila- delphia, he was waited upon by a deputation from a congregation in New York which had somehow fallen into very depressed circumstances j having got into debt. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 205 and many of its former members having left tlie chnrch. Tiie object of the deputation was to invite Dr. M'A. to become their pastor, to revive their church and congre- gation ; and they offered him, in this capacity, a salary of 1500 dollars per annum, while the salary he had in Philadelphia, as the pastor of a large and attached con- gregation, in one of the principal churches in the city, was either 2000 or 2500 dollars per annum. Dr. M'A., perceiving that the interests of the church generally were in all likelihood to be promoted by his removal, did not hesitate for a moment, but accepted the call and went to New York ; of course with the concurrence of his elders and congregation in Philadelphia. His labours in his present situation have been eminently blessed, not only in relieving his church and congrega- tion from their former embarrassments, but in the con- version of many in New York who were once living in utter indifference to their spiritual welfare. The Rev. Dr. Bethune, a grandson of the celebrated Mrs. Isabella Graham, of New York, is now the pastor of the Third Dutch Reformed church in Philadelphia. He was formerly the pastor of the First church of that communion ; but finding that his congregation was ra- pidly increasing beyond the means of accommodation, he suggested to a few of the leading members of the church that a portion of them should separate from the rest, and form another church. And as this would oc- casion some difficulty in the first instance, and require considerable exertion, he oifered to become the pastor of the new congregation himself, and to vacate his ac- tual charge in favour of any other minister whom the congregation might choose as his successor. The pro- posal was cordially acceded to ; one gentleman offering 1000 dollars for the object, and another 2000. When the sum of 22,000 dollars had been realized in this way, it was resolved to commence operations, although the church and ground were to cost 60,000 dollars, or T 206 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 12,750/. sterling ; the ground being obtained on mort- gage. When the building was commenced, Dr. Bethune found that if he should remain in the old church till the new one was finished, the greater part of the con- gregation would in all likelihood m-ove along with him, and the primary object of the arrangement be defeated, while his successor would be left without an adequate congregation. In these circumstances, Dr. B. proposed to vacate his charge, and have a successor appointed forthwith, and to go to Europe himself for a few months till the new church should be finished, and his succes- sor fairly settled. This generous proposal being acceded to, a minister for the old church was chosen, and on Dr. Bethune's return from Europe, about three years before I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, he entered upon the duties of his oflice in the new church with only a handful of people. The congrega- tion had in the interval, however, steadily increased ; the pews were nearly all occupied at the period of my visit, and it was expected that in six months more the church would be free of debt. It is built in the Grecian style with columns of the Doric order in front, the basement being of marble, and the walls above stuccoed. The basement story contains a lecture-room, a Sabbath-school room, a vestry room, and a private room for the minister. In leaving his former church. Dr. B. had sacrificed about 800 dollars per annum ; but such sacrifices are seldom thought of by the Ame- rican clergy, when the interests of the Redeemer's king- dom, as well as of the particular communion they belong to are, to be materially promoted by the change. A few years ago, the attention of the Rev. Joel Par- ker, minister of the Broadway Tabernacle or Sixth Free Presbyterian church, in New York, was strongly directed to the destitute condition, as to all the means of grace, of the city of New Orleans ; certain members of his con- gregation being in the habit of spending the winter MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 207 months in that city. He was induced at length to pro- ceed thither himself to organize a cliurch of the Pres- byterian communion ; and being one of the most effec- tive preachers of any denomination in America, he very soon succeeded in this object, and was the means of establishing an important centre of moral influence in that dissolute city. After four or five years, however, the health of his family broke down under the pestilen- tial climate of New Orleans, and he was consequently obliged to leave that important station to save them from an untimely grave. He is again in his former situation as pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle church in New York. In such circumstances, however, the im- portant station of New Orleans was neither to be left destitute nor to be occupied by an inferior man. Tlie Rev. Dr. John Breckinridge, a brother of the clergyman of the same name in Baltimore, and Professor of Pas- toral Theology and Missionary Instruction in the Theo- logical college at Princeton, was therefore appointed to succeed Mr. Parker, and has been for some time past settled at New Orleans. The climate of New Orleans is worse than that of any of our West India Islands, and is as bad as that of Sierra Leone. The white population regularly desert it in a body about tlie end of May, and return with the first frost in September. It is necessarily, tliereforc, an exceedingly expensive place for a minister, and Dr. Breckinridge's salary is accord- ingly 5,000 dollars, or upwards of 1,000/. a year. He leaves New Orleans annually with his congregation, and spends the summer months in the north.* * Instances of great self-denial for the promotion of the cause of God in the world are not [jcculiar to the dergij in America., They arc sometimes cxhil)itcd also by the laity. Walter Lowrie, Esq., a Senator of the United States, who had been elected Clerk of the Scn;ue, with a salary of ^iOOO dollars per annum, and employment only fur six montlis in the year, resigned the honours and emolu- ments of that situation for the oflice of Corresponding Secretary to the Board of Foreign Misfiions of the Presbyterian Church, a situ- 208 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. In short, Church Extension m America is managed on totally different principles from those on which it is sought to be promoted by the whole orders of Friars Mendicant in Great Britain. All that is required for the accomplishment of the object is self-denial and self-devotedness on the part of the clergy. It is painful, however, to contrast the state of things, even among the Evangelical portion of the clergy of Scotland, with these splendid examples of apostolic devotedness in the Transatlantic churches. The idea of seriously proposing to a minister in Scotland to leave a place with a larger for one of a smaller salary, on any account, would either be regarded as a personal insult or treated with derision. The general conviction of the people of Scotland as to the mercenary character of their clergy in this respect is embodied in a thousand little anecdotes that are always repeated with evident gusto, and in which the native humour of the nation is ever and anon seen over- lying the sentiment of bitter scorn. " So ye 're gaun to lea' us," said an old Scotchwoman to her parish minister, who had just got a presentation to a neigh- bouring parish with a larger stipend. " Yes, Janet," replied the pastor, with a solemn air, " the Lord has given me a call up the water." " But what," said Janet, rather incredulously, "what if the Lord had gi'en ye a call down the water!" — where the stipend was much smaller. Of course there was no answering such an argument as this. An eminent Scotch clergyman, now of Greenock, (for I shall not touch the case of a single second-rate man), was originally settled in a country parish near Edinburgh ; but, having received an invitation to ation in which he was only to have 2,000 dollars per annum, with constant and unremitting employment all over the country. Mr. Lowrie was induced to this step solely by his deshe to devote him- self entirely to the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ through the promotion of missions to the heathen. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 209 one of the city parishes of Glasgow, he accepted it, and was accordingly settled in that city. This was not at all wondered at, in any quarter ; for the city of Glasgow, being the largest in Scotland, was one of the most important stations, for a clergy- man, in the kingdom. But when the reverend gentle- man subsequently received a presentation to the pas- toral charge of a parish in Greenock, where the stipend was much larger than the one he had in Glasgow, and deserted his large and affectionate congregation in the latter city, for a less important station in an inferior town, was it possible for the Christian people to assign any other reason for his removal, than the mere difference of sa- lary ; and was such a reason, so long as the salary in Glas- gow afforded an adequate maintenance, sufficient for a minister of Christ ? Did it never occur to the clergyman I allude to, that great honour would have redounded to the cause of religion, and great glory to his Master, if he had only had the Christian virtue not to yield to this temptation of the devil? Did he not believe that God could easily make up to him the difference of salary, in some other way? Did he suppose that the silent pro- test of his Glasgow congregation, against the heartless procedure of their pastor, would not be registered in heaven ? Another distinguished Scotch clergyman, now of Edin- burgh, was originally settled as the pastor of a parish church in the town of Greenock, the congregation of which was one of the largest and most exemplary in Scot- land. The members of that congregation were exceed- ingly attached to their pastor ; and when he received a call to one of the city churches in Glasgow, where the stipend was somewhat larger, and declined accepting it, they were so much gratified at this uncommon instance of self-denial in a Scotch clergyman, that they presented him with a handsome gold watch and seals, in testimony of their gratitude and respect. Unfortunately, however, T 2 210 GE3IEBAL, KESCTLTS OF TBDE YOI.1T> 7 > . - ; i 7 Z l-L . before the inscription on the watch : 7 > : . M r . got a call to a chnrch in Edinbur^ :ly on the strength of his refimng; the w^c ^.^ L : -r?d forthwith accepted it. In short, if eveiy m is price, so had Mr. ; for, I desire to know, ciple of datj could have infloenced the refusal ... :„ . ... _ case, tfiat did not plead as powerfully in the other ? I shall be told, periiaps, that Mr. went to Edinbnr^ to agitate for the maintenance of the establishment principle. If so, I must acknowledge that the object was praiseworthy ; especially when the principle in question produces such results as those I am enumerating. I might also instance the cases of the Rev. Mr. , of L ton, and the Rev. Mr. , of Paisley, two Terj young men, who have been somewhat eminent, for some time past, as leaders in the Anti-Yolnntary, Church Extension, and Mon-Intm^on a^tations ; but who, I am sonj to add, have been hopping about, themselves, ever since they were ordained to the C .rii- tian ministry, from parish to parish, and from chc: ehnrch, trifling with the best feelings and affect! : the Christian people, and setting them at nought ! - Iforbe?.r.* Tcr ?--;;■:.:-.. ^"^'Trch m L : :. : : 7 ^-^ :: ~ in iflio^ to speak ii '- iind aHow tliieiL - --.- L®id -win ne^ MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 211 great vigour and efficiency. It has fallen, however, daring the last half century, into utter insignificance ; chiefly, if not solely, from the churches of that com- munion in the metropolis being regarded by young Scotch clergymen, holding the establishment principle, as mere stepping-stones to parishes in Scotland. On one of ip.y visits to England, from New South Wales, I was present at the settlement of one of these ministers, the Rev. Mr. , now of , in Fifeshire, who had been a class-fellow of my own, at the Univer- sity of Glasgow. Being asked to address the meet- ing on the occasion, I recollect I alluded to the un- christian practice I have just adverted to, as the cause of the low and fallen condition of the Presbyterian church in this city ; but, as Mr. ■ had just told the meeting, that his connexion with the church in London-wall — the one in which he was settled — was " his first affection," and as first affections, I observed, were generally lasting, I trusted that the affection he had thus avowed would last even until death ; and that at some distant day, when the aged men I saw around me should have long passed away from amongst the children of men, their children and their children's children would follow to the grave, with tears of real affection, the pastor of their fathers' choice, and the guide of their own youth ; adding, that the pastoral relation was unquestionably as sacred, in the eye of Heaven, as either the conjugal or the parental, and that, therefore, any minister who deserted his congregation, when no case of evident advantage to the interests of Clirist's kingdom could be clearly established for the change, was just as guilty, in the sight of God, as the there were only seven Christians in the whole town of Nazianzum, Mhen he first settled there as its parish minister, there were only seven Pagans left in it when he died. All the rest had beuu converted under his ministry. Such are the men whom " ihc King deliuhtelh to honour." 212 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUSTAEY SYSTEM. husband who deserted his wife, or the father his chil- dren. I had scarcely reached Ne^v South Wales, how- ever, on my return to niy own people, when I was mortified enough to learn that Mr. , having in the mean time got a presentation to a parish in Scot- land, had left London by the first Scotch steamboat, without even waiting to bid the people of his first affection farewell. But God has ways and means of his own to punish such heartlessness on the part of ministers of the gospel ! In short, while one never hears of the covetousness of the clergy, under the Voluntary System, in America, it is undeniable that the burden cf the song of the great majority of the clergy who have been trained up in Scotland, under the Establishment principle, for a whole century past, has been — '• Any man a sixpence more. And whistle o'er the lave o't." The Voluntary System in America not only pre- sumes that every man will do his duty ; it also pro- vides a sufficiency of men for the duty to be done. If there is ecclesiastical work of any kind whatever, suf- ficient to occupy the whole time and attention of any one man, the Voluntary System provides a man for that work, and not half a man, as is too often the case under the Establishment principle even in Scotland. The town of Princeton, in the State of New Jersey, con- tains about the same population as the ancient city of St, Andrew's in Scotland. There are two colleges in both — one for general literature, philosophy, and sci- ence, and another for divinity. But while any of the Scotch professors in either of the colleges of St. An- drews is at liberty to be also a minister of the city, or of any parish in its immediate vicinity, and thereby to monopolize the salaries, and neutralize the efficiency of both offices, no American professor in either of the MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 213 colleges at Princeton, is allowed on any pretext to have cure of souls at all.* The apostolic maxim is rigidly adhered to, " Let him that ministereth, wait upon his ministering, and him that teacheth, on teaching." It would be idle to compare the principles on which ap- pointments are made to professorships in colleges in the two countries. In America, the jjrimus inter pares is proclaimed by the votes of his brethren : in Scotland, political subserviency is often the only qualification either possessed or required. When I attended the theological course in the university of Glasgow, the professor of Hebrew was a minister in the city, who, having a parish with a population of 7000 or 8000 souls, had already double the duty with which any single individual ought ever to be charged. As to his qualifications for Ws particular department in the university, he was unable to read Hebrew with tlie points when he began to teach the language publicly, and had probably never looked at a Hebrew book for twenty years before he obtained his professorship ; the men by whom he was appointed, having notoriously betrayed their trust to the church and the public. Besides the thirty-four Presbyterian ministers, having cure of souls, in the city of Philadelphia, there are other five, who have no cure of souls, and whose time and attention are exclusively devoted to objects of general interest and importance to their communion. One of them is the Corresponding Secretary to the Board of Domestic Missions ; other two are the secretaries and general agents of two Boards of Education ; and two more are editors of religious periodicals, in the form of newspapers, of which the circulation is extensive, and the influence highly beneficial. Even in Charleston, I found a Presbyterian minister relieved of the cure of souls, and employed most beneficially for tiie members * In the West, as at Cincinnati, and in Illinois, where men are not to be had, the case is necessarily different. 214 GENEKAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. of his communion in the States of South Carolina and Georgia, in editing a religious periodical, of which, I v/as told, the circulation was upwards of five thousand. There are no such functionaries in Scotland— not surely because they are less wanted, but simply because the Voluntary System is incomparably more efficient than a National Establishment in searching out and in em- ploying the best means for the promotion of morality and religion in any land. The Americans, however, are not altogether without some experience of the working of the Establishment principle in their own country even at present. There is one department of the public service in the United States, in which the principle of a National Establish- ment — State salaries and State appointments — is still in force ; and it seems somewhat remarkable that the cir- cumstance should have been entirely overlooked by Captain Marryat, especially when that department was his own. The President of the United States has still the appointment of all chaplains in the American navy and navy-yards. During the Presidency of Mr. Munroe, and towards the close of his administration, one of these offices — the chaplaincy of the navy-yard at Washington — happening to fall vacant, Mr, M. recollected that the son of an old revolutionary soldier, with whom he had been intimate in his youth, was residing about fifteen miles off, in the State of Maryland, in but indifferent circumstances, and forthwith appointed him to the chap- laincy, which was worth about 1200 dollars per annum ; for as the President of the United States is not restricted on these occasions, like the Lord Chancellor of Eng- land, cither to a particular church or a particular curri- culum, he deemed it quite unnecessary to make any inquiry beforehand about qualifications. The chaplain elect was a Maryland farmer ; and though a respectable person in his way, he had never studied for the ministry, and had no wish to do so. On receiving his appoint- MINISTERIAL CHAUACTEK AND EFFICIENCY. 215 ment, therefore, he waited on the President, and repre- senting the incongruity of the office with his own pre- vious habits and education, respectfully tendered his resignation. This, however, the President would not accept ; telling him he would only have to read the burial service over the dead, * and do such other cleri- cal duty in the way of reading out of a book, as any man could do with the utmost facility, without profes- sional study of any kind. The farmer, however, al- though an Episcopalian, and accustomed to read pray- ers, could not be persuaded to turn a regular parson ; but as he had a nephew, a clerk in one of the public offices, who had no reluctance to qualify himself for the chaplaincy, an exchange of appointments was ne- gociated, with the approbation of all concerned, and both were thereby retained in the family. There are only about twelve chaplaincies in the American navy altogether ; and a clergyman who had had abundant opportunity of observing how these appointments were filled up, informed me, he did not believe that more than five of the chaplains had either been trained to the ministry in any way, or were at all qualified for it in any respect. At all events, the practical working of this National Establishment in petto has not served in any measure to conciliate the Americans to the idea of a more intimate connexion of Church and State. There is nothing, however, in which the American Voluntary System appears more accordant with the whole character of our holy religion, or more remarkably dis- tinguished from the system in operation among ourselves, than in the manifestations of its Christian benevolence to- wards those who have gone forth from their father-land by a voluntary expatriation. I allude particularly to the Republic of Texas. As the American churches * The American Episcopal service is generally read over the dead in the U. S. navy, when there is no clergyman officiating of a different communion. 216 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. have no connexion with their own civil government, it is not to he supposed that they will concern themselves with the civil institutions of others. Their sole object is to disseminate Christian knowledge through the preaching of the gospel, and thereby to ply that moral lever which alone can move the world. The simple fact, therefore, with which they were concerned in regard to Texas, was, that there was there congregated a rapidly increasing multitude of Americans and Eu- ropeans, who had succeeded in establishing their na- tional independence, and in organising a regular go- vernment. On this fact, then, the American churches acted forthwith, in providing for the moral and spiritual destitution of Texas. At what time, or in what manner, the other three leading communions of the United States took up the case, it is not necessary to inquire. I mention the Presbyterian, merely because it will en- able the reader to look at both sides of the picture. As soon, therefore, as the case of Texas was brought be- fore the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church in America, the Assembly selected one of their ablest and best men. Dr. John Ikeckinridge, now of New Or- leans, and sent him to Texas to visit the principal set- tlements of the country, to inquire into the circum- stances, and views, and feelings of the people, and to ascertain what could be done for the setting up of the ordinances of religion among them. For although many of the Texans had, like David's company in the cave of Adullam, been in debt and in difficulties in their own country, bankrupt in character, it might be, as well as in fortune, it was sufficient, in the estimation of the Assem- bly, that there should be a man of God among them, to shed a hallowing influence around, and to transform the locality into holy ground.* Dr. Breckinridge was * Two of my fellow-travellers from the north-eastern limits of the State of North Carolina to \Mlmingtoa and Charleston were MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 1. i cordially received in Texas, and shortly after he had submitted his Report on his return, first one, and then another, and then another and another, regularly or- dained minister of the Presbyterian church was sent forth to Texas, with all his expenses paid and a salary secured him, in the first instance, from the Board of Fo- reign Missions ; insomuch that there is already a Pres- bytery of Texas regularly organized, and in full com- munion with the American Presbyterian Church. That slavery w^ll, at no distant period, be entirely abolished both in America and in Texas, (if it is really the law of the land in the latter country,) I firmly believe. But that it will only be abolished through the influence of Protestant Christianity, I believe also. On this question, however, I do not intend to enter at present. I merely desire to direct the reader's attention to the fact, that while, agreeably to the Mexican constitution, which certain patriots naturally think unexceptionable, the re- ligion of the Holy Roman Apostolic Church is not only the established religion, but the only religion tolerated in Mexico ; there is already an independent Protestant State, and a whole series of Protestant churches — found- ed on the Voluntary System, and exhibiting something like the zeal and energy of primitive times — within the respectable Carolinian farmers, who, I learned, were in hot pursuit of a neighbour of their own wlio owed them some money, and had just paid them off with a G.T.T., as the Americans say, or, in plain English, had Gone to T&ras ; carrying along with him his family and his s/avcs. He had preceded them, we ascertained, by the railroad and tho steamboat, to Charleston, and was supposed to have gone by another steamboat from thence to Savannah, in Georgia, with the view of proceeding with all possible expedition to New Orleans ; and th^ only chance they had of overtaking him was the possitjility of his staying a day or two by the way, whirh was not pr(d):ible, or his not finding a vessel for Texas on his arrival at New Oi leans, which •was very possible. I did not hear, however, whether they had suc- ceeded in apprehending him or not. The population of Texas now consists of about 100, 000 persons, among whom, 1 was given to un- derstand, there are already many reputable people. u 218 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. recent limits of that republic. And as it has now been fully demonstrated, that Protestant Christianity is alone sufficient to sustain republican institutions in America, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief, that unless judicious measures are speedily taken, in connexion with Protestant Christianity, to consolidate the Mexican re- public, and to give consistency and moral power to its weak and discordant elements, another and another in- dependent State, like that of Texas, will be formed within its frontier, till the flags of American adventurers float over the whole extent of the empire of Montezuma.* To return from this digression. When, I ask, has the Church of Scotland, like the American Presbyterian * So verv humble is young Master Jonathan's estimate of the intellect and the prowess of the Mexicans, as compared with his own, that I was told by an American clergyman of high standing, who had the best opportunities of ascertaining the sentiments and views of his countrymen, that if such a crisis should arrive as that any American general, in whom the youth of the country had con- fidence, M'ere to offer to lead them to Mexico, to establish an Anglo- Saxon government in the capital of that republic, he would have an army of 50,000 Americans, ready to march with him on their o^vn charges in six months. I have no doubt that such are the feelings of the American youth. It would not be prudent, however, for their own sakes — lo say nothing of Christianity — to allow such feelings to have play. Without any movement of this kind, I am persuaded that before the close of this century, the Anglo-Saxon race will be in possession of every foot of land on the North American continent. The Mexican, and other Spanish States, are not increasing in popula- tion, in consequence of their unsettled condition and perpetual war- fare. The Americans are already seventeen millions and a half, and are doubling themselves every twenty-four years. As a proof that the Americans are not singular in the estimate they have formed of their own prowess, as compared with that of the Mexicans, 1 may mention the following fact, which is well airthenticated :■ — Colonel Domingo Ugartecchia, of the Mexican army, having, in the year 1 832, been attacked by a Texan force, consisting exclusively of American emigrants, and forced to capitulate, afterwards remarked, that " If he had only a thousand such men, disciplined, as had attacked him, he would not be afraid to march in a hostile manner even against Mexico itself." MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 219 church, in the case of Texas, ever sent out one of her chief men to ascertain the circumstances of the thou- sands and the tens of thousands of the Christian emi- grants of her own communion in any colony of the Bri- tish empire ? The British colonies of Australia had ac- tually been established for fifty years before the church of Scotland ever gave the subject of the spiritual welfare of their Presbyterian inhabitants, one solitary thought. Fast asleep on the downy pillow of her national esta- blishment, she left her Colonial children to perish for lack of that spiritual knowledge which alone could make them wise unto salvation ; and it was only after I had been compelled, through her apathy and indifference, to make the fourth dreary voyage to England, from the ends of the earth, that she was roused at length to something like a sense of her interest and her duty. But what did she do even then, when fairly awake ? Did she contribute, of her silver and her gold, like the American Presbyterians in the case of Texas, that the long-neglected colonists might at length drink of the milk of her kindness ? No ! not one farthing ! After privately expressing her opinion, through her chosen leaders, that the Whigs were infidels in the main, and had no wish to support the church, she told the govern- ment that if it supplied her with the money she would send the men. And when the Whig government did supply the money, instead of sending forth the choicest of her men to plant the standard of Presbyterian Chris- tianity in an infant empire, the very first she sent was a superannuated schoolmaster, a man who had been hunt- ing unsuccessfully for a settlement in Scotland for more than twenty years ; and who, when told in the place of his actual settlement beyond seas, that the people would not have him for their pastor, replied that he had a salary for life, and cared nothing for the people ! Nay, even at this moment, although there are not fewer than ten or twelve districts in the colony of New South Wales, in which the Presbyterian inhabitants are com- 220 GENERAL HESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. paratively numerous, and in absolute spiritual destitu- tion, tlie church of Scotland, with all her pretensions to zeal and liberality, cannot send them a single man, be- cause, forsooth. Lord John Russell has informed her that, as the colonial expenditure has already exceeded the revenue, he can no longer advance the sum requisite for passage and outfit for additional ministers ! Hovv' different are the feelings and the practice of the American Presbyterians, under their Voluntary System ! Only a few weeks ago, when I requested them, at the meeting of their Board of Missions in New York, and their General Assembly in Philadelphia, to send us a few of their ministers to help us in the Southern hemisphere, they agreed at once to send three regularly ordained ministers to New South Wales, and two to New Zealand. For these ministers they engage not only to provide passage and outfit, but salary also. They ask no assistance from Mr. Van Buren and his Sub-Treasury officials. They merely present some such appeal as the following to the Christian people of their communion : " Yonder is the vast howling wilderness far over the sea ; and here are the men who are willing to go forth, with the help of the Lord, to transform that wilderness into a fruitful field. Is it your pleasure that they should go?" And the Christian people, "honour- ing the Lord with their substance, and with the first- fruit of all their increase " upon the spot, give their willing assent. I was present at a meeting of the General Assembly's Committee on Colonial Churches, held in Edinburgh, in the spring of the year 1837, when the subject of the Presbyterians of Canada was brought under considera- tion. I may premise that there are fifty-five Presby- terian ministers in the Synod of Canada, and that these ministers recently informed their brethren of the Ame- rican Assembly, that they could easily settle not fewer than a hundred more, if they had them, or in other MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 221 words, that there were not fewer than a hundred vacancies within their territory. Now, I have no hesitation in affirming, that this is an amount of spiritual destitution — which has grown up too under the eyes of the Church of Scotland, and for which that church alone is respon- sible to God — to which there is no parallel, for the same extent of country and the same population, in the United States. Such then being the case of the Presbyterian church in Canada, what did the General As- sembly's Committee do to provide a remedy? Did they resolve to raise funds, and to send out men to Canada? No ; they did nothing of the kind. The chairman merely submitted to the meeting the draft of a mendicant me- morial or begging petition, which he had drawn up in the name of the Committee, and which the Committee approved, to be forwarded to Lord Glenelg ; in which his lordship was informed that there were a great many Presbyterians in Canada, for whom the Church of Scot- land's bowels were at length yearning sadly ; that there were many "nondescript vagrant teachers of religion" (^sic /) in the province, — by whom were meant the Me- thodists, Independents, and Baptists, who had all along been bearing the burden and heat of the day in Canada, and doing the very work which these calumniators had been themselves neglecting, — but that if his lordship would only give them money enough, they would send out men like themselves, right men, to Canada, men " bearing their mark, and their name, and the number of their name, upon their foreheads ! " Of course his lord- ship must have had a heart of stone to resist so touch- ing an appeal as this ! To contrast this procedure towards the colonies with the results of the Voluntary System the — Americans have a sort of colony on the west coast of Africa, called Liberia. I do not inquire at present into the cir- cumstances under which that colony was formed, nor into the views of its founders. I merely mention the fact, u2 2-22 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. with which alone the American churches had to do, viz. that there were five thousand native Americans, of the coloured race, speaking the English language, and governing themselves, as a free and independent repub- lic, by English laws, in the territory of Liberia in west- ern Africa. On this fact, the four leading American communions — the Methodists, the Baptists, the Pres- byterians, and the Episcopalians— acted forthwith and with one accord ; insomuch that there are already not fewer than forty American Missionaries of all these denominations in the little colony of Liberia. These Missionaries are intended not only to organize churches of their respective communions among the colonists, but to avail themselves of the influence which the colonial authorities are ever ready to afford them, in pushing into the interior, and in disseminating far and wide among the tribes of Africa the knowledge and the blessings of our holy religion. Such, then, is the ample provision which the Voluntary System of America has already made for the only colony of that splendid re- public — forty Missionaries for a colonial population of 5000 souls ! Oh, if the Church of Scotland had only evinced one tenth part of the interest, in promoting the spiritual welfare of her members in the colonies, that has thus been evinced by her Voluntary daughter, the American Presbyterian Church, in common with the other communions above mentioned, in the cases of Texas and Liberia, how many a dark and desolate re- gion in these colonies, whose silent protest against the heartless indifference and neglect of the Scottish Church is recorded in heaven, might now have blossomed as the rose ! I mention the Church of Scotland and the American Presbyterian Church particularly, in reference to this ruMiiing comparison of Established and Voluntary churches; 1st, Because the Methodists and Baptists do not (\\ist as Established Churches in this countrv, MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 223 and therefore afford no proper data for a comparison of the two systems ; while the millstone that has hitherto been hanging around the neck of American Episco- pacy, and the splendid endowment, tantamount to an establishment, of that church in the State of New York, equally preclude any general comparison of the effici- ency of the two systems in the case of the Episcopal communion. 2ndly, Because the whole system of dis- cipline, doctrine, and worship, as well as the general standard of education among the clergy, in the two Presbyterian churches, on the opposite sides of the Atlantic, are precisely the same. I shall, therefore, continue to run a parallel between these two churches. I observe, then, that the efforts of the Church of Scotland for the extension of the kingdom of Christ and the promotion of morality and religion, both at home and abroad, during the last fifty years, sink into utter insignificance when compared with those of the American Presbyterian church. In the matter of Ciiurch Extension, for example, the Church of Scotland lay fast asleep on the pillow of her establishment during nine-tenths of that whole period ; allowing her parishes to grow up in many instances into a population of 5000, 10,000, 20,000, nay even 30,000 souls, and "doing nothing in it," to use the correct language of Governor Fletcher. And when she did arouse herself into action in the matter, was the movement either voluntary or spontaneous? By no means ; it was quite in character, — altogether cornjmhory. It was only when she heard the Voluntary drum beating to arms under the direction of the famous Dr. Ritchie, " the master of the band," — it was only when the cannons of the voluntary church- men had made a breach in the wall and were actually pointed at the citadel, — it was only then that the Church of Scotland found it necessary to arm;>/-o aris etfocis, and sent forth her Haimibal, the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, to cross the Alps of the Establishment Principle, and to deploy 224 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. into the enemy's territory, in the masterly manoeuvre of Church Extension. God forbid that I should decry that effort in any way ; but we read in Scripture his- tory, that while " Amaziah did that v:hich was right in the sight of the Lord,'' he did it " not with a perfect heart, like his father David.'' In short, 1 suppose he did it, not so much to extend the Kingdom of Christ as to put down the Voluntaries! But what are we to think of the subsequent move- ment of the Church of Scotland, — the begging petition for endowments for the Extension churches, especially in the actual circumstances of the country '? Why, this was indeed " beginning in the spirit, and ending in the flesh!" It was truly a miserable manoeuvre after the other. Let us now cross over once more to America. In the year 17S9, when the Synod of New York and Philadelphia was dissolved, and the General Assembly of the American Presbyterian Church constituted, there were only 177 ministers of that body in the United States, and 419 congregations. At the fiftieth anni- versary of the General Assembly, in the year 1839, the numbers had increased respectively to 2225 min- isters and 2S07 churches ; that is, more than eleven times the number of ministers at the commencement of that period ! And having travelled myself, considerably upwards of 2000 miles m the States, and seen hun- dreds of the American churches, I can testify that in all parts of the country I visited, from Salera to Charleston, these churches were almost universally of a creditable appearance, superior in their style of architecture to that of the generality of private dwellings in the neigh- bourhood, and for the most part having neat spires and bells — in short, quite unlike the barns that used to be dig- nified with the name of " Chapels of Ease" in Scotland. It is singular, also, that the only schism that had taken place in the American Presbyterian Church dur- MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 225 ing this period, previous to its recent division into two General Assemblies, arose, not from any differ- ence in doctrine, discipline, or worship, but from alleged backwardness on the part of the Church in the great cause of Church Extension. Shortly after the com- mencement of the present century, there was a remark- able revival of religion in the Presbyterian Church in the State of Kentucky, which was then the v-estern frontier of the Union ; and as many congregations that were then rapidly formed along that frontier, earnestly petitioned for the establishment of the ordi- nances of religion among them, an aged and experienced minister, belonging to the Presbytery of Cumberland in Kentucky, proposed, that in such an emergency, when it was otherwise impossible to provide any thing like the number of ministers required, a few men of acknow- ledged piety and approved gifts should be licensed to preach the gospel, although they had not received a regular education. The Presbytery accordingly licensed a few such men, and sent them forth to preach the gospel in the Far West. The Synod of Kentucky, however, refused to receive these licenciates, and re- quired the Presbytery to disown them. This the latter refused to do ; and the breach which was thus created being gradually widened through the uncompromising spirit of the Synod, the Presbytery of Cumberland at length withdrew from that body, and established a se- parate comnuniion ; protesting at the same time that in doing wliat the urgency of the case appeared to them to render indispensably necessary, and what their con- sciences still approved, they had no desire to lower the standard of education in the Presbyterian Church, or to countenance the intrusion of an illiterate ministry. The Synod of the Cumberland Presbyterians now com- prises 450 ministers and 500 churches. I have been told, indeed, that they have since declined into Armi- nianism. They were not Arminians, however, at the 226 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. period of their secession ; and I confess I am always inclined to receive with much caution the charge of heresy, when preferred either against individuals or pub- lic bodies who have been treated with injustice. As a proof that the Cumberland Presbyterians are not hostile to education, they have established a college for the education of their clergy. Regarding the point of having an educated clergy to dispense the ordinances of religion in any Christian church as a matter of the utmost importance, I am, nevertheless, strongly disposed to believe that the ground taken on that subject by the Cumberland Pres- byterians was the right one. In a country like the western frontier of the American Union, where towns and villages are rising up in the wilderness, as rapidly as Jonah's gourd, are these communities to remain ut- terly destitute of the ordinances of religion till we can procure for them a regularly educated clergy? — till we can get the requisite number of young men passed through a course of seven or eight years of academical preparation ? Was this the principle on which the apostles acted when they " ordained elders in every city?" Or is it the principle that applies to the ur- gency of the case — the necessity of the times ? Why, while the American Presbyterian Church has been educating clergy for such localities, the ground has been already preoccupied, in hundreds of instances, by the Methodists and Baptists ; and " the base things of this world, and things that are despised, yea, and things that are not," have thus, in many an instance, been far more highly honoured of God than " the things that are." So far from wishing to lower the standard of education in the Presbyterian Church, either at home or abroad, I would aim rather at its elevation ; for, as a learned professor of the university of Edinburgh ob- served of the old parish schools of Scotland, which it has been so long the fashion to praise indiscriminately, MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 227 that they were " slaughter-houses of intellect," I think he might have added some of the divinity colleges also ; for, strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless the fact, that in some at least of these nurseries for the Church of Scotland, the prime apostolic qualification of " apt- ness to teach," was seldom if ever thought of. At the same time, I am decidedly of opinion — more especially from the wonderful success that has attended the hum- hie hut zealous efforts of the Methodists and Baptists in the United States of America, quite uneducated as a large proportion of their ministers and preachers have hitherto been — that in such a state of society, the Pres- byterian Church should by all means have a species of light infantry to scour the forests, in advance of their main body of heavy armed and regular clergy. The Presbyterians are the only religious denomination who do not act on this principle ; and I humbly conceive that in so doing, they are decidedly in the wrong. An Episcopal mhiister who died suddenly a few years ago in the town of Sydney in New South Wales, was much respected as a Christian pastor while he lived, and much regretted when he died, although he was never able to read a syllable of Latin, nor had ever been within the walls of a college in his life. The Bishop of London who, notwithstanding his inferior acquirements, had ordained him for foreign parts, had more common sense than certain of the Presbyterian clergy.* * The American Presbyterian Church has uniformly taken liigh ground on the subject of the cducalion of the clergy, and her cham- pions have accordingly been always disposed to take no small credit to themselves for the fact. "In 17<'3," observes the Rev. Dr. Ilodge, "at the request of the Presbytery of Philadflphia, the ques- tion was considered, whether a person without a lil)eral education may be taken on tiials, or licensed to preach the gospel ? which was answered in the negative. And in 17oo, the same question came up in a different form, viz., whether, in the present state of the church in America, and the scarcity of ministers to fill our vacan- 228 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. At all events, if the stand which the American Presbyterian Church made for an educated clergy, in the case of the Cumberland Presbyterians, was really a " failing," it must be acknowledged that it was one of those that " lean to virtue's side." The efforts which that church has made for the education of the clergy during the last half century have been truly astonishing, and may well cause the Church of Scotland to blush for shame at the contrast they present with her own. Not to speak at present of the colleges for general education, in which candidates for the ministry of any denomination obtain a somewhat similar preliminary cics, the Synod or Presbyteries ought to relax in any degree in tlie literary qualifications required of intrants into the ministry? and it was carried in the negative by a great majority. Tliese decisions, considering the circumstances of the case, certainly reflect great credit upon the Synod." Now before I can give an unqualified approbation even of these sentiments, I must be informed whether it would have been better for the interests of the church of Christ generally, for the convei-- sion of sinuers, and the salvation of mankind, if the 3Iethodists and Baptists of the United States — instead of going forth at once into the great American wilderness, to the number of from six to seven thousand preachers of the gospel of Christ, leaving an educated clergy to follow in their train with the heavy baggage of literature and science — had " staid at Jericho, till their literary beards were grown," and till Dr. Hodge and his brethren, or any other body of educated clergy on earth, had thought fit to license them to preach the gospel ? In that case they would never have gone forth at all ; for the thing was impracticable. This, then, is a dilemma ; and I should like to see how my able and excellent friend, Dr. H., will get his church out of it, m his third volume, which is not yet published. Yes! it is possible "to pay too dear even for the whistle" of an educated clergy ; and the wonderful success of the Methodists and Baptists in the United States, not to speak of the Cumberland Pres- byterians at all, proclaims the fact. To see the sword of the Spirit uniformly wielded by a master in Israel, were indeed a delightful spectacle in the church of Christ ; but it ought never to be for- gotten, especially in a rude state of society, that that sword is so divinely tempered that it will reach the inmost soul of the sinner even when wielded by the most unskilful hand. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 229 education to that which is given in the Language and Philosophy classes of the Scotch Universities, the American Educational System requires that each of the leading denominations should have separate Theologi- cal Seminaries or divinity colleges of its own. The students in these seminaries are required, previous to their admission, to produce either a diploma of Master of Arts, or a certificate of attendance during a regular academical course of four years in one or other of the colleges for general education ; and during the three years of their attendance in the Seminary or divinity college, they are not at liberty, as students of divinity are in Scotland, to occupy themselves for six or seven hours a day in private teaching or in teaching schools, but are obliged to devote the whole of their time to preparation for the ministry. To enable them to comply with these conditions, the whole of their theological education is afforded them gratuitously, at the expense of the church, and their rooms in the college are allowed them free of rent. Nay, if they are unable to meet the small expense necessary for board at the college table, for fuel, for servants, for clothes, for books, &c., the Board of Education advances them the sum requisite for these purposes, on condition of their signing an obligation to return it if they should not become ministers of the gospel, or as soon as they are able, if they should ; that otiiers may thereafter experience the same benefit also. I subjoin a few particulars of the statistics of some of the Divinity Colleges of the American Presbyterian Church. I. The Theological Seminary or Divinity College of Princeton, New Jersey, founded by the General Assembly in the year 1811, has an extensive building of freestone, capable of accommodating from 150 to 200 students ; with class-rooms, library, a detached chapel, and houses for the professors. The present professors are, 230 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. Rev. Archibald Alexander, D.D., Professor of Di- dactic and Polemic Theology. Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government. Rev. Charles Hodge, D.D., Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature. Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander, Associate Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature. With the exception of the last, whose salary, I believe, is only 1500 dollars, these professors have each a free house and a salary of 2000 dollars per annum. These salaries are derived partly from an endowment, created by voluntary contribution, in addition to the large amount expended on the buildings, and partly from the funds of the church. The number of students is at present considerably upwards of a hundred ; of whom twenty-seven are Bursars, enjoying small incomes arising from scholarships in the Institution founded by wealthy and benevolent individuals. The General Assembly having fixed the minimum for the endow- ment of a scholarship at 2500 dollars, or some- what above £500, the annual income of each student on these foundations will be about £30 ; the usual interest of money in America being six per cent. I subjoin the names of a few of these scholarships from the college list. 1. The Le Roy Scholarship. 2. The Banyer Scholarship, both founded by Mrs, Martha Le Roy, of New York. 2 1 . The Boudinot Scholarship, founded by the Hon. Elias Boudinot, LL.D., of Burlington, New Jersey. Both of these families were of Huguenot origin. 10. The Van Brugh Livingston Scholarship, founded by Mrs. Susan U. Neimcewicz, of Elizabeth Town, New Jersey. The reader will bear in mind the Polish emigrants of the seventeenth century under Count Sobieski : they have not degenerated in America. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 231 22. The Ed* Scholarship, founded by Mr. Robert Hall and his sister, Marion Hall, of Newbury, Orange County, New York. 5. The Charleston Female Scholarship, founded by the Female Association of Charleston, South Carolina, for assisting in the education of pious youth for the gos- pel ministry. 6. The Augusta Female Scholarship, founded by the ladies of Augusta, Georgia. 2. The Lennox Scholarship, founded by Robert Len- nox, Esq., of New York ; whose son, Robert Lennox, Esq., gave me, of his own accord, 50/. to assist in found- ing a Divinity College in New South Wales. The following is the Course of Study in the Se- minary : — First year — Hebrew Language ; Exegetical Study of the Scriptures ; Sacred Rhetoric ; Biblical Criticism ; Biblical Antiquities ; Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures ; Mental and Moral Science ; The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion ; Sacred Chronology; Biblical History. Second year — Exegetical Study of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures continued ; Didactic Theology ; Ec- clesiastical History ; Missionary Instruction. Third year — Exegetical Study of the Scriptures con- tinued ; Didactic Theology continued ; Polemic Theo- logy ; Church Government ; Pastoral Theology ; Com- position and Delivery of Sermons. Members of the first class are required to exhibit ori- ginal compositions once in two weeks ; those of the se- cond class once in three weeks ; and those of the third class once in four weeks. I attended one of Dr. Miller's lectures in the Church History class. It was on the English translations of the Scriptures ; of which, after giving a brief but lumin- * See Joshua xxii. 34. 232 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. ous sketch of the history and characteristics, Dr. M. took up the question whether there ought to be a new version of the Holy Scriptures for Protestant Christians speaking the EngHsh language — a question which, I afterwards understood, had been the subject of contro- versy in the United States ; the Baptists having recently introduced a new version, in which, of course, the prin- cipal alterations and iraprovements relate to Baptism. On this question, Dr. Miller gave his opinion decidedly in the negative ; observing that at the time when the present Authorised Version was made, there was a perfect unity of sentiment on the great doctrines of our com- mon Christianity ; that this unity no longer subsisted, and that therefore not one of the great leading deno- minations of the Protestant Church, either in Great Britain or in America, could now be expected to have the requisite confidence in any of the others to receive a version which should be the exclusive production of a particular denomination, while a union of effort for such a purpose was not to be expected. I was much pleased at the ground taken up by Dr. Miller, whose ability as a lecturer is of a superior order ; his style being chaste and simple, his manner dignified and impressive, and his matter distinguished alike for sound Christian philo- sophy and learned research. His coadjutor. Dr. Hodge, had studied for some time in Germany, after having finished his education in America, and has recently pub- lished two volumes of a Constitutional History of the American Presbyterian Church ; and Dr. Alexander, the senior professor, a man of eminent attainments, is still better known among all denominations in the United States, as " an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile." II. Although Princeton is only about fifty miles from New York, the Presbyterian Church has another Divinity College in the latter city. The New York Theological Seminary was founded in the year 1836. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 233 The building comprises four lecture-rooms, a chapel, a library, and accommodation for thirty students, be- sides four large furnished rooms for the accommoda- tion of the other students, who board in the neigh- bourhood. The establishment consists of a President and six Professors ; most of whom, however, as the Institution is still unendowed and in its infancy, are ministers in the city. The number of students is at present 129, and the library consists already of not fewer than 16,000 volumes. It was formerly the pro- perty of the well-known Leander Van Ess, who had col- lected it with great labour during a period of forty years, and was purchased for the Institution by one of the Pro- fessors, who was sent to Europe for the purpose. III. The Western Theological Seminary in Alle- ghanytown, Pennsylvania. The establishment of this College consists of three Professors, the number of stu- dents being forty-two. The college building, which was erected by the voluntary contributions of the churches of the Synod of Pittsburgh, is said to " present to the eye a handsome extension, and to afford every comfort and con- venience." It contains, moreover, " thirty rooms fur- nished by different churches and individuals within the bounds of that Synod ;" of which the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh had furnished eight. And as a specimen of the manner in which the American Pres- byterian Voluntary churches permit themselves to be appealed to, for the support of these Schools of the prophets, I extract the following simple announcement from the annual Report of the Board of Management, for the past year, " The Board request, for the payment of Professors' salaries and other expenses of the Seminary, the sum of 5000 dollars." Of course, the request was granted. IV. The Union Theological Seminary, or Divinity College, in Virginia, has a building of 180 feet long, two stories in height, with two separate houses for Pro- X 2 234 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. fessors, and a permanent fund of 59,000 dollars, invested at six per cent, for the endowment of Professorships. The Institution was founded chiefly for the education of pious young men, who could not afford to leave Virginia to be educated for the ministry elsewhere. V. The Theological Seminary, or Divinity College, of Columbia, in South Carolina, has a permanent fund, the fruit of voluntary contribution, affording a salary of 2000 dollars per annum each to two Professors ; the third Professorship, which is not yet endowed, being supported from year to year from the general funds of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia. Besides this fund, the college has an excellent building, towards the erection of which Mr. Ewart, a benevolent and wealthy member of the Presbyterian church in South Carolina, contributed 10,000 dollars. Mr. Lanneau, also, a young gentleman of French extraction, and a licentiate of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, who had resolved to proceed as a missionary to Syria and the Holy Land, gave the whole of his private property, amounting to 8000 dollars, for the endowment of scho- larships in this Institution, that there might be others raised up hereafter, to supply his own lack of service for his native land. Mr. Lanneau is now a missionary in Jerusalem. And — as a further illustration of the de- gree in which a spirit of self-denial and of burning zeal for the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom pervades the Presbyterian church in America, under the Volun- tary System, even in those parts of the Union which we are too much in the habit of regarding as hopelessly delivered over to the tender mercies of the relentless slaveholder — the Rev. Dr. Jones, a clergyman of piety and learning, and a Professor in this college, recently resigned his eligible appointment, to labour as a mission- ary among the coloured population in South Carolina and Georgia. VI. The Lane Seminary, or Divinity College in Ohio, MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 235 was established with funds collected chiefly in New England by the venerable Dr. Beecher, of Cincinnati, the Apostle of Temperance. It is one of the best en- dowed Institutions of the kind in the United States. Its property, consisting of buildings and endowments for professorships and scholarships, is estimated at 300,000 dollars. The establishment consists of four professorships, and the special object of its formation was to educate Presbyterian ministers for the Far West. The following particulars respecting this Institution and its venerable founder I extract from a paper entitled " Rambles of an Invalid," dated at Cincinnati, Ohio, and published in the New York Evangelist, of April 2oth, 1840. " Lane Seminary is situated about three miles from the city, in the only picturesque spot I have seen in Ohio. Scattered near it are a few pleasant private re- sidences, and around is a pretty and varied landscape, of forest, farm, and hill. The Seminary buildings are of plain brick. One is intended for the accommoda- tion of the students, and resembles those which serve a like purpose at Andover, or New Haven. The other, containing the chapel, library, and lecture-rooms, is a neat and tasteful edifice, with a fine Doric portico. " The Library of the Institution is a noble one ; more full probably in Theology and Sacred Literature than any other in the United States, with the exception perhaps of one. It contains 10,000 volumes, selected with admirable judgment, and purchased at exceedingly rea- sonable rates, by Professor Stowe, in England, and on the continent of Europe. In the whole collection I saw no lumbering and useless tomes, thrown in to fill up shelves. They are all the ' L>ii majurmii gentium ' of books. There are splendid polyglots ; a noble and full collection of the Fathers ; Commentaries and Systems of Theology without number ; all the masters in philo- sopliy, ancient and modern ; and rich stores of Ecclesi- astical History and Antiquities. How little did the ro- 236 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. spective authors of these laboured and massy works, when preparing for the scribe or the press, deem that they should live and speak, in a land thousands of miles distant — then, a waste howling wilderness ! The library does equal credit to the munificent liberality of those Christians in the Eastern States who gave the money, and to the learning and judgment of the gentle- man who selected it. " The President of Lane Seminary, as you are well aware, is Dr. Beech er. With all his wonderful power of physical endurance, and his astonishing mental acti- vity, he is now labouring as President of the Institution ; Professor of didactic theology ; pastor of one of the churches in Cincinnati ; besides performing a great amount of miscellaneous labour in the way of public lectures and protracted meetings. Probably no living minister in the United States has worked so much for the advancement of vital religion as this theological veteran. Some few men may.^or a time, have laboured even more than Dr. Beecher ; and in a limited period have preached more sermons. But he has been long, very long in the field, and has crowded the time with an astonishing amount of effective exertion. In Connecti- cut and Massachusetts, the result of his iron diligence, and spirit-stirring zeal will long remain. Revivals with- out number have been the attendants on his preaching, both in his own congregations and among his brethren where he has laboured. His writings have been widely circulated, and his little volume on temperance has been carried to the ends of the earth." Besides the six Theological Seminaries, or Divinity Colleges, I have enumerated, there are other twelve of these institutions belonging to the Presbyterian church alone, and variously endowed, in different parts of the Union ; for the Americans have discovered that it is not only advisable to have natives of each particular State trained up for the ministry in that State rather than men from a distance, but to have them trained up upon the MIMSTEUIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 2o7 spot. The licentiate from Philadelphia and New York is in general as little fitted for the singular peculiarities of life in the West, as the generality of Scotch preachers for the Australian or Canadian colonies. When I reflect therefore on the Christian liberality of these American Presbyterians, under the Voluntary System, who have, within the short period of thirty years, established and endowed so many promising in- stitutions for the sole object of training up an efficient ministry for their beloved church, that their land may become the glory of all lands, a land which the Lord shall bless, how can I think without burning shame of its going dow^n to posterity, that the Rev, Dr. Chalmers — the first pulpit orator of his age, and a man, more- over, as superior to the great majority of his brethren in the excellent qualities of his heart as he is in those of his splendid understanding — after exhibiting in his own person a rare instance of self-denial in vacating the well-endowed situation which he previously held, for a theological professorship in Edinburgh, with a paltry endowment of £100 a year, that that professorship might not be attached, as it had formerly been, as a mere make-weight to the benefice of a city minister, was actually left by the Scottish public to knock at Lord Melbourne's gate, as a humble petitioner to Her Ma- jesty's government for an additional endowment ; and, in default of obtaining it, was obliged to charge fees from the poor students of divinity to eke out his limited income ! Shame ! shame upon the people of Scotland ! Methinks the Jacobites are right, when they tell us that "the last of the Scots" fell at the battle of Killie- crankie ; for surely the race must have become extinct when such things are permitted to befall the man who has shed such a lustre upon his native land ! But the truth must be told, however disagreeable : for the fact undoubtedly is, that the Christian energies of the Scot- tish laity, and their native bcnovolencc, have been borne down and annihilated under the enormous pressure of 238 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. their effete establishment ! Why, if Dr. Chalmers had only been a professor of theology for the American Presbyterian Church, under the Voluntary System, his professorship would have been endowed — splendidly endowed — in a fortnight ; while his poor students would have been relieved, for all time coming, from the payment of fees for being taught theology. But, how- ever I may differ from Dr. Chalmers in regard to the working and efficiency of the Voluntary System, I con- fess I cannot think but with the deepest interest and affection of the venerable man — I cannot but revert with growing delight to the days when, a student of divinity in the university of Glasgow, I was privileged to listen from sabbath to sabbath to his burning elo- quence and apostolic devotion ! How can I think without grateful emotion of the venerable man by whom I was admitted myself into the fellowship of the Church of Christ ! Of the two General Assemblies into which the Ame- rican Presbyterian Church has recently been nearly equally divided, the one co-operates with the Congre- gational Presbyterian churches of New England, in the three great objects of Foreign Missions, Home Missions, and Clerical Education ; while the other has distinct Boards of its own for each of these objects. And as each of these three bodies — the two Assemblies and the New England churches — is somewhat similar in extent to the Church of Scotland, the Assembly, having Boards of its own, may be legitimately compared, in its missionary and benevolent operations, with the Scottish Church. The Assembly I allude to comprises 1270 ministers, and 1500 churches ; a considerable number of these ministers, however, being but recently settled over newly-formed congregations, their chuches cannot be expected to contribute much for Foreign Missions. During the year, therefore, ending the 1st of May, 1840, this division of the American Presbyterian Church contributed, for the support of Foreign Missions to the MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 239 heathen, the sum of G 4,054 dollars, or £13,010 sterling. Its missions are situated, 1st. In Northern India ; 2. Among the Indians of North America, to the westward of the Mississippi ; 3. In Western Africa, in the colony of Liberia ; 4. At Singapore, for the empire of China ; 5. In Siam ; 6. In Texas : two additional missions being resolved on for Australia and New Zealand. It is scarcely necessary to ask, whether the Church of Scotland has any thing to compare with this splendid manifestation of Christian benevolence. The reader, however, will probably conclude, that the people who are doing so much for the promotion of religion abroad cannot be so careless on the subject of religion, or so ill provided with it, at home, as they are generally re- presented, doubtless froni interested motives, in Church magazines and reviews. If so, he is in the right ; as will appear sufficiently from the sequel. The Board of Domestic Missions of this division of the Presbyterian Church have actually under their super- intendence not fewer than 256 missionaries, supplying upwards of 600 congregations and missionary districts, in the more thinly settled portions of the different States and Territories of the Union. To all of these missionaries, grants, of various amounts, according to their respective localities, are made from the funds of the Board ; and, through their zealous labours, during the past year, 50 new churches had been organized in various parts of the country, 70 places of worship erected, and upwards of 3000 additional members added to the Presbyterian communion. Besides, during the whole period of the existence of this Board, (and it has not been many years in operation,) it has been the means of calling into existence 400 sabbath-schools; in which there have been employed 2200 teachers, under whom 15,000 pupils have received religious instruction. Three hundred bible-classes, in which 6000 pupils have been under instruction, have also been formed during the same period ; with 320 Temperance So- 240 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. cieties, comprising upwards of 22,000 members. Nay, even in these newly-settled and thinly-peopled districts, the missionaries of the Board have, during the past year, collected upwards of 3000 dollars, or more than 600/., for foreign missions ; and 2000 dollars, or 400/. for domestic. I did not ascertain the exact amount contributed by this division of the Presbyterian church, during the past year, for these extensive operations, as the statistics of the mission were not published when I left Philadelphia ; but the amount of labour performed, which I did ascertain, and have thus particularized, will enable the reader to form a tolerably correct estimate for himself. I have already alluded to the Christian machinery, so peculiarly and so exclusively American, for enabling indigent but pious young men to obtain a suitable edu- cation for the gospel ministry. The General Assembly's Board of Education received contributions from the churches under its care, for this special object, in the year 1839, to the amount of 33,930 dollars, or 7120/. 12s. Qd. of our money. Now, when we take into con- sideration the exceedingly economical habits of the Americans, the general cheapness of the necessaries of life in the United States, and the assistance afforded to candidates for the ministry, residing in the Divinity Colleges, in the shape of tuition and lodging free of expense, we shall be enabled to form some idea of the vast amount of good that is actually effected with this money. The expense of board for a student in the commons of the Divinity College, at Princeton, varies from one dollar and a quarter to one dollar and three quarters per week — from 5s. 6d. to 75. 6d, sterling ; and his whole contribution to the " General Expense Fund" of the Institution, is only 10 dollars, or about two guineas per annum. Washing, for the same period, costs only 8 dollars. The whole number of Benefi- ciaries who were receiving assistance from the General Assembly's Board — some at Divinity Colleges, and MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 241 Others at the Preparatory Colleges for General Litera- ture and Science — during the year 1839, was 338, The Assembly have also a Board of Publication, for re- printing and circulating throughout the country, at the cheapest possible rate, valuable works on practical divinity, as well as others, illustrative of the principles and history of the Presbyterian church. The contributions of particular churches, under the Voluntary System in the United States, for such objects as those I have been enumerating, are altogether with- out parallel in the established churches of Great Britain. At the close of the service I attended in the Rev. Dr. Tyng's (Episcopal) church in Philadelphia. Dr. T. reminded the congregation that the vestry of the church had resolved some time before, with his own entire concurrence, that the monthly collections of the congregation should be devoted exclusively to the liquidation of the church debt, till that object should be accomplished ; and that these collections had amounted during the past year to GOOO dollars, or £1275 ! There was still, he observed, a large sum to be raised in this way, and he regretted the circumstance exceedingly, as until this debt should be discharged, they were debarred, as a Christian congregation, from contributing of their substance fur the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom in the world. And to urge his congregation to still further exertion, he informed them that during the past year, another church of their own communion in the city had contributed as much for missionary and other charitable purposes as they had collected for the liquidation of their church debt. For the four great objects of American benevolence — Foreign Missions, Domestic Missions, the Education Society, and the Bible Society — the congregation of the Scotcli Presbyterian Church in Grand-street, New York, contribute annually not less than 5500 dollars, or ofllGS sterling, besides an amount in private Y 242 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. donations, equal, as I was told by the pastor himself, who is the general almoner of his congregation, to 10,000 dollars per annum !* The Rev. H. Boardman's (Presbyterian) Church contributed at their late annual collection for the Board of Education alone, the sum of 2000 dollars, or £425. And when the Directors of the American Board of Foreign Missions were under the necessity, in consequence of a great falling off in their collections, through the recent pressure of the times, of making a special appeal to the wealthier churches on behalf of their numerous missionaries among the heathen, the following liberal contribution was the gratifying result of that appeal, in the case of six of the evangelical churches of the Congregational Presbyterian order in Boston and its vicinity. I subjoin the amounts contributed by these churches during the preceding year, that the reader may see the precise effect of the appeal which was thus made to these churches during a period of unexampled commercial embarrassment. Old South Church, Boston Park-street Church Union Church Pine-street Church Winthrop Church, Charlestown Eliot Church, Roxbury . 1839. 1840. Dollars. 1223 3000 1604 2700 906 1200 291 600 265 900 547 1500 Total . .4836 9900 or, £2103 155. sterling, more than double the amount * The Rev. Dr. M'EIroy, the clergyman I allude to, informed me that in the year 1835, whqn he had much affliction in his family, and was consequently obliged to incur an extraordinary expenditure, the managers of his church, taking the case into tlieir consideration, spontaneously made his salary for that year 7000 dollars, or £^1487. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 243 of the preceding year. When shall we hear of six of the city churches, either of Edinburgh or Glasgow, contributing a sum like this for missions to the heathen exclusively, and during a year too of great commercial distress ? Why, if there were no other argument in favour of the Voluntary System than that it tends to open the heart of the Christian man and to make him what " the Lord loveth, — a cheerful and hberal giver, — " that argument would be sufficient to demonstrate that it is precisely the system on which the Divine Re- deemer intended that his church should be supported in the world. And if there were no other argument against a National Establishment than that it dries up the fountains of benevolence, and transforms the pro- fessing Christian into a niggardly worldling, that argu- ment would be sufficient. Even at the close of the third year of its existence as a Christian church, the congregation of the Rev. Dr. Bethune, of Philadelphia, which, at the commencement of that period, amounted only to fourteen families, was actually contributing at the rate of 1500 dollars, or upwards of £300 per annum, for missionary and other charitable purposes ; besides contributing for the maintenance of public worship an amount far beyond what any congregation of the kind would require to pay in Scotland. For besides the minister's salary of at least 2000 dollars, the organist had a salary of 400, the precentor, 300, the door-keeper, 250, and the organ-blower, 50 dollars. In short, as Dr. Bethune justly observed, " The Americans are accused of being fond of money and keen at bargain-making ; I grant it ; they are so. But then, there are no people in the world more liberal with their money than the Americans. Only show them an object worthy of their benevolence, and a hundred purses are opened to you at once." I have already observed that the other General 244 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. Assembly of the American Presbyterian Church co- operates with the Congregational churches of New England in the three great objects of Foreign Missions, Home Missions, and Clerical Education. The Dutch Reformed Church also co-operates with the New England churches in the same great objects ; the Episcopalians, the Methodists, and the Baptists, having distinct societies of their own of a similar character and object. The following is an abstract of the funds and operations of the three great religious societies of the three Presbyterian denominations above mentioned, for the year 1839. I. — American Foreign Missionary Society. Receipts for the year . 244,169 dollars, or £51,883. Number of Missions under the Board Ditto stations occupied in these Missions Missionaries, of whom 136 are ordained Ministers, 18 Physicians, 19 Teachers, 1 1 Printers, and 1 9 1 female assistant Missionaries, chiefly the wives of the others, . . , . . Ditto, sent out during the years 1838 and 1839 NativeMissionarieSjincluding 9 Preachers Printing establishments at Mission sta- tions ..... Churches .... Church members Pupils in seven seminaries . Ditto in 10 boarding-schools Ditto in 350 free-schools Copies of Books and Tracts printed 36 77 375 36 107 14 52 7311 363 344 16,000 847,000 The localities of these Missions are — South Africa, West Africa, Greece, Turkey in Asia, Cyprus, Syria and MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 245 the Holy Land, Persia, Southern India, Madras, Madura, Ceylon, Siam, China, Singapore, Borneo, the Sandwich Islands, the Cherokee Indians, the Choctaws, the Pawnees, the Oregon Indians, the Sioux, the Ojibwas, the Stockbridge Indians, the New York Indians, the Abernaquis. II. — American Home Missionary Society. Receipts for the year . 80,812 dollars, or £17,182. Missionaries and agents . . . 680 Congregations supplied . . . 846 Number added to the Churches . . 4750 In Sabbath-schools and Bible-classes . 60,000 Members of Temperance Societies . 75,000 These Missionaries are stationed in twenty-two dif- ferent States and Territories, including the British pro- vince of Lower Canada ; the principal field of their labours being the Western States, which Captain Mar- ryat kindly informs us the American Protestants have left to Popery and darkness. III. — American Education Society. Receipts for the year . 51,307 dollars, or £10,902. Number of Beneficiaries, or young men assisted . . . . . .914 Of these, in 18 Theological seminaries . 267 in 28 colleges . . . 487 in 57 academies . , .160 Earned by the Beneficiaries in manual" labour, for their own subsistence, over 31,972 ►dollars, or and above the amount received by them T I'n^nct from the Society .... J The Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists have separate organizations for the accomplishment of similar ol)jects to those of the societies above mentioned ; while the American Bible and Tract Societies afford Y 2 246 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. common ground for all. Daring the past year, the lat- ter of these Societies published a series of small volumes neatly bound, containing a whole library of practical divinity, in the works of such writers as Bun- yan, Baxter, Newton, &c., and pious persons, in all parts of the Union, were engaged on behalf of the Society to co-operate gratuitously with its agents in calling at every house in their respective districts and disposing of these volumes wherever they could at prime cost. And so successful was this eifort, which was called the Volume Enterprise, that in the single city of Charles- ton, with a population of 40,000 souls, there were sold in this way in the course of six months or thereby not fewer than 10,000 of these volumes ; many whole sets, of 15 volumes each, having been purchased by reputa- ble coloured people, of the class of mechanics and shopkeepers, in the city. ^'^ There is no species of moTrad, agency in the present day so influential either for good or for evil as the periodical press ; and there is none which the British churches have so signally neglected. The American churches have seized upon this powerful engine with a vigorous and successful grasp, and in nothing is the difference of the whole character of these churches, as compared with those of the mother-country, more strongly evinced. Every leading denomination in the United States has its religious newspaper, — not only in one city, but in every great city of the Union. And these newspapers, — instead of being crammed to nausea, like certain of our own, with interminable politico-reli- gious vituperation of men and measures with which religion has nothing to do, or with the beggarly account of the desperate struggles of a faction for political supremacy and self aggrandizement, under the pretext of a sincere desire for the spiritual welfare of the poor,* * By the way, if the gciulcmen of the University of Oxfoid MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 247 —are devoted exclusively to the proper business of religion ; being filled wtth a large amount of religious intelligence, generally of an interesting and instructive character, and calculated alike to inform the understand- ing and to impress the heart. The New York Observer, a weekly religious newspaper, which circulates chiefly among the Presbyterian denominations, is decidedly the best conducted journal of the kind in existence. It is incomparably superior, as a vehicle of interesting reli- gious intelligence and instruction, to the London Record, or the Patriot, or the Scottish Guardian ; and its influ- ence is proportioned to its general ability, its circula- tion being from fifteen to twenty thousand. The New York Evangelist, also a Presbyterian journal, has a circulation of twelve thousand ; and the Religious Intelligencer, of the same city, edited by the Rev. Dr. De Witt, of the Dutch Reformed Church, has a circulation of from four to five thousand. The Methodists, and Baptists, and Episcopalians, have also religious journals of their own, with the same great ob- ject in view — the diffusion of religious intelligence, and the general evangelization of the community. The *' Christian Advocate," a Methodist journal, has a cir- culation of twenty thousand. The " Baptist Advocate " has also an extensive circulation, although of what amount I am not informed. "The Churchman," a High Church Episcopalian journal, has but a limited tircula- tion ; but the journal of the Evangelical portion of that communion, edited by the Rev. Dr. Tyng, of Philadel- phia, is highly and deservedly popular. In the latter city, the Presbyterians have two clergymen exclusively and elsewhere, who recently petitioned Parliament for Church Extension, purely on bchdf of tlie poor, should require a patron saint and a motto for any future petition of the kind, I can recom- mend them to both the one and the other, I mean St. Jddas, with the following legend : — " Not that he, cared for the poor, but because he kept the bag, and bare what was put therein." — John xii. fi. 248 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. employed in editing the two weekly journals of their communion in that part of the Union — the Presbyterian and the Christian Observer ; of the circulation of which, however, I am unable to state the particulars. I have already alluded to the religious journals in the Southern States, " The Watchman of the South," published at Richmond, Virginia, and " The Charleston Observer," in South Carohna. There was also a religious news- paper lately at New Orleans, and they are quite common in the cities of the West. Even the Germans, prover- bially slow as they are in their movements, and the very reverse of excitable, have not escaped the salutary influence which " the freedom of religion " * communi- cates to the American mind. They have their religious journals also, some in English and others in German. The editors of these religious newspapers regularly exchange their journals with each other, from the most distant parts of the Union ; and thus whatever is in- teresting to the churches, or calculated to " make glad the City of God," is known by the first post over the whole length and breadth of the land, and the pulse of every Christian man in the nation beats high at the tidings simultaneously. In one word, the Christian ministry in the voluntary churches of the United States of America, is decidedly of a higher character on the one hand, and incomparably more efficient on the other, than the clergy of either of the Established Churches of Great Britain and Ireland ; the machinery which that ministry has brought to bear, and to bear successfully, against the iniquity of their land, evinces moreover a degree of generalship in the peculiar tactics of Christian warfare, to which there is no parallel in the Christian strategics of this country ; Tvhile the benevolent efforts of the American churches * By the way, this is a phrase of German origin — Bel/ffkms- /ret/heit — 1 think 1 have seen it in Sclnller^s Urci/SiP/jUhrif/es Kricgs Geschkhlc. MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 249 on behalf of the benighted heathen throughout the world, surpass beyond all comparison those of the Christian churches of Britain — taking into conside- ration the comparative amount of the population of the Union, the recent origin of many of the churches, and their much less favourable circumstances for acting upon the heathen world in the way of Christian mis- sions. f I subjoin a list of the revenues of a few of the principal religious and philanthropic societies of the United States, for the year ending the 1st of May, 1840. Dollars. Anti-Slavery Society 47,723 Female Moral Reform Society . 9,223 Bible Society 97,355 Temperance Society 22,430 Foreign Missionary Society 209,405 Tract Society 117,596 Education Society 51,307 Colonization Society 14,584 Foreign Evangelical Society 16,210 Home Missionary Society 78,345 Baptist Missionary Society 57,781 CHAPTER VI. THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. The objection which is most frequently urged in this country against the Voluntary System in America, is that it implies an utter want of religious principle on the part of the Government of the United States, and demonstrates, to use the phrase of Sir Robert Inglis, that that government " has no conscience." Now, although the idea that the government of a country has a personality distinct from that of the individuals who compose it, and is capable of good and evil, and ob- noxious to rewards and punishments, distinct from these individuals ; although this idea is entertained by many worthy persons besides Sir Robert Inglis, it is one which is alike unwarranted by Holy Scripture and sound philosophy ; nay, it is an idea fraught with the utmost danger to the morals of any community, inasmuch as it countenances the monstrous supposition that men may be guilty of acts in their public or official capacity, for which they shall not be held responsible hereafter as individuals. The Rev. Thomas Scott, the distinguished commentator, has, I am sorry to say, been instrumental, in no small degree, in giving currency to this idea, by telling us, in his able Commentary, that as govern- ments exist only in the present world, and can have no existence in a future, they can only be rewarded or THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM, ETC. 251 punished in this present scene of things, and not in a future world. Now, this is a monstrous idea, and decidedly im- moral in its tendency ; inasmuch as it goes directly to shift off the responsibility of many questionable actions from the proper doers of these actions, and to place that responsibility upon something else, to which in reality no responsibility can attach. Every act of every government upon earth is neces- sarily connected in the divine mind with a certain amount of distinct and personal responsibility ; and the punishment of that act, if an act of evil, will accordingly be visited upon every individual who has been con- cerned, either directly or indirectly, in its perpetration. The waging of an unjust and unnecessary war, for ex- ample, being regarded by the divine law as tantamount to piracy and murder, every individual who has, either directly or indirectly, by his vote in Parliament or his services as a member of the Executive, or in any other way, been particeps criminis, will be punished accord- ingly. And the appointment of an unworthy person to the office of a minister in the Church of Christ, being regarded by the divine law as a flagrant breach of trust, will necessarily involve a corresponding responsibility, and subject to condign punishment all parties who have been concerned in the appointment, whether it be the King as supreme, or the Lord Chancellor, or any no- bleman or bishop in the land. I assert, therefore, without fear of contradiction, that a government can have no conscience, as distinct from that of the indivi- duals who compose it. Government is a divine ordinance, instituted for the attainment of the highest and noblest ends — the glory of God, and the happiness of man. But it is not an entity ; it has no substantial existence ; it can perform no actions ; and, being alike incapable of good and evil, no responsibility can attach to it. Rciponsibility, •252 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES which follows actions as closely as a shadow the sub- stance, attaches to persons only ; and men, conse- quently, delude themselves, when they conjure up the idea of an official, or governmental responsibility, by which their own personal responsibility, as the doers of particular actions that concern the public, may be got rid of in a future state of being. Having thus cleared the idea of government, as a divine institution, of the mysticism in which Sir Ro- bert Inglis would involve it, I affirm that there is no foundation whatever for the charge of infidelity which is so frequently preferred against the members of the United States Government, on account of the preva- lence of the Voluntary System, or the entire separation of Church and State, in America. The fact that the National Congress of the United States annually elect chaplains for each branch of the legislature, whose office it is publicly to invoke the Divine blessing upon their assemblies, that all their acts may be conducive to the glory of God and the happiness of men, gives the lie to such a charge. Nay, so far is the Government of the United States from being openly and avowedly irreligious and infidel in its character and constitution, its Hall of Congress is actually transformed every sab- bath into a house of prayer, where the chaplains offici- ate in turn, and the senators and representatives of the people attend divine service as humble worshippers. Now, I appeal to the reader whether there is any thing like infidelity in all this, or whether it suggests to him any such resemblance as is intended in the charge in question, to the scenes exhibited of old in infidel and revolutionary France. The Legislatures of the particular States of the Union in like manner elect chaplains at their annual meetings, to offer up prayers to Almighty God, and to preach, at stated times, before the members of the legislature. On a recent occasion, the legislature of the State of New NUT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDrilTY. 2b'.i York elected as their chaplain the Rev. Dr. VVillson, a respectable clergyman in that State, of the Protestant denomination called Reformed Presbyterians or Cove- nanters ; partly, I presume, as a testimony of respect to Dr. Willson, personally, and partly to conciliate the communion to which he belonged. The Covenanters, holding the Westminster Confession of Faith as their Standard of doctrine, conceive that, agreeably to the article of the Civil Magistrate, in that Confession, it is the duty of that functionary to support the true religion, as there set forth, and no other ; and because Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, the Civil Magistrate in Great Britain, ob- jects to these terms, and declines subscribing the Solemn League and Covenant, as Civil Magistrates were expected to do in the days of the Long Parliament, they refuse to have any thing to do with the Established Church of Scot- land, or to take the oath of allegiance which the Govern- ment imposes upon all the office-bearers of that church. Some of these good people — the relics of a former age — have emigrated to America, carrying their Penates along with them, as ^Eneas did from the flames of Troy : but they have unfortunately found the Civil Magistrate not less refractory there than in Great Bri- tain ; and as Mr. Van Buren refuses, in that capacity, to subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant, or to do any of the other acts and deeds they would prescribe to him as prerequisite, they refuse to take the oath of allegiance to his government, or lo avail themselves of their undoubted privileges as citizens, under the star- spangled banner of the United States. Such, at least, was the case till lately ; the circumstance of having taken the oath of allegiance to the United States being heretofore regarded as an offence implying excommu- nication by the American Covenanters. These hard terms, however, have been somewhat modified of late, and the oath is now taken by a considerable proportion of z 2c 4 THE VOLUNTARY EYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES the American Covenanters, whose votes are accordingly polled with those of the other citizens. In the course of his duties as chaplain, Dr. Willson was called to preach hefore the legislature of New York. On such an occasion, one might have supposed that the grand subjects of" righteousness, temperance, and judg- ment to come,"\vhich formed the theme of the eloquence of an apostle at the bar of a Roman governor, might have afforded " ample scope and verge enough" for a Christian divine. Dr. Wiilson thought otherwise, how- ever, and accordingly embraced the opportunity thus afforded him of reading a lecture on politics to the Senateand House of Representatives of the Empire State of New York, — telling them that their government was an ill-constructed machine from bottom to top ; that bad as the British government was, inasmuch as although it had a State religion, it was not the right one, theirs was still worse, as it had none ; that the whole category of their Presidents consisted of irre- ligious men — even \Vashington being a man of no religion, and Jefferson a downright infidel ; and that therefore as he could have nothing to do with their government, the only Christian duty he could discharge towards them was to address to them such a philippic as he had just delivered. The Americans — at least those of them with whom I came in contact in eleven of their States — are re- markably temperate people, as well in their use of strong language as in that of strong drink. There were no cries of " Hear, hear!" uttered on the occasion I refer to ; no disorderly calls for " Order!" no directions to " Turn him out." The dignity of the pulpit was re- spected, even in the case of the individual who had so wantonly overstepped its privileges, and Dr. Willson was permitted to retire in silence. He was given to under- stand, however, that his services as chaplain to the iegis- NOT OPliN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 255 lature would not be required in future. It is impossible to entertain the slightest feeling of respect for the understanding of a man who could construe into a point of duty such an outrage as I have detailed ; but the whole fact, taken in connexion with what I have stated above, sufficiently demonstrates that neither the ge- neral government of the United States, nor the govern- ments of particular States are infidel governments ; but that, on the contrary, they desire to hallow their political assemblies with the services of religion. But if it is asked. Why do they not establish and sup- port religion? I reply, because, in the first place, they find it quite unnecessary to do so, as I have already demon- strated ; secondly, because the thing is impracticable, for the Americans of the present day would just as soon submit to a foreign power as tolerate an established church ; and, thirdly, because they universally believe that it can never be proved from Holy Scripture to be the duty of any government to do any thing of the kind. The fundamental principle of a national establish- ment of religion is simply this : " The Christian religion being a Divine Revelation for the advancement of the moral, spiritual, and eternal welfare of man, it is the bounden duty of every government upon earth, and not merely of every Christian government, to promote the prevalence and the influence of the Christian religion to the very utmost." Now I am quite confident that Mr. Van Buren,* the present President of the United * Mr. Van Burcn, as his name sufficiently indicates, is of Dutch origin, and was formerly in the iiabit of attending divine service in the Dutch Reformed Church at Utica, in the State of New York, wliich was then under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Bcthimc, now of Philadeipliia, I presume he is still a member of tliat com- munion. Mr. Van Burcn commenced his career as a lawyer, and happening at an early period ia bis professional course to conduct a ca»o for a 256 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES States, would not only be willing to subscribe to this Christian sentiment in his public and official character, if the thing were at all necessary, but would do so as cordially as Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Indeed, there is no class of men in any country so thoroughly convinced of the absolute necessity of the Christian religion for the maintenance of the civil institutions of society, as the statesmen of America. A monarchy may do without religion, and that is perhaps the very poor countryman, the latter gave him, as the only payment he could make him, an order for land in the western portion of the State of New York, observing at the time, he did not knov/ whetherit would ever be of any value or not. The order was for one of the mili- tary grants made to the soldiers of the Revolution by Act of Con- gress. AVhether the man had been a soldier himself and had ob- tained it for his own services, I cannot say ; but the probability is, that he had not, as there was no restriction upon the orders, which were consequently disposed of for the most part, and passed from hand to hand, for whatever they were supposed to be worth. Mr. Van Buren kept the order in retentis for a good many years. In the mean time, population had been advancing westward, and the district in which the land described in his order was situated, came at length to be of considerable importance ; insomuch that the first estimate that was given him of its value was " 70,000 dollars and rapidly rising." This was the groundwork of the fortune which placed Mr. Van Buren in such a position in society as enabled him, through his own professional tact and great ability, to attain the high office he now holds as President of the United States. As I spent a day at Washington on my return from Charleston, I did myself die honour of paying my respects, in passing, to the Pre- sident, to whom I had been favoured with letters of introduction through the kindness of friends in New York and Philadelphia. I was received by his Excellency — a tall, stout, good-looking man — with great urbanity and frankness of manner, and without any of the stiffness and hauteur to which 1 confess I had been somewhat accus- tomed elsewhere, especially on the part of military Representatives of Royalty. The President's house reminds one of the residence of an English nobleman. It is of white marble, and is built on a rising ground on the beautiful banks of the Pot6mac. The Capitol, which is also of white marble, is one of the finest buildings I have ever seen. It is splendidly situated on a hill, overlooking the rjvor ;ind the city of Washington. NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 257 reason why ive are able to do with so little of it in many parts of Great Britain and Ireland, where in all time past a standing army has been the regular substi- tute for religion among the people ; but a republic — with universal suttVagc as the law of the land, and the first magistrate of the nation elected directly by the sovereign people — would be unable to maintain its existence for a single twelvemonth without the conser- vative influence of Christianity. This is universally acknowledged in America ; for even the well-educated and philosophical infidels of that country uniformly admit that the only hope of the permanence and sta- bility of the civil institutions of their country depends upon the degree in which the Christian religion can be promoted among the great body of the people. While, therefore, the cry of Sir Robert Inglis and his associ- ates is, in plain English, nothing else than, " Church Extension, or the Tories to the wall ! " the cry in Ame- rica is, " Church Extension, or anarchy and revolution ! " " I do not know," says M. de Tocqueville, "whether all the Americans have a sincere faith in their religion, for who can search the human heart ? but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank in society." " The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impos- sible to make them conceive the one without the other ; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live." " I have known of Societies formed by the Americans to send out ministers of the gospel into the new West- ern States, to form schools and churches there, lest religion should be suffered to die away in those remoter settlements, and the rising States be less fitted to enjoy 7 2 258 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTKM IN THE UNITED STATES free institutions than the people from which they ema- nated. I have met with wealthy New Englanders who had abandoned the country in which they were born, in order to lay the foundations of Christianity and of free- dom on the banks of the Missouri, or in the prairies of Illinois."* There is no question, therefore, in America about the absolute necessity of promoting the prevalence and strengthening the influence of Christianity in the United States. The only question is about the best means of accomplishing this object. On this point, there is cer- tainly a great difference between the British and the American governments, in point of practice as well as of opinion. Acknowledging the necessity and the duty of promoting Chiistianity to the utmost in the British dominions, the British Government endeavour to dis- charge this duty by setting up the system of Episcopacy, or rather of Prelacy, as the Established State Church, in England and Ireland, and the system, of Presbytery as the Established State Church, in Scotland ; giving at the same time a regium donum to the Presbyterians in Ireland, and a sop to the Roman Catholics at Maynooth. In Deraerara and the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch Church is made the State Church, under the same Im- perial Government; and the Roman Catholic in the Isle of France, in Malta, and in Lower Canada ; while in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land there are not fewer than four State Churches — the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Roman Catholic, and the Methodist. Now it must be evident to any man of common un- derstanding, that such procedure on the part of any government — and let Sir Robert Inglis remember, with all his antipathy to Popery, that it was by his own party exclusively that Popery was originally established and * Deniocracv in America — Reeves's Translaticn. 2nd American Edition, pp. 286, 287. Nen- York, 1838. NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFinEMTY. 25 9 salaried by the State, not only in Canada, but in the Isle of France and in New South Wales — cannot possibly be the result of fixed principle, or in conformity to the dictates of an enlightened conscience. The truth, to use the language of the poet, is every where Simplex et unum : it is not different, therefore, in Canada from what it is in England, nor in the Isle of France from what it is in Scotland. The procedure of the British Government, therefore, in the case in question, is not a matter of prin- ciple, but a matter of mere expediency. It is pre- cisely like that of an injudicious nurse with a spoiled child, who does not give the child what she knows to be good for it, but simply what it cries for. In. one word, it is undeniable that " the British Government^ to use Sir Robert Inglis's own phraseology, " never had a conscience in matters of religion, even in its best and palmiest and Tory est times T Nay, it is a singular fact that it was this very charge — the charge of having no conscience in matters of religion — that the Christian people of America preferred against the British Government, at the very moment when they were tightening the cords of their revolutionary drum to beat the loud Reveillez throughout the thirteen insur- gent colonies! In the year 17 75, the year before the Declaration of American Independence, this is the lan- guage tiiey make use of in one of their public Mani- festos, in reference to the British Government, and its then recent and insane assumption of " a right to make laws to bind the colonists in all cases whatsoever :" " By virtue of this power," the Americans rightly observe, " they have established Popery in Quebec, and the arbi- trary laws of France ; and why may they not do the same in Pennsylvania or North Carolina ?"* The Bri- * Hist, of the Presb. Ch. in America. By Prof. Hodge, of Princeton, New Jersey. Vol. ii IJ'4. Philadelphia, 1840. 260 THE VOLUXTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES tish Government of these days, Sir Robert Inglis well knows, was a Tory Government out and out — a Tory Government all over. And yet it was in these very times of unmingled Toryism, that the American Volun- taries preferred against it the charge of having no con- science in matters of religion. Let Sir Robert answer them — if he can. In contradistinction to this procedure of the British Government in the matter of religion, the members of the Government of the United States, of whom, as I have shown already, there are not a few who are men of piety and prayer, and who, I have every reason to be- lieve, have consciences as enlightened as that of any churchman in Great Britain, virtually declare as fol- lows : — " Believing that it is a matter of indispensable ne- cessity to the moral welfare and political existence of this great nation, that the influence of the Christian re- ligion should be promoted to the utmost over the whole extent of the American Union ; and believing, also, in common with the Christian people of all denominations in the United States, that the most effectual means of attaining this great end is simply that of giving entire freedom to religion — relieving it, on the one hand, from the trammels of State patronage, and, on the other, from the yoke of oppression, and thereby rendering it as free to the citizens of this Republic as the air they breathe, or as the light of heaven — we hereby, in the name and by the authority of the people of the United States, de- clare Religion to be free from henceforth throughout this Union ; bidding it God speed with all our hearts, and desiring that it may have free course and he glorified in our land." And this, forsooth, is to be interpreted — merely be- cause it suits the ambitious views of a political faction so to interpret it — as the act of an Infidel Government ! The good Lord deliver us from Christianity itself, if this be infidelity ! NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 26 i 1 have now been living under what men call the Christian Government of Great Britain, both at home and abroad, these forty years, and I confess I am still as much as ever in the dark as to where the Chris- tianity of the British Government is centred, or in what it consists. If I knock at the great gate of Windsor Castle, and ask if it resides in the person of the Sove- reign, a hollow voice from the tombs, like that of his late Majesty, King George the Fourth, will answer. No ! If I present myself at the bar of the House of Lords, and ask if it is centred there, my Lords Melbourne and Brougham will shake their heads significantly in the negative, and Lord Lyndhurst will second the motion of the noble and learned lord. If I repeat the question in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Inglis, sick at heart at his late defeat, will groan a melancholy nega- tive, while Mr. Hume and Mr. Daniel O'Connell vociferate, No ! If I ask whether it resides in the legis- lation or in the executive of the empire, I shall be told to look at Ireland — a country whose intellectual and moral condition for three centuries past might disgrace even the government of Turkey. In short, the Christi- anity of the British Government is a subtle and evan- escent quality, which perpetually eludes the search of the inquirer, and of which tliere is no possibility of fixing the habitat. It is neither in the head nor in tiie heart, nor in any of the members of the government. It is precisely like the infallibility of the Church of Rome, which, we are told, is neither in the pope, nor in the cardinals, nor in a general council, nor in a single bishop or priest of the whole fraternity ; and yet there is no denying the reality of the thing itself! Or rather, it is like a squirrel in a native fig-tree in an Australian forest — there is no doubt the creature is in the tree, for the black fellows saw it go in ; but where it is exactly among the thick foliage no man can toll. For my own part, despairing of ever finding anything 262 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES like Christianity as the master-spring or ruling principle of any government upon earth, till the predicted period shall arrive, when " the kingdoms of this world shall have become the one great kingdom of the Lord, and of his Christ," I confess I shall be satisfied in future when successful in the humbler search after Christianity among the people. For, whenever I find any measure of this heaven-born and holy principle among the people of any country, I feel assured that it will operate in a great variety of ways upon the government of that country ; compelling that government — I mean by a moral compulsion — to " do many things," which it would not otherwise have done, simply because, like Herod, it " fears the people." The natural tendency of all governments, whether monarchical, aristocratical, or republican, is to the abuse of power ; and it is the pre- valence of Christianity among the people alone, that is able to keep this tendency in check. We have long been accustomed to hear much of the power of the people of the United States for evil ; let us compare their influence for good in one or two par- ticulars with that of the people of Great Britain. There has recently been a considerable degree of agitation in this country to put down the pubhc and authorized profanation of the Sabbath \ and the clergy of Scotland in particular distinguished themselves by making a vigorous effort, a few years ago, to put a stop to rail- road travelling on the Sabbath in the vicinity of the city of John Knox — the Scottish capital. But they were unfortunately unsuccessful in that effort, and they found, doubtless to their great sorrow and disappointment, that while they and their forefathers had been fast asleep for a century and upwards on the downy bed of their National Establishment, the enemy had all the while been busily employed in sowing tares in their neglected field ; and that the crop of irreligion and in- fidelity which had consequently grown up throughout NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 263 the land, was a great deal too rank and vigorous for all tlieir efforts to root it out. Now to contrast this result with the influence of the Christian people under the Voluntary System in the United States : In the Sovereign State of Connecticut, containing a population of from 300,000 to 400,000 souls, the influence of the Christian people upon their government is so strong and so direct, that there is not a single locomotive engine, or steamboat, or stage coach, permitted to ply within the whole territory of the State on the Christian Sabbath. So far, indeed, from the Government of the United States being an infidel government, it has been declared by the highest authority in the country — Chancellor Kent, of New York — that " Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the land." No evidence is admis- sible in an American court of justice, if the witness acknowledges beforehand that he does not believe in the existence of a God, and a future state of rewards and punishments ; and in a recent action for damages in the city of Philadelphia, it was ruled by the Court, that a contract for labour to be performed on the Sab- bath was null and void in the eye of the law. As this is a case which will doubtless be somewhat interesting to the Christian reader in England, I subjoin the fol- lowing notice of it, which I extract from the Philadel- phia Christian Observer^ of April 30, 1840. " Interesting Decision. — In the District Court on the 2nd of April, a nonsuit was entered in a case that is of considerable interest to livery-stable keepers, and others who transact business on Sunday. " The suit was brought by Mr. S. Berrill against Townsend Smith, Ridgvvay Gibbs, Samuel Hancock, and Samuel Smith, and was an action for damages in- curred as follows : — Some months since, these young men engaged a pair of horses and carriage from Mr. Berrill, who is a livery-stable keeper, for a pleasure ex- cursion on Sunday. The horses were obtained, and in 264 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES the course of the day, from excessive drivhig, or some other cause, one of them died, and the other was severely injured. This suit was brought to recover damages for the loss and injury to the horses. " Judge Stroud, after hearing a portion of the evi- dence on the part of the plaintiff, ordered a nonsuit to be entered, on the ground that a contract entered into for the performance or fulfilment of work upon the Sab- bath was not legal, and therefore the plaintiff could not make out his case." But the Americans regard the entire separation of Church and State not only as a matter of expediency, but as being in strict accordance with the demands of righteousness and justice. Every member of society, they maintain, has certain personal rights, connected with the discharge of certain personal duties, and im- plying a certain amount of personal responsibility. These rights exist antecedently to all human govern- ments, and no government can rightfully interfere with their exercise ; simply because no government can dis- charge the duties to which the individual is bound, or relieve him of the responsibility which these duties imply. It is the bounden duty, for example, of every man to worship God ; and, as no government can either discharge this duty for any man, or relieve him from the responsibility to which it binds him, every man has an indefeasible right, antecedently to the existence of all government, to discharge this duty agreeably to the light of his own conscience, or, in other words, to worship God in his own way. The transaction is entirely between the individual and his Maker ; and it is one in which a " stranger," or third party, or human government, has no right to inter- meddle. In reply to this reasoning, I urged on certain of my American friends the received doctrine of all who hold the establishment principle in the National Churches of Europe ; viz. that every human gcvernmeut stands in NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE Ol INFIDELITY. 2(ij the same relation to its citizens, or subjects, as a parent does to his children ; and that, as the parent is bound to provide spiritual instruction for his children, or, in the language of Scripture, " to train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," every government is, in like manner, bound to provide the means of spiritual instruction for its citizens or subjects. The Americans, however, flatly denied that there was any parallelism or resemblance between the two cases of relationship ; maintaining, on the one hand, that the sole object of civil government is, that men may be en- abled to lead quiet and peaceable lives ; and that the church of Christ, on the other, is a purely spiritual institution, with which civil governments have nothing to do, beyond the duty of protecting it, so long as it keeps the peace of society ; the Lord Christ himself having insured both its existence and its maintenance in the world. Having thus stated their principles, my American friends required me to produce any passages from Holy Scripture to prove that the relation subsist- ing between a civil government and its citizens or sub- jects, is the same as that which subsists between a parent and his children, or that Christ has given to civil governments any right to interfere in the concerns of his church, even in the way of assuming the cost of the maintenance of his ministers, and thereby taking it out of the hands of those to whom he has himself expressly assigned it. I confess I was unable to find such pas- sages as were at all satisfactory, either to myself or to my American friends ; for I believe no such passage exists. In short, the fundamental principle of all civil establishments of religion, viz. that the civil govern- ment has other duties in regard to the Church of Christ than that of simply protecting it, is a mere petitio prin~ cipii, or begging of the question — a mere taking for granted the very thing to be proved. Determined, however, to get at the entire merits of 2 A 266 THE VOLUTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES the case, I observed to my American friends, that the Voluntary System necessarily reduces the minister to a state of mere dependence on his people ; and that we considered it one of the excellences of tlie establish- ment sj'stem, that it placed the clergy far above such dependence. In reply, I was told, that such a state of dependence on the part of the American clergy was entirely imaginary, and did not exist j that the minister, being generally engaged at a salary sufficient for his respectable maintenance, was not supposed to be under any personal obligations to his people for that salary, as he rendered them at least a fair equivalent ; that this state of things tended to strengthen and endear the pastoral relation ; and that that relation, of itself, gave the minister such an influence over his people, that it was actually necessary to have some check upon him, lest, in certain circumstances, which unfortunately did occur occasionally, that influence should become so great as to obstruct the discharge of discipline. This, it was added, was one of the peculiar advantages of the institution of the eldership in the Presbyterian church ; for when a minister became either heretical in doctrine, or exceptionable in character and conduct, the elder- ship constituted a body to which the Church could look with confidence to support her in the discharge of dis- cipline towards that minister, when his congregation might either be led astray with his sophistry, or be dis- posed to exercise undue sympathy towards him. " But," I observed, finally, " the Voluntary System does not succeed in many parts of England." " How can it possibly succeed there?" replied my American friends ; " look at yonder puny, stunted shrub, vege- tating under the oak-tree, that intercepts the genial sun- light, and kills it with the drop from its leaves ; is it possible that a voluntary church should prosper under precisely similar circumstances ? No ! the voluntary church in England must necessarily be of sickly growth, NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 267 under the shadow of your enormous estabhshment, which interposes itself between it and the nation's cha- rities, and looks down, as we are told, with a feeling of superciHous disdain on all that are not within its pale. The Voluntary System can never prosper in England, till religion is set entirely free, as you see it here, from the trammels of the State." I have already detailed certain of the results of the Voluntary System in America, in providing an extent of church accommodation for the Christian people un- equalled in this country, and in elevating the character, and greatly increasing the efficiency, of the clergy. But the increase of moral power which Christianity derives in America from the entire separation of Church and State is incalculable, and can only be credited by one who has himself visited the country and witnessed the actual result. *' Religion," says an American divine, " to be com- pletely successful, must be free. Experience shows that, in this country, it has the energy of liberty : it ' has free course, and is glorified.' Beyond a doubt, it will ultimately triumph. At this time (1829), there are more than a million of communicants, in the several Protestant churches in the United States — probably a larger proportion than exists in any other country in the world. The number increases at the rate of one hundred thousand a-year. Such increase is perfectly unexampled since the days of the apostles, licligion will triumph ; and no power on earth can prevent it. And it will triumph precisely because it is perfectly free. The intelligent clergy of all denominations un- derstand this ; and would be the very foremost to op- pose any effort to bind religion to the car of State.* * High Church Principles opposed to the Genius of our Repub- lican Institutions. By John Holt Rice, D.D.. Minister of tiic First Presbjteriun Church, Richmond, Virginia. "Washington, ly29. 268 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES " Upon my arrival in the United States," says M. de Tocqueville, " the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention, and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other ; but in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it, I questioned the members of all the religious sects ; and I more especially sought the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different persuasions, and who are more especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment, and I explained my doubts : I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of Church and State. I do not hesitate to affirm, that during my stay in America, I did not meet with a single individual, whether of the clergy or of the laity, who was not of the same opinion upon this point."* " As long as religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities and passions which are found to occur under the same forms, at all the different periods of history, it may defy the efforts of time ; or at least it can only be destroyed by another religion. But when religion chngs to the interests of the world, it becomes • Democracy in America, page 290. NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 269 almost as fragile a thing as the powers of earth. It is the only one of them all which can hope for immortal- ity ; but if it be connected with their ephemeral authority, it shares their fortunes, and may fall with those transient passions which supported them for a day. The alliance which religion contracts with political powers must needs be onerous to itself; since it does not require their assistance to live, and by giving them its assistance it may be exposed to decay."* " In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity : cut but the bonds which restrain it, and that which is alive will rise once more."-)- " There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equalled by their ignorance and their debasement, whilst America, one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, fulfils all the outward duties of religion with fervor.":}: " Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of tlie political institutions of that country ; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. "5^ *' It may be believed without unfairness, that a certain number of Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship, from habit more than from conviction. In the United States, the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common ; but there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America ; and there can be no greater * Democracy in America, page 292. -f- lb. p 20.5. t lb. p. 289. § lb. p. 286. 2 A 2 270 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. " In the United States, religion exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details of public opinion ; but it directs the morals of the community, and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the State. " I do not question that the great austerity of manners which is observable in the United States, arises, in the first instance, from religious faith. Re- ligion is often unable' to restrain man from the number- less temptations of fortune, nor can it check that passion for gain which every incident of his life con- tributes to arouse ; but its influence over the mind of woman is supreme, and women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America, or where conjugal happiness is more highly or more worthily appreciated."* Such are the deliberate opinions of an eminently qualified and singularly unprejudiced observer, in regard to the influence of religion in the United States. M. de Tocqueville is a French barrister of high standing ; and being a Roman Catholic, as he tells us himself, his estimate of the salutary influence of Protestant Chris- tianity upon the great mass of the American people must be peculiarly worthy of attention. In that esti- mate I entirely concur, as well as in M. de Tocque- ville's opinion as to the cause to which the salutary influence in question is to be ascribed — I mean, the entire freedom of religion, and the prevalence of the Voluntary System in America. M. de Tocqueville is a member of an established church in his own country, as well as myself : in either case, therefore, the testi- mony ofl'ered can scarcely be open to suspicion. The * Democracy in Ameiica. page 285. NOr OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 271 reader will doubtless permit me, in passing, to recom- mend to him the work, of M. de Tocqueville, if he is at all desirous of gaining a thorough knowledge of America and her institutions. M. de Tocqueville is decidedly the ablest European writer who has yet written on the subject — incomparably superior to the whole herd of common-place writers on America of our own country, including even the Marryats and the Martineaus, the Halls, and the Trollopes ; all of whom bring with them a whole host of petty prejudices of their own to the consideration of a subject which is evidently too magnificent for their intellectual grasp. There is one point on which the conscience of the American Government appears peculiarly alive to a sense of its interest and its duty ; I mean, the general education of the people. There is no country in the world in which such gigantic efforts have been made with reference to this great object as in America, con- sidering the circumstances of the country and the sparseness of its population. In the States to the northward of the river Potomac, nearly one fourth of the whole population is at school ;* and in those to the southward of that river, the proportion, although con- siderably smaller, is rapidly increasing. In some of the States there is a school-fund, arising from various sources, the proceeds of which are appropriated for the erection of school-houses and the payment of salaries to the teachers ; in the others, these important objects are met from the ordinary revenue. At the close of the revolutionary war, when it was found necessary to fix the boundaries of the several States, the State of Connecticut having claims, under its colonial charter, on lands in the West, agreed to • Such a proportion is incredible in Europe; but it must bo borne in mind, that in America, wliore there is notiiing, as in ihis country, to prevent early marringc8, the number of cliildrcn is far greater than it is in Europe. 27*2 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES compromise these claims for a tract of land equal to the actual extent of the State, or a hundred miles in length and sixty in breadth. It was agreed, moreover, at the recommendation of some patriot of the day, to appropriate the whole proceeds of the sale of this land, which was to be sold under the authority of the State, for the purposes of education. Shortly after the war, a considerable por- tion of it, being then supposed to be of little value, was sold for a mere trifle. It has since, however, been under better management, and the fund arising from the subsequent sales now affords an annual revenue amounting to one dollar and a quarter for each child, male or female, from four to sixteen years of age, in the State. Towards the close of the year 1838, the School Fund of the State of New York amounted to nearly two millions of dollars. The whole number of children taught in the State was 528,913; and as the whole number between the ages of five and sixteen amounted only to 539,747, it followed that 48 out of every 49 of these children were receiving education in the public schools of the State. The amount of public money dis- tributed to the school districts in the year 1839, was 335,882 dollars, while the sum paid by the people in addition to that amount was 477,848. There was, therefore, paid for general education, partly by the government, but principally by the people, in the State of New York, during the past year, a sum equal in British money to £172,917. The average salaries of the male teachers, paid from the School Fund, were about fourteen dollars a month ; and the average num- ber of children at school in each school district, was fifty-four. Education is, therefore, more generally dif- fused at this moment in the State of New York than it is even in Scotland. It is also worthy of particular observation, that the Holy Scriptures of the authorised version are read daily, NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 273 under tlie authority of the New York Legislature, in all the schools of the State. In the estimation of the Roman Catholics of New York, this is regarded as a great grievance ; as they find the association of their children with the Protestant children in the public schools of the State, extremely dangerous to the in- terests of Popish Christianity. It is only very recently that the Roman Catholics, who are chiefly foreigners from Ireland, have come to be of any importance, as a portion of the general population, in the State of New York : but as the two great political parties into which the general population is divided throughout the Union — the Whigs and the Democrats — are at present so nicely balanced, that the smallest additional weight gives the preponderance to either party, the Roman Catholics of New York have unexpectedly found them- selves, in a country in which they are really " aliens in birth, in language, and in religion," in precisely the same position as the Irish members of Parliament in England. Presuming on this accidental and adventitious import- ance, as a political party, the Roman Catholics of New York presented a petition to the Legislature during its annual meeting in May last, setting forth the grievance of having their children educated where the Protestant version of the Scriptures was publicly read, and solicit- ing an endowment from the State for schools of their own. Apprehensive lest, in the peculiar circumstances of the country as to political parties, this petition might be granted, or the admirable school system of the State be otherwise tampered with, the congregation of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in Grand-street, New York, of which the Rev. Dr. McElroy is the highly esteemed pastor, fell upon a notable expedient to defeat the pro- ject. That congregation had a school fund of their own, arising from a mortification or bequest, and amounting to 50,000 dollars, invested at seven per cent. It iiad, therefore, been enabled to expend in the gra- 274 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES tuitous education of youth, chiefly of Scottish parentage, upwards of 3000 dollars per annum ; its schools were in a state of great efficiency, and it had never received any assistance from the public treasury. In these cir- cumstances, a memorial was presented to the Legisla- ture by the pastor and congregation, setting forth what they had done, and were still doing for the education of youth, without having received any assistance from the State ; but soliciting that, in the event of separate endowments being granted for schools not under the general State managem.ent, their claims for such an endowment might be taken into favourable considera- tion. The Legislature, probably foreseeing from this application, that, in the event of their establishing a pre- cedent for separate endowments, there would be no end to applications of the kind, refused to grant the prayer of the Roman Catholic petition. In the State of Pennsylvania, which the Americans call the Key-stone State, and which, for its great ex- tent of eligible land, its mineral wealth, and its superior facilities for internal communication, is perhaps inferior to none in the Union, the Germans, who constitute about one-half of the entire population, have hitherto been rather a dead weight upon the energies of the community ; backward in regard to education, and un- willing to allow themselves to be taxed for internal im- provements, of which they can neither be made to appreciate the value, nor to discern the necessity. Where the Germans are settled in small communities, in the midst of an American population, they must ne- cessarily " go ahead," to use the American phrase, with the moving mass around them. But when they form the mass themselves, they prefer remaining stationary. Even, however, under these less favourable circum- stances, the cause of education has latterly been making prodigious progress in Pennsylvania, and the present aspect of the State is gratifying in the extreme. NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 275 By the census of 1830, the population of Pennsyl- tania was 1,348,233 ; and at the usual rate of increase in the United States — viz., one-third every ten years — it must now be 1,797,644. The superficial extent of Pennsylvania is 47,000 square miles — more than two- thirds the size of all England. Exclusive of the city and county of Philadelphia, which are under a different arrangement, the whole of this territory is divided into 1050 school districts, the rateable inhabitants of each of which have the power of taxing themselves for the support of education ; and in the event of their so do- ing, they receive from the State treasury a sum nearly equal to the whole amount of their assessment. The law establishing this provision was enacted so recently as the first of April, 1834,* and during the following year the whole number of children attending school did not exceed 100,000 ; whose average attendance dur- ing the year was under three months and a half. It ap- pears, however, from the able report of Francis Shunk, Esq., Superintendent of Common Schools, which was read in the House of Representatives, at Harrisburgh, Pennsylvania, March 2d, J 840, that during the four years that have since elapsed, the number of scholars has in- creased to 254,908, the average period of whose at- tendance at school is now upwards of five months ; the number of Primary Schools in the State being now 5G49. During the last four years, the sum of 624,549 dollars, or 132,725/. sterling had been expended exclu- sively in the erection of school-houses ; the whole ex- * The previous law of 1809 had established a free school in each district of the State ; but these schools were found exceedingly in- efficient. There arc still, however, 1G3 of the 1050 school districts that refuse to tax themselves under the new arrangement, and pre- fer tlie old law and the free schools. I suspect these districts are those chiefly that are inhabited by theCJcrnian population; for while the whole number of children attending school in the other districts is upwards of a quarter of a million, the whole number learning the German language is only 3,644. 276 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES penditure for primary education in the State of Penn- sylvania, during the year 1839, having been 128,522/. sterling. It has often been observed, however, that enthusiasts for education not unfrequently restrict their philanthro- pic efforts to common, or elementary schools ; regarding schools of a higher order as not entitled to the patron- age of the State. Happily for their country, the legis- lators of Pennsylvania have not evinced so illiberal and contracted a spirit. Rightly conceiving that a State re- quires for its honour and advancement, as well as for its general welfare, men of a higher intellectual standing than mere common schools are likely to produce, these truly liberal and enlightened men considered themselves bound to afford assistance from the public treasury for the establishment and endowment of Academies and Col- leges also. An act of the Pennsylvania legislature was accordingly passed in the year 1838, authorising an ap- propriation of 1000 dollars per annum to every univer- sity or college in the State, having an establishment of not fewer than four professors, and educating not fewer than a hundred students. And to establish a connecting link between these colleges and the elementary schools, a further appropriation was authorised, for all aca- demies, or high schools, in which Latin, Greek, and Ma- thematics should be taught ; such appropriation for each academy to be 300 dollars per annum, if only fifteen pupils were taught ; 400, if the number of pupils amounted to twenty-five ; and 500 dollars, if the num- ber should amount to forty, and the teachers be not fewer than two. Nay, while public provision for superior education in this country is confined exclusively to the male sex, the legislators of Pennsylvania, who deserve immortal honour for setting the noble example to the world, rightly considering that the female sex is pecu- liarly the bulwark of a nation's morals, and the guide of its youth, extended the benefits of the provision for the NOT OPEN TO THE CFIAUGE OF INFIDKLITY. 277 endowment of academies to Seminaries for females. In these seminaries, young ladies are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, rhetoric, his- tory, natural and moral philosophy, composition, hotany, chemistry, astronomy, French, Latin, Greek, mathema- tics, drawing, painting, and music. The average cost of tuition in a female seminary in Pennsylvania, is about 4/. sterling per annum ; the whole cost of a young lady's board and education in this superior style being under 2 7/. a year. The impulse which this admirable law, to which there is nothing similar in this country, has already given to the cause of superior education throughout the State of Pennsylvania, is truly astonishing. Academies and Fe- male Seminaries have been established, and are now in vigorous operation in all parts of the country, and col- leges that were struggling with difficulties before have had their establishments increased both in strength and in efficiency to qualify them for the govenuuent grant. The amount of this impulse, and its vast importance to the country, may be estimated from the following account of the sums issued to Academies, Female Seminaries, and Colleges, respectively, under the law of 1838, dur- ing the last two years. In 1838, issued to Academies . 3,790 dollars. 1839, ditto, ditto . . 21,329 ditto. In 1838, ditto, Female Seminaries, 700 ditto. 1839, ditto, ditto . . 8,413 ditto. In 1838, ditto, Colleges . . 3,500 ditto. 1839, ditto, ditto . . 9,2o0 ditto. The following is a list of the whole number of stu- dents, pupils, and scholars, at present receiving education in the State of Pennsylvania, in schools, or other educa- tional institutions, partially endowed by the State : — 2 B 278 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES In the University of Pennsylvania, and the other eight Colleges of the State, 1,1 70 students. In 52 Academies .... 2,652 pupils. In 29 Female Seminaries . . 1,044 ditto. In 5,649 Primary Schools . . 254,908 ditto. Total .... 259,774 The University of Pennsylvania, which is situated in the city of Philadelphia, is a highly respectable and most efficient Institution. Its revenues, arising partly from landed property, and partly from fees for tuitiouj, amount to upwards of 10,000/. sterling per annum. It combines a College for general literature, philosophy, and science, with a Medical Department, a preparatory Academy, and a charity School. The establishments of the college and m.edical school consist of seven profes- sors each : the academy has two superior teachers and four assistants ; and the charity school, two male teachers and one female. The following is the number of pupils and students receiving instruction in the University and its subordinate schools. College . Medical School Academy Charity Schools 111 students, 441 ditto 215 pupils. 138 ditto Total . . 902 I know of no city in the United Kingdom in which the number of benevolent institutions of all kinds is greater, in proportion to its population, than in the city of Philadelphia. The reader may perhaps ascribe this circumstance to the Quaker origin of the State of Pennsylvania : but it is not peculiar to Phi- NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 279 ladelphia ; it is the general characteristic of the cities of America.* In the city of Charleston, containing a population of only 40,000, of whom one-half are of African origin, there are not fewer than forty-five hene- volent institutions ; of which the oldest — the St. An- drew's Society, for supporting widows and educating or- phans — was formed so early as the year 1729. As an illustration, however, of the salutary influence which the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty uniformly exerts in the development of the kindlier affections, it is worthy of remark, that only five of these Charleston institutions, or one ninth part of the whole number, had their origin previous to the war of American indepen- dence. Of the benevolent institutions in the United States, of which I had occasion to see something of the work- ing and management during my short residence in the country, I would particularly mention, for their admir- able results, the Orphan House in Charleston, f the Asylum for the Blind in Philadelphia, and the Institu- tion for the Deaf and Dumb in New York. In the first of these institutions there is a chapel, in addition to the other places of worship J have enumerated in Charles- ton, in which the city clergy, of all denominations, ofliciate in turns once every Sabbath. The Roman Catholic clergy were, of course, allowed to have their turn with the rest ; but desiring to have the Roman Ca- * In no country in the world do the citizens make such exertions for the common weal, and I am acquainted with no people which has established schools as numerous and as cfFicicnt, jiluces o/ public tcorship better suited to iJie icants of the iuhuljitants, or roads kept in better repair." — j\[. de Tocijucvillc's JJemocnicy in America^ p. 7w. Second American Edition. New York, 1838. f Tlicre is a marble statue of the famous Earl of Chatham in front of the Ori»han House in CliarlcAton. It originally stood in a public sqviarc in the city ; but during a popular tumult of the Re- volutionary ciisis, when every thing Britisli was proscribed, it was thrown down from its pedestal and partially mutilated. The great Chatham did not deserve such treatment in America. 280 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES tholic children separated from the others to attend a separate Romish service in the chapel, it v/as not per- mitted, and they declined the honour of attending the institution altogether. In short, whenever the Roman Catholic priesthood in the United States find it imprac- ticable to have their own youth under their own exclu- sive management, they generally give them up entirely as lost sheep who have strayed irrecoverably into the Protestant fold. The freedom of mind which is neces- sarily engendered in America by political freedom and the freedom of religion, is most unfavourable for the maintenance and preservation of that mental thraldom by which Popery " lives and moves and has its being ;" and I now perceive, although I did not do so at the time, that there was much meaning and truth in the sentiment which I once heard uttered in the colony of New South Wales, by an honest Roman Catholic priest, since deceased, who had been stationed for several years in the United States, viz. that " America was the worst place for religion (meaning the Romish religion) in the world." Of the public institutions of Philadelphia, the Girard College is too remarkable, in one particular at least — the gorgeous magnificence of its buildings — to be passed over in silence. Its founder, M. Girard, was a French- man, who had long been settled as a banker in Phila- delphia, where he acquired a princely fortune ; of which he bequeathed the greater portion, to be held in trust by the city of Philadelphia, for the erection and endow- ment of a college. M. Girard had originally been the master of a small coasting vessel in the West Indies, and being on the coast of St. Domingo, on the breaking out of the insurrection of the negroes in that island, some of the French planters, who were meditating their escape from the island, placed a quantity of plate and other valuables in M. G.'s custody, with the intention of taking a passage in his vessel to America, Return- NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 281 ing, however, to their estates once more, they were mas- sacred by the negroes, and the property having thus no owner, fell into M. G.'s hands. It was with this pro- perty, whatever might have been its original amount, that he commenced business as a banker in Philadel- phia. The Girard College is intended for an Orplian In- stitution. The buildings, which are not finished, are all of Pennsylvania marble. They consist of a central building for College-halls, and lecture-rooms, and two detached buildings or wings, for the accommodation of tile orphans and professors, &c. The wings are compa- ratively plain buildings externally, and appeared to me to be scarcely in keeping with the central edifice, which I presume was designed on the plan of the celebrated Pantheon of Athens, and is a perfect model of chaste- ness and magnificence. Its general outline reminded me of the beautiful Madeleine Church in Paris, erected by Napoleon ; but there is no comparison of the two edifices in point of dimensions. Each of the magnificent columns that form the exterior colonnade of the edifice and support the rich entablature of the roof — and there are about thirty-six of them altogether — cost not less than 16,000 dollars. In short, I question whether there has been a more splendid building than the Girard College erected in any part of Europe during the pre- sent century. When the subject of the erection of the buildings of this Institution was under the consideration of the city authorities of Philadelphia, a narrow-minded member of the corporation proposed that no foreigner should be allowed to contract for their erection. A respectable Scotchman, settled in Philadelphia as an architect, was naturally somewhat annoyed at such a proposal ; but as my countrymen are seldom outdone, even by Jona- than himself, on such occasions, he managed somewhat adroitly to get it set aside, by inducing anolher member 2 B 2 282 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES of the corporation, who was his personal friend, to pro- pose as an amendment to the motion, that as M. Girard had himself been a foreigner, the city should have nothing to do with his money. The corporation of Philadelphia is at present entirely in the hands of the political party called the Federalists or Whigs, who were floated into office on the spring tide of the influence of the famous Bank of the United States. Every workman, down to the lowest labourer, at the College-buildings must, therefore, be an out- and-out supporter of Whig measures, otherwise the sovereigns of the people v)ill have no further occasion for his services. I was amused at the complaints which I heard preferred in Philadelphia against the W^hig cor- poration' by respectable and even literary men of the other party, on the ground of their having kept the college buildings back — as it was alleged they had — to secure the Votes of the numerous workmen in support of their faction, so much the longer. I had heard precisely the same complaints preferred about a week before by the Whig party at New York against the Democratic corporation of that city, who had also an extensive public undertaking — the Croton water-works ' — in progress under their management, and who natur- ally gave the preference to Democratic workmen. I be- lieve the charge was equally unfounded in both cases ; but the Americans having settled all their other political differences in an amicable manner, have still one to settle, which I fear wdll not be of such easy adjustment, viz., who shall be in, and who out of office. That, I believe, is in reality the main question with them at present. The President of the Girard college is Dr. Bache, a gentleman of high standing both as a literary man and as a man of science, and a grandson of the celebrated Benjamin Franklin. He has recently returned to Phi- ladelphia from a tour in Europe, whither he was sent by [ I NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 283 the city authorities, as patrons of the college, to in- quire into the whole system of education in the best managed institutions in the old world. He has just published an able Report on the subject, and is now ready to commence operations. The college buildings are in a sufficient state of forwardness for this, as the wings are quite finished even to the cooking apparatus in the kitchen. But as M. Girard's Will requires the college buildings to be completed before any pupils are received into the Institution, there are no classes in operation as yet. This has also formed a favourite subject of grievance among the gentlemen of the De- mocratic party against the Whig corporation ; but I leave it with the reader to decide whether the authori- ties are not justified in adhering to the express injunc- tions of the will ? The roof of the main building is now in progress, and will soon be finished. It is formed entirely of marble slabs ; and as the prodigious weight of a roof of this kind, extending over so great a surface as the immense pile presents, required arrangements for its support, such as American architects had not pre- viously required to make, a professional gentleman was actually sent over to Europe to examine the roofs of buildings of somewhat similar construction in the Old World, and to form his plan accordingly. I saw the working model and a number of the slabs, and have no doubt it will answer perfectly. There are not fewer than ninety-five Colleges or Academical Institutions for general literature, philosophy, and science in the United States. There are nine of these, including the University of Pennsylvania, in the Key-stone State ; each of which has an establishment of at least four professors, and educates at least a hundred students — having an endowment from the State of a thousand dollars per annum. Small as this endowment is, it affords a sufficient stimulus to such institutions in America ; and I only wish, from the bottom of my heart. 284 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES that all the others were equally well endowed. But there has hitherto been a most unreasonable prejudice in America against endowing, ivith the funds of the StatCy Educational Institutions of a higher kind than mere primary schools. I trust, however, that the re- cent and noble example of Pennsylvania will have its proper influence on all the other States of the Union, and cause this peculiarly Hunnish idea to be utterly exploded. Indeed, I have no doubt it will, for there is nothing so remarkable in America as the assimilating process of the country, in virtue of which, whenever a new principle or discovery in the science of government has been wrought out or successfully established in any one State, it becomes common property, and is sooner or later adopted by all the rest. It is also worthy of special remark, as illustrative of the general and salutary influence of Christianity under the Voluntary System in America, that although these colleges are, with only a very few exceptions, institu- tions for secular education exclusively, they are all under the influence and management of one or other of the great leading denominations of the country. Nay, unless one or other of these denominations makes itself virtually responsible to the public for the charac- ter and management of any particular academical insti- tution, no influence or wealth on the part of patrons and managers, no celebrity on the part of professors, no amount of permanent endowment, will ensure the suc- cess of that institution. The University of Virginia, founded and endowed through the influence and exer- tions of President JeiFerson, languished and became almost extinct, till a Christian influence was infused into its management ; then it " practised and prospered." And it is already predicted by not a few in Philadel- phia, that if the Girard College is to be conducted in accordance with the wishes, and in conformity to the spirit of the directions of its infidel founder, it will ere NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 285 long be little else than a splendid monument of folly. But I have no fear of such a result. The city authori- ties of Philadelphia, whether they be Whigs or De- mocrats in future, will, I am sure, be always sufficiently observant of all around them to discern that a college established and conducted on infidel principles can never succeed in America. This remarkable fact — I mean the necessity of a proper religious influence to secure the success of any academical institution in America — is strikingly illus- trated in the history of Harvard University in the State of Massachusetts, the oldest of the academical institutions of the United States, and, I believe, the best endowed. It was founded in the year 1638, and its buildings, which are situated in the village of Cam- bridge, near Boston, have an air of venerable antiquity which is scarcely to be seen any where else in Ame- rica. Its library amounts to 42,000 volumes, and the large Gothic Hall that has recently been erected for its accommodation is one of the finest rooms for a library I have ever seen. Having, unhappily, fallen, however, under Unitarian influence since the commencement of the present century, Harvard University has entirely lost its character among the orthodox denominations of the United States, and no eff'orts on the part of its managers, in the way of endowing professorships, &c. (and the Uni- tarians have exhibited instances of splendid liberality in this way) have availed to attract any thing like the num- ber of students that would otherwise have gladly availed themselves of its many advantages. The neighbouring institution of Yale College in Connect:cut, although of more recent origin, and not nearly so well endowed, has double the number of students, and has therefore a larger revenue, and far greater celebrity. In short, whenever the American voluntaries find that an acade- mical institution has fallen under the management of 286 THE VOLCTNTARY SY'STEM IN THE UNITED STATES men in whose Christianity they can have no confidence, they immediately " stop the supplies," and send their youth somewhere else. Tliey know that as " the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but know not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth, so is it with the Spirit of God ; " but they know also that that Spirit never cometh from a Unitarian university. Something of a similar kind has also taken place in regard to Columbia College, in the city of New York, which has latterly fallen under the exclusive influence and management of the Episcopal church. In the State of New York, that Church has always been distinguished for its High Church principles, and has recently become a mere hotbed of Puseyisra. In such circumstances, the Presbyterian denominations, who form the majority of the inhabitants both of the city and State of New York, having lost all confidence in the management of the Columbia College, set to work a few years ago to establish another institution, and ac- cordingly founded the University of New York ; the Rev. Dr. Matthews, of the Dutch Reformed Church, being the principal promoter of the undertaking. They have already completed a splendid building of polished stone for the Institution, containing hails, lecture-rooms, library, &c., with a commodious chapel elegantly fitted up ; and I have no doubt that, in a few years, they will have it sufficiently endowed. Of the colleges for General Literature, Philosophy, and Science in the United States, the one in which I took the greatest interest was that of Princeton, New- Jersey ; of which those truly eminent philosophers and divines, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the Rev. Samuel Davies, and the Rev, Dr. Witherspoon had successively been presidents. The course of instruction, however, is pretty much the same in all the American colleges, and I shall therefore subjoin a short programme of that of NOr OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 287 Princeton, to afford the reader some idea of American college education. The buildings of Princeton College, New Jersey, are of stone, plain but substantial.* It has no endowment from the State, and its capital has recently been con- siderably reduced by the erection of additional build- ings to increase its efficiency. It therefore depends al- most entirely on the funds derived from tuition. The number of students is 270, of whom 2o0 reside in the college, and the rest in private lodgings, or with their relatives in Princeton. Candidates for admission to the Freshman, or lowest class, are examined in Csesar's Commentaries (5 books,) Sallust, Virgil, (Eclogues, and Six Books of the vEneid,) Cicero's Select Orations contained in the volume in Usum Delphini, Mail's Introduction to Latin Syntax, the Gospels in the Greek Testament, Dalzel's Collec- tanea Gra3ca Minora, or Jacob's Greek Reader, or other Authors equivalent in quantity, together with Latin and Greek Grammar, including Latin Prosody ; also, on English Grammar, Arithmetic, Geography, ancient and modern. In all cases, testimonials of moral character are re- quired ; and if the student has been a member of another college, he must bring with him a certificate from the President or Faculty, that he is free from cen- sure in that institution. The Faculty consists of the Rev. James Carnahan, D.D., President. * It may be interesting to the friends and graduates of the college, and to those who have subscribed to tlie Alumni fund, to be in- formed that, in addition to the new college buiUlings erected witiiin a few years, the Literary Societies have erected for their own use two new halls. These arc beautiful buildings of the Ionic order, sixty- two feet long, forty-one feet wide, and two stories high; the columns of the porticos arc copied from those of the Temple on the Ilissus, A Temple in the Island of Teos is a model of the buildings in other respects. — Princzton College Catalor/ue. 288 THE VOLUXTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED sTATES Rev. John Maclean, AM., Vice President, and PrO' fessor of the Greek Language and Literature. Rev. Albert B. Dod, A.M., Professor of Mathema- tics. Joseph Henry, A.M., Professor of Natural Phi- losophi/. Rev. James W. Alexander, A.M., Professor of Belles Lettres and Latin. John Torrey, M.D., Professor of Chemistry. Benedict Jager, A.M., Professor of Modern Lan- guages and Lecturer on Natural History. Stephen Alexander, A.M, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics, and Lecturer on Astronomy. Evert M. Topping, A.M., Adjunct Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages. ^^'illiam S. Cooley, A.M., Tutor. Joseph Owen, A.M., Tutor. James C. Moffat, A.M., Tutor. Charles K. Imbrie, A.M., Tutor. The whole course of instruction requires four years ; namely, one year in each of the four classes into which the students are divided. The Freshman and Sophomore classes are instructed by the professors of ancient and modern languages, and of mathematics, aided by the tutors. The junior and senior classes by the president and professors. The studies of the several classes are as follows : FRESHMAN CLASS. Winter Session. Summer Session. Livy, Horace (Odes,) Xenophon's Anabasis, iEschines de Corona, Roman Antiquities, Latin and Greek Exercises, Latin and Greek Exercises, Algebra completed. Algebra (Davies' Bourdon.) not open to the charge of infidelity, 289 Sophomore Class. Winter Session. Summer Session. Horace (Satires and Epistles,) Cicero de Officiis, de Demosthenes de Coronii, AmicitiA, et de Senec- Latin and Greek Exercises, tute. Geometry (Playfair's Euclid,) Homer's Iliad, Plane Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical Tri- Elements of History. gonometry, vvitli their applications (Young's) Mensuration, Surveying, Navigation, Nautical Astronomy, History. Junior Class. Winter Session. Summer Session. Analytical Geometry, Integral Calculus( Young's) (Young's) including Conic Mechanics (Renwick's Sections, additions,) Descriptive Geometry, Cicero de Oratore, DifFerentialCalculus( Young's) Sophocles, Cicero de Oratore, Natural Theology, Euripides, (Paley's,) Philosophy of Mind, Civil Architecture. Evidences of Christianity. Senior Class. Winter Session. Summer Session. Belles Lettres, Moral Philosophy, Logic, Natural Pliilosophy, Moral Philosophy, Astronomy, Political Economy, Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Constitution of the United Latin Rhetorical Works, States, Greek Tragedy. General Review of Studies. 2 c 290 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES Instruction in the French, Spanish, German, and Italian languages is given at the option of the Student, without extra charge. All the classes have Bible recitations on the Sabbath, during which day they are also required to prepare a portion of the Greek Testament, to be recited on Monday morning. All the students are required frequently to produce original essays. Those of the three lower classes pro- nounce orations in alphabetical order in the presence of their respective classes. The members of the Senior class deliver orations of their own composition as often as the Faculty may direct. In addition to the recitations of the several classes the following courses of lectures are delivered on the principal branches of science and literature, namely, a course on Moral Philosophy Rhetoric and English Literature Astronomy Chemi'-try . Mineralogy Botany Zoology Geology Mechanical Philosophy Physics Architecture Political Economy Greek Literature By the President. By Prof. J. W. Alexander. By Prof. S. Alex- ander. By Prof. Torrey. ditto. By Prof. Jseger. ditto. By Prof. Henry. ditto ditto By Prof. Dod. ditto By Prof. Maclean. Four public examinations take place during the col- lege year; one in the middle, and one at the close of each session. Reports respecting the behaviour, dili- NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 291 gence, and scholarship of the students are sent to the parents or guardians after each examination. EngHsh Grammar, Arithmetic and Geography, being required for admission, are not included in the college course of instruction ; but in order to secure attention to these studies, indispensably necessary in every situa- tion in life, the classes are examined on them four times a year, and deficiencies, if any exist, are reported to parents and guardians. The College Library contains eight thousand volumes, and is opened twice every week for the accommodation of the students. In the Libraries belonging to the two Literary Societies there are about /bwr thousand volumes. The total number, therefore, of volumes in the three libraries is about twelve thousand. The College possesses a valuable set of Philosophical, Astronomical, and Chemical apparatus ; a well-selected Mineralogical cabinet ; a Museum of Natural History, and a large collection of Drawings for the illustration of the lectures on Architecture and Astronomy. The Philosophical Apparatus has lately been en- larged by an importation of instruments from Europe. The Mineralogical Cabinet was originally established by the late Dr. Hosack of New York, and has recently received an important addition from the liberality of the Hon. Samuel Fowler of New Jersey. The Museum was founded by the late Elias Boudinot, LL.D. of New Jersey, and has lately been extended by the exertions of Dr. Torrey and Professor Jaeger. The former has presented a thousand specimens of plants from the vicinity of Princeton, and the latter has made an extensive Entomological collection. The stated expenses of the College each session, paid in advance, exclusive of books, clothes, lights, room- furniture, and travelling expenses, are as follows, viz. 292 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES Winter Session. Summer Session. Dollars. Dollars. Board, 22 weeks 55 00 Board, 19 weeks 47 50 Tuition 20 00 Tuition 20 00 Room Rent 6 00 Room Rent 6 00 Fuel 13 00 Fuel 50 Library 1 00 Library 1 00 Servants' Wages 4 00 Servants' Wages 4 00 Washing 7 00 Washing 7 00 Incidental Expen 2 50 Incidental Expen. 2 50 108 50 88 50 The following is the distribution of the students for the years 1838 and 1839 : — Resident Graduates .... 7 Seniors Juniors Sophomores Freshmen 75 90 74 24 Total 270 I have selected the preceding particulars of the four years' course of academical education at Princeton Col- lege, New Jersey, from the Catalogue of the Officers and Students of that Institution for the year 1 839. The reader, who is at all acquainted with the Scotch Univer- sities, will at once perceive that the course at Princeton, which all candidates for the ministry in the American Presbyterian Church must pass through before entering a Divinity College, is at least as comprehensive as that of any university in Scotland. The system of super- intendance is certainly much more efficient in the American college, and the course, instead of five or six months, as in Scotland, occupies more than nine NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 293 months of every year. The professors at Princeton are all members, and some of them ordained ministers, of the Presbyterian Church. In the department of Natural Philosophy, Professor Henry has obtained a European fame. The Americans disapprove of having more than from two to three hundred students in any one college, whether for general literature or for divinity. They conceive that the professors cannot have such an intimate personal knowledge of the students as is desirable for their general welfare when the number is greater ; that they cannot do justice to a greater number, and that larger associa- tions of young men are peculiarly dangerous to the morals of all. These disadvantages they consider but ill compensated by any diminution of the mere expense of education which a larger institution might render practicable. I believe they are perfectly in the right. One remarkable feature in the whole system of Ame- rican education is the attention which it devotes to ora- tory. It is the grand object of the republican college to make the student a public speaker — to furnish him with valuable matter in the first instance, and then to enable him to bring it out with effect. With this view, recitations,and other oratorical exhibitions, form a regular and systematic part of the course of academical instruc- tion. This is doubtless as it should be, in a country where the whole nation is one vast mass of impressible matter, and where the prizes of oratory are so splendid. The Ame- rican student is taught from tiie first, whether he is edu- cated for the Christian ministry or not, that he has great and important objects to gain through the right exercise of the gift of public speaking ; and he tlierefore accus- toms himself right early to the use of the weapon, like the man who is learning the noble art of defence, be- cause he knows he will soon have to fight for his life. It is remarkable, accordingly, with what fluency and propriety Americans of all classes address public meet- 2 c2 294 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES ings with very slight preparation. I have always thought that the opposite defect — inattention to the art of pub- lic speaking — was one of the grand sins of omission in the modern Scotch system of education, especially in the case of candidates for the ministry. I have myself known young men who, during their whole course of eight years' attendance at a Scotch college, with a view to the Christian ministry, never thought of exercis- ing themselves in this art at all — as if oratory was an innate accomplishment ! During my stay at Princeton, I visited the burying- ground of the Presbyterian Church, to muse for a mo- ment over the grave of Jonathan Edwards. The former presidents of the college are all interred alongside of each other in the order of their incumbency ; each grave being covered with a flat tombstone, bearing a suitable inscription. The first is that of Aaron Burr, the father of the notorious Colonel Burr, vice-president of the United States. Then follows that of the great philoso- pher and divine* — then Samuel Davies — then Dr. John * The following is a copy of the Latin inscription on the tomb- stone of Jonathan Edwards : — M. S. reverendi admodum viri, JOXATHAX EDWARDS, A.M., Collegii Novae-Caesareae praesidis, uatus apud Windsor, Connecticutensium, V. Octobris, A.D. MDCCIII., S. V., Patre revcrcndo Timotheo Edwards oriundus, collegio Yalensi ediicatus, apud Northampton, sacris initiatus, XV. Februarii. MDCCXXVl. Iiliuc dimissus, xxii. Junii MDCCL. et munus barbaros instituendi accepit, Praeses Aulae X'assoviae creatus xvi. Februarii, MDCCLVIII. Defunctiis in hoc vice, xxii. Martii sequentis, S. N. aetatis Iv. heu, nimis brevis! Hie jacet mortalis pars. Qualis persona quaeris viator? Vir (oipore ]>roceio, sed gracili. NOT OP2N TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 295 Witherspoon — then Dr. Robert Findley. It is a pecu- liarly interesting spot, from the hallowed associations which it calls up. I was sorry to observe, however, that the state of the burying-ground is not so creditable to all concerned as it ought to be. I cannot say I ap- prove highly of the modern practice of transforming church-yards into pleasure-gardens, like the cemetery at Auburn, near Boston, and the one recently formed at Baltimore ; but it is surely still less accordant with pro- priety to allow them to be neglected. The following is a list of the denominations to which the ninety-five American colleges virtually belong, with tlie number under the influence or management of each denomination — Presbyterians .... 57 Congregational Presbyterians . 8 Roman Catholics . . . 10 Methodists .... 8 Baptists ..... 7 sludiis intcntissiniis, abstinentia, et sedulitate attenuato. Ingenii acuniinc, judicio acri, ct prudentia, sccundus ncuiiiii mortaliuni. Artium libeialiuni et scicntiaruin pcritia insignis, ciiticoruin sacrorum optiunis, theologus cximius, Ut vix alter acqualis, disputator candidus; jRdei cliristiaiiae propiignator validus ct iiivictus; concionator gravis, serins, discriuiinans; et Deo favente, succcssu felicissinius. I'ieiatc piaeclurus, nioiibiis siiis sevcrus, ast aliis acqiuis ct bcnigniis, vixit dilectus, veiieratus — sod all ! higendus nioricbatur. Qiiantos geinitus discedciis ciebat ! lieu sapient ia taiita Hen doctrina et rcligio ! Amissum plorat collegium, ]dorat et ecdc-ia ; at, CO iccepto, gaudet cocluin. Al>i. Viator, ct pia sequerc vestigia. 296 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES Episcopalians .... 4 Unitarians .... ] After the preceding review, two things must be suffi- ciently evident to the reader, in regard to education in the United States — first, that the Americans are making prodigious and unparalleled efforts in the cause of edu- cation ; and, secondly, that education in America par- takes much more of a religious character and influence than it does in our own country. The result of this state of things is a general diffusion of intelligence throughout the American community, and a general de- mand for it quite unprecedented in England. And this demand is not confined to mere newspapers, of which, indeed, the number published in the United States far exceeds any thing of the kind in the mother country ; it extends to works of general literature, and especially to religious publications. Every work of celebrity in England is immediately re-published in America, in a surprisingly cheap form, and circulated extensively all over the Union, but especially in the Northern and Mid- dle States. The valuable series of historical and other works published in England under the title of the Family Library, was lately republished, with additions and im- provements, by an American publisher, to the extent of a hundred volumes. Of this extensive publication, not fewer than 6000 copies, or 600,000 volumes, have been sold. A large number of these copies was purchased on account of the State of New York ; the legislature of which having made an appropriation of 55,000 dol- lars annually, for five years, for the purchase of books to form district libraries throughout the State, presented a copy of this extensive publication to each school-district library. In regard to the sale of other works, both of general literature and practical divinity, — D'lsraeli's Cu- riosities of Literature, Madame de Stael's works, and those of Drs. M'Nish and Combe, have all had a re- markably extensive sale in the United States. Of Fos- NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 297 ter's Essays, an edition of 5000 copies was sold in one summer. Home's Introduction has also had an extensive sale. Of John Newton's works, in six volumes octavo, an edition of 2000 copies was sold in one year, although another edition, published by another bookseller, was selling at the same time. Of John Howe's works, 4000 copies have already been sold. Of Miss Sinclair's two works, entitled " Modern Accomplishments" and *' Views of Society," 1500 copies of each have been sold. Scott's excellent Commentary has had a much more extensive sale in America than in England ; and of Hannah More's Private Devotion 40,000 copies have been sold in the United States. Of Jay's Evening and Morning Exer- cises, 5000 copies were sold the first year. Of Dr. Symington of Glasgow's work on the Atonement, 2200 copies have already been sold, although the author was previously unknown in America. Dr. Dick of Dundee's former works were so extensively sold in the United States, that when his last work, entitled " The Sidereal Heavens," was announced, an American publisher paid 80/. for the exclusive privilege of havins; the sheets sent out to him as they came from the press, that he might have the start of the other American publishers ; although the work sells for not more tlian half a dollar. Of Barnes'* Notes on the Gospels, a work of two volumes of about 400 pages each, the 16th edition of 2000 copies each is now selling. Of Fisher's Explana- tion of the Assembly's Catechism, the fourth edition of 3000 copies each is now on sale ; and of a work of 240 pages, called a Key to the Catechism, nearly 20,000 copies have been sold. 1 have already alluded to what was styled " The Volume Enterprise of the American Tract Society." That society published, during the past * A distinguislifil Ainciicun Presbyterian minister in IMiilidil- ]»liiii, of whom I shall have occabiuu to speak more iKirlieuhiriy m llic next ehaptcr. 298 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES year, a series of fifteen volumes of practical divinity, comprising works of Baxter, Bunyan, and various other divines of that school. The volumes were neatly bound in cloth, of a small duodecimo size, containing each from 300 to 400 pages of letter-press, and costing singly half a dollar. Now, of these volumes there were sold in various parts of the United States, during the past year — some in whole sets, and others in single vo- lumes — not fewer than 300,000 volumes ; and the very manner in which they were sold, viz., by men of known piety, who took the trouble not only to distribute them at cost price, but to exhort the purchasers to make a right use of them, ensured their perusal. Recollecting, therefore, that the state of things I have described in reference to education in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, the two principal States of the Union, is at least equalled by that of the Vt'hole of New England ; and recollecting also that the other States that are still behind in their public provision for education, are fast following the noble example of the Empire and Key- stone States, — it must be evident to the reader that the lugubrious wailings of Captain Mari-yat and others on the progress of the democratic principle in America, and the probable consequences of universal suffrage in that country, are not less hypocritical on the one hand than they are uncalled for on the other. That it would be dangerous to try the American experiment in this coun- try I grant. I willingly admit that it would indeed be dangerous to the stability of the throne and the liber- ties of the people of Great Britain to establish universal suffrage in the United Kingdom ; in which, — through the long mismanagement of a government and an Established Church that have never had a conscience between them, — a large proportion of the entire popu- lation, as in England, and a still larger, as in Ireland, have been left to all appearance almost destitute of that faculty which Dr. Watts tells us " distinguishes man NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 299 from his fellow- creatures the brutes."* But is it either just or candid to compare with so degraded a popula- tion the sovereign people of the State of New York— - where 48 out of every 49 who are fit for school are actually at it ; where a wise and paternal government are employing every available means of informing the understanding and improving the hearts of the people ; and where rehgion allures the youth of the country to the house of God, not with the paint of State patronage on her mercenary cheek, and the meretricious trappings of secular adornment thrown around her haggard form to conceal her chains, but with a warm and beating heart and a countenance beaming with all the charities of heaven ? For my own part, I confess I entertain no fears whatever from universal suffrage in America ; provided it is always to be accompanied, as I presume it will, with these two things, — universal education and entire freedom of religion. The history of mankind affords innumerable instances of kings and nobles who have both betrayed and enslaved their country. But I challenge Captain Marryat to point out a single instance in the history of man in which a well-educated and Christian people ever did either the one or the other. In short, I entirely agree with the Americans in think- ing that a man's liberty, like his property, is safest in his own hands ; and I am very much disposed to agree with them also in thinking that it is not safe at all any where else. The general pitch of the intellect of a nation may be guessed at with tolerable accuracy from their poli- tical songs ; for as these effusions are intended to influ- ence the great body of the people — at least, wherever they possess political influence or power — they are necessarily adapted to the taste and intellect of those to whom they are addressed. On stepping into the * Watts's Logic, chap. i. 300 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES Steam-boat one morning at New York, on my way to Philadelphia, I purchased one of the daily papers from a boy who was hawkmg them about among the passengers at a penny each ; and on glancing over it I was struck with the two following party-songs of the day, which I subjoin as a specimen of the intellectual standing of the American people, and which the reader will of course compare with the party-rhymes that occasionally appear in the columns of the Times and the Chronicle. I am not answerable, however, for the sen- timents they contain, as it is solely for their intellectual character as poetical effusions that I refer to them at all. To render them, intelligible, however, to the English reader, I must inform him that there is a great excite- ment at present throughout the United States on the subject of the election of a President, which takes place early next year ; Mr. Van Buren's term of four years expiring on the 4th of March next. The Fe- deralists, or Whigs, as they are called, who comprise the mercantile interest generally, desire to elect as Presi- dent, General Harrison, of Ohio, the son of a revolu- tionary soldier, and a man of eminence both as a states- man and a military leader. I have seen a paper which General Harrison addressed, when American Charge d' Affaires at Bogota, to General Bolivar, on the policy which it would be prudent for that great man to recom- mend, or rather to adopt, in the organization of the new Spanish republics. It was evidently the production of a man of superior intellect, and the sentiments it ex- pressed were not less worthy of a Christian than of a Roman. Tippecanoe was the scene of a battle which he fought with the Indians of the west, towards the close of last century, at a time when they had organ- ized an extensive confederacy to massacre all the white inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi, and fell upon the American outposts without warning. The NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 301 Democrats, or supporters of tlie existing administra- tion, who consist chiefly of the agricultural portion of the community, desire, of course, to re-elect Mr. Van Buren, who is eligible, by the constitution, for another term of four years. Both parties, however, in so far as I could ascertain, are equally attached to the constitu- tion and to all the main principles of their republican government. They differ only in matters of detail ; the principal question that divides them being whether they should have a great National Bank or not, — the Whigs approving of such an institution from the facili- ties it affords to commercial transactions, and the Demo- crats decrying it, from its having been abused, as they allege it has, in times past, as a source of dangerous political influence, and employed to encourage ruinousspe- culation. I confess there is much to be said on both sides of the question ; but as I took no interest in the subject, I would not venture to offer any opinion on its merits. THE SOLDIER OF TirPECANOE. (^Irt American Whij Som/.) The stars are bright, and our steps are light, As we sweep to our camping ground, And well we know, as we forward go, That the foe fills the green wood round ; But we know no fear, though tlie foe be near, As we tramp the green wood through, For oh ! have we not for a leader got The Soldier of Tippecanoe? Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? Now the deep green grass is our soft mattrass Till tlie beating of rcveilh'c; No light's in our camp but the fire-fly lamp, No roof but the green wood tree. Brief slumber we snatch till the morning watch ; But one eye no slumber knew ! One mind was awake for his soldiers' sake, 'Twas the Soldier of Tippecanoe. Chorus — For oh ! liave we not for a Vadcr got The Soldier of Tippecanoe? 2 D 302 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES The faint dawn is breaking, our bugles are speaking. Quick rouses our lengthened line ; Sweet dreams are departing, the soldier is starting, And welcomes the morning shine. But hark ! 'tis the drum ! the foe is come, Their yells ring the dark wood through : But see ! mounted, ready, brave, cautious, and steady, The Soldier of Tippecanoe. Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got The Soldier of Tippecanoe? Now nigher and nigher, though hot is their fire, And ceaseless the volleying sound, We press down the hollow, and dauntlessly follow, Then tramp up the rising ground. With death-stealing ardour we press them yet harder. And still as they come into view, " Now, steady, boys steady ; be quick and be ready 1" Cries the Soldier of Tippecanoe. Chorus— For oh ! have we not for a leader got The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? Down, down drop the foe, and still on we go, And each thicket and dingle explore ; Loud our shrill bugles sing till the wild woods ring And their rifles are heard no more. Now weave the green crown of undying renown, For the Patriot and Hero's brow. And write his name with "the halo of Fame, The Soldier of Tippecanoe. Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? THE DEMOCRATIC RALLY. CAn American Democratic Song.) Awake to the sound : 'tis the soul thrilling cry That Freedom breathes forth from her high mountain dwelling ; It sweeps the green earth — it ascends the calm sky. On the mild chainless breezes triumphantly swelling ! The voice of the past, It is blent with the blast — While the forms of our sires on the bright clouds are cast : Then Democrats rally — the battle is near; And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 303 Give the name of the villain to Time's ceaseless stream, Who led the base van of corrupt legislation : May Beauty ne'er bless him, nor virtue's pure dream, Foul canker and stain on the brow of our nation ! The Traitor, the Knave, The Trimmer, the Slave — The Apostate to all that survives the grim grave ! Then Democrats rally — the battle is near — And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. Oh ! gaze on those vails where our fathers repined, When Hope droop'd her wings through the long gloomy morrow. No shackles their proud spirits ever could bind. Alone for their country they sighed out their sorrow. Then think of the past — Nail our flag to the mast, Let our note of defiance ring loud on the blast ! And like them let us rally — the battle is near — And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. Go forth to those fields where our brave fathers stood Beneath our starred flag in the dawn of its glory, Where free as the fountain they pour'd out thtir blood, Where Liberty smiled as she blazoned their story. The same flag is ours — It waves o'er the bowers Where fame bound their brows with eternity's flowers. Then Democrats rally — the battle is near — And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. A firm band of brothers all solemnly sworn To march to the fight in the grey of the morning; The rccieant ^Miic/s a.nd their gag-law we scorn — Let traitors and tyrants be wise at our warning ! Our franchise, our cause — Full rights and just laws — We'll die for them all, or we ask no applause ! Then Democrats rally — the battle is near ; And shame on the dastaid who shrinks back in fear. Now, I presume tlie reader will agree with me in thinking that the men who require such compositions as these to induce them to vote either way on a political question of importance to their country, are men of a somewhat different standing in society, both as to in- 304 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES tellect and to worldly circumstances, from the great majority of the Socialists and Chartists and wild Irish of our own happy land. Instead, therefore, of the vain and insensate attempt to arrest the progress of demo- cratic principles and institutions in America, through the influence of bribery and corruption, as Captain INIarryat, — the moralist, forsooth — recommends, it would be wiser to take into timely consideration what this American people will do to our own people in the latter days. " The Christian nations of our age," says M. de Tocque- ville, " seem to me to present a most alarming spectacle ; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided : their fate is in their hands ; yet a little while, and it may be so no longer." " The first duty which is at this time imposed upon those who direct our affairs, is to educate the democracy ; TO WARM ITS FAITH, if that be possible; to pu?'ify its tnorals ; to direct its energies ; to substitute a knowledge of business for its inexperience, and an acquaintance with its true interests for its blind propensities ; to adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it in com- pliance with the occurrences and the actors of the age." * The American people already amount to seventeen millions and a half ; and agreeably to the uniform rate of increase in the United States during the last fifty years, as exhibited in an able statistical document drawn up by — Verplanck, Esq., and read lately before the Al- bany Institute, in the State of New York, viz. one- third every ten years, and double every twenty-four ; they will amount in the year 1864 to thirty-five mil- lions, and will thus in twenty-four years hence outnum- ber the entire population of Great Britain and Ireland. And in the year 1888, before this generation shall have passed away — should the present constitution of things subsist so long in the world — they will amount to seventy * Democracy in Amciica. Introduction, page 16. NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 805 millions, and outnumber the entire population of Great Britain and France together. And what though the Union should be dissolved in the meantime ; what though the North should be separated from the South in the United States, or the East from the West? In that case there will only be two or three great republics for one ; there will be no change in the form of govern- ment, no change in its institutions. " What is understood by republican government in the United States, is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself. It is a regular state of things really founded upon the enlightened will of the people. It is a conciliatory government, under which resolutions are allowed time to ripen ; and in which they are deliberately discussed, and executed with mature judgment. The republicans in the United States set a high value upon morality, respect religious belief, and acknowledge the existence of rights. They profess to think that a people ought to be moral, religious, and temperate, in proportion as they are free. What is called the republic in the United States, is the tranquil rule of the majority, which after having had time to examine itself, and to give proof of its existence, is the common source of all the powers of the State. But the power of the majority is not of itself unlimited. In the moral world, humanity, justice, and reason enjoy an undisputed supremacy ; in the political world, vested rights are treated with no less deference. The majority recognise these two barriers ; and if it now and then overstep them, it is because, like individuals, it has passions, and, like them, it is prone to do what is wrong, whilst it discerns what is right.'"* Whatever, therefore, be the issue, in regard to the permanence of the present United States' (jovernment, or its dissolution, and the consequent formation of other republics from its integral parts, it is at least certain that * Democracy in America, page 396. 2 d2 306 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES, &C. the distance of America from Europe has now virtually been diminished one-half through the agency of steam, and that the intercourse between the two worlds, and the interchange of thought and sentiment between their respective inhabitants, will henceforth, through that agency alone, be incomparably greater and more fre- quent than in times past. In fact, America is only now beginning to exert an influence upon the European mind. What, then, will be the issue and result of that influence during the next half century ? Why, I have no doubt whatever, that long before the termination of that period, the full tide of democratic influence that is already setting in with a yearly increasing force and volume from the great Western world upon our shores, will sweep away in succession the law of primogeniture in Great Britain, and the law of entails, hereditary legis- lation, and the Established Church. Tlie British throne may still subsist, however, and stand as firmly as ever, when all these, its fancied bulwarks and the sureties for its stability, are gone. There will still be a place for it in the hearts of this great nation ; and it will not be the fault of the people, but of their rulers, if it should be otherwise. It well befits those, however, whom it principally concerns, to prepare themselves beforehand for the coming struggle ; when the men, whom we drove out from amongst us with the strong arm of persecution in the seventeenth century, will, in strict accordance with the principles of the retributive justice of Him, "who visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation," come back upon us with the moral and resistless influence of their edu- cated millions, to " overturn, overturn, overturn," in our land. The only way to mitigate the violence of this struggle is to do justly in the meantime, to love mercy, and to walk humbly ivith God. CHAPTER VII. SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL RELIGIOUS DENOMl- NATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. Those bodies of professing Christians in the United States who, although differing from each other in name and in certain minor peculiarities, are nevertheless almost entirely agreed in the great points of doctrine, discipline, and worship, and may be comprehended under the general term, Presbyterians, are by far the most numerous and beyond all comparison the most influential of all the religious denominations in North America. The Methodists and Baptists are certainly more numerous than the Presbyterians proper, I mean, those who belong to the two General Assemblies of the American Presbyterian Church ; but they are far out- numbered by the united bodies who, although ranked under separate and independent organizations, still hold with the Presbyterians in all the great points of doctrine, discipline, and worship, and yearly acknow- ledge this common ground of brotherhood by sending delegates or corresponding members to their synods or assemblies. " Every religion," says M. de Tocqucville, " is to be found in juxta-position to a political opinion which is connected with it by aflinity. The greatest part of British America was peopled by men who, after having shaken off the authority of the pope, acknowledged no 308 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL Other religious supremacy : they brought with them into the new world a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This sect contributed power- fully to the establishment of a democracy and a republic ; and from the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."* Agreeably to this philosophical and just idea, I observe that of the three forms of church government under which all the Protestant denominations of Chris- tendom may respectively be ranked, the political opinion, to which the system of Episcopacy stands in juxta-position, and with which it is connected by affinity, is monarchy ; the system of Diocesan Episco- pacy having a strong elective attraction for unlimited monarchy, or " the right divine of kings to govern wrong." Presbyterianism, on the other hand, unques- tionably stands in juxta-position to Republicanism,'!' * Democracy in America, 20(1 Amer. Edit. New York, 1838, page 2o2. -f- It is amusing to hear the Americans talking on these subjects : " The constitution of the Presbyterian Church," observes the late Dr. Rice, of Virginia, " is fundamentally and decidedly repvJjlican, and it is in a very happy measure adapted to that particular modifi- cation of republican institutions which prevails in the United States. This is too plain to require demonstration ; the slightest attention being sufficient to convince any one that our ecclesiastical constitution establishes in the church a representative government. Hence the more decidedly a man is a Presbyterian, the more decidedly is he a Republican. So much is this the case, that some Christians of this society, fully believing that Presbyteiy is de jure divijio, consider this as decisive evidence that Republicanism is of divine institution ; and are persuaded that they should grievously sin against God by acknowledging any other form of civil govern- ment. This is mentioned for the sake of showing what influence the sentiments which men hold in relation to the church have on their political opiBions. By the way, a most interesting volume might be written by a man of talents and learning on the political influence which various religious systems have had in the world," — RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 309 and Independency to Democracy. The loyalty of any Christian man, however, especially under a free govern- ment, and his attachment to the peculiar constitution under which he lives, will not be affected in the slightest degree by the circumstance of his belonging to any one of these Christian denominations rather than another : the American Episcopalians are as thorough Republicans as any other Christian denomi- nation in the Union ; and the Presbyterians and Inde- pendents of the United Kingdom will not yield to any other denomination in Great Britain, as staunch sup- porters of the British throne. As it was the influx of Presbyterians into the Middle J llustrations of the Character and Conduct of the Preshi/terian Cliiirch in Viryinki. Bij John Holt R'u\\ D.D.^ j\Iiiiistcr of the Fir.4 Preabi/terian Church, Hiehinond, Virginia. Richnioitd, If} 10'. As every oue has his own theory in these matters, my theory for m:iuy years before I visited America was that, as the system of Republicanism had a strong tendency to nurture the pride of the human heart, it was not the political system, so to speak, of Chris- tianity, which goes directly to humble the pride of man. On seeing Kepublicanism and Christianity in actual alliance, however, in America, I was constrained to modify this theory very much. For I confess I did not find such exemplifications of the principle I have mentioned as I anticipated : and tiie reason is obvious ; for where all men are placed on the same footing as to political privileges, there is nothing of that kind that any man can indi- vidually be proud of. It is in England, where the republican hopes to bring down lords and dukes to his own level, tliat pride finds something to feed on in that system. At all events, the simplicity of manners which results from the alliance in question is a most remarkable feature in American society. If Mr, Jacob Astor, for instance, the wealthiest citizen of the United States, who lives not- withstanding in a plain though genteel house in Broadway, in New York, were setting up a coach and four, and dressing out his servants in the harlequin attire in which the English nobility and gentry dress out their lacqueys, — I suppose to show the world that tiiey arc an inferior breed of human beings. — he would excite no indignation in the respectable portion of the community; he would simply bo laughed out of society as a man who had lost his senses and was fit for Bedlam. 310 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL States of the American Republic during the latter half of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth, century, that gave their peculiar tone and character to these States, and in great measure to the whole Union, it is worthy of remark, in connexion with this historical fact, and as a further illustration of the correctness of M. de Tocqueville's principle, that the spirit of the Presbyterian system has evidently gone hand in hand with the genius of the Repubhc in exerting a plastic influence on the other forms of Christianity in the country, and in modelling their institutions into some- thing like conformity to those of the Presbyterian Church. I have already pointed out the remarkable coincidence between the New England Congregational and the Presbyterian systems in giving to the aggrieved minority of any particular church the right of appeal to the church generally, which the system of English In- dependency uniformly denies, — thereby acknowledging, in one most important particular, the union and coni' munion of saints. Indeed, the unity of action which has hitherto characterised the New England churches; their strength and vigour, evinced in such cases as those of the Rev. Mr. Fisk and the Rev. Mr. Sherman ; and the high character, as to ministerial qualifications, which their clergy have uniformly maintained — are to be ascribed in great measure to the Presbyterian elements of their ecclesiastical constitution. But this plastic influence is still more remarkably ex- hibited in the American Episcopal Church ; which, in direct opposition to the semi-popish dogmas of certain pseudo-reformers in our own country, has incorporated into its system the two great Presbyterian principles of popular election and lay-representation. The pastor of each church in this body is uniformly elected by the people ; and is uniformly accompanied also in his an- nual visit to the State or District Convention, in which the general afl^airs of the church within the State or RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 311 district are transacted, by a lay delegate from his par- ticular congregation, who sits and votes with the clergy on behalf of that congregation, in all matters of common concernment to the church ; the bishop, who presides in the Convention, being himself elected to his office by the clerical and lay members of which it is composed. The Convention serves as a court of appeal to both clergy and people, either against the act of the bishop, or in any other case of grievance whatever ; the ag- grieved party having a still further appeal from the State Convention to the General Convention of the whole American Episcopal Church, wliich is similarly constituted, and meets triennially. In short, the sys- tem of church government in the American Episcopal Church is totally different in its principles from that of the Church of England, and coincides entirely with the comparatively liberal system recommended by Arch- bishop Usher in the reign of Charles the First. Nay, even the Lutheran Church in America, which numbers not fewer than a thousand congregations, has experienced the same plastic influence to which I have been adverting ; for, while it retains the Confession of Augsburg, it not only rejects Luther's peculiar doc- trine of consubstantiation, but has completely divested itself of the German apparatus of General Superintend- ents or Bishops, and become thoroughly Presbyterian ; its affairs being under the superintendence of a General Synod, wliich holds friendly communion with the other branches of the American Presbyterian Church. During my stay in the United States, 1 had the plea- sure of meeting with the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, Presi- dent of the Lutheran Divinity College at Gettysburgh, Pennsylvania, who has been labouring zealously for several years past to bring about a general union of evangelical Christians of all denominations in America. An American by birth, but of German parentage, Dr. S. speaks the English and German languages with equal 312 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL fluency, but greatly prefers the latter for pulpit orator)-. He has published a work entitled a " Fraternal Appeal to the American Churches, with a Plan for Catholic Union on Apostolic Principles," which is evidently the production of a man of talent and learning, deeply im- bued with all the charities of genuine Christianity. It has reached a second edition, and has already excited considerable attention to its important subject on the part of Christian men of high standing, of various deno- minations in the United States ; a society having been formed in New York for the promotion of its object, of which the office-bearers are the leading men of all the great Protestant denominations in the Union. It must be acknowledged that in America, where there is no National Establishment to form an insurmountable wall of partition between those who are within and those who are without its pale, the prospect of realizing the consummation which Dr. Schmucker so ardently desires, is much more favourable than in this country. And, I am happy to add, that, without any relaxation of at- tachment to their own peculiar views of our common Christianity, there is a growing disposition on the part of the members of the different evangelical communions in America, to regard each other as " branches " of the same spiritual " vine ;" members of the same body, of which Christ is the living Head ; and fellow-travellers to the same glorious land of immortality. All that is necessary in the case is to cultivate such a spirit, and to extend its influence. It is not necessary by any means to " remove the ancient landmarks" of particular churches. On the contrary, the grand object of Chris- tian union will be the more easily attained that they are suffered to remain. As the important principles of popular election and lay representation in the government of the church, which I have shown are held by the American Episcopalians, in common with all the Presbyteria-i denominations in RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. S I ;J the United States, have recently been held up by cer- tahi of those pseudo-reformers, to whom I have already alluded, as an innovation upon the constitution and practice of the primitive church, it may not be out of place to subjoin the following quotations from an autliority to which, I presume, tiiese persons will bow with all deference, as it is that of no less distinguished a personage than a Confessor to the King of France. In his able " Discourse on the History of the First Six Centuries of the Church," prefixed to the eighth volume of his " Histoire Ecclesiastique :" Paris, 17 '2 7: M. Fleury, an able and learned m.ember of the Gallican Romish Church, observes, in regard to the election of bishops in the primitive church : — " Le choix se faisoit par les eveques les plus voisins, de I'avis du clerge et du peuple de leglise vacante. C'est a dire, par tons ceux qui pouvoient mieux con- noitre le besoin de cette eglise. * * * Aussitot on sacroit le nouvel evcque, et on le mettoit en fonction : mais on avoit tellement egurcl au consent evient du pevp/e, que s'il refusoit de reccvoir im tvtque, aprts qu'il etoit ordonne, on ne Vy contraignuit pas, et on lui en donnoit un autre qui lui fut agreahle^ In short, the appointment of the clergy in the pri- mitive church was exclusively in the iiands of the Christian people ; for, although M. Fleury contends for a clerical nomination, the consent of the people, he allows, was a sine qua non; and their rr/o, wiiiiont assigning reasons, was sufficient to set aside even an actual ordination to a particular church. In regard to the character and office of the primitive bishops, and the extent of their dioceses, M. Fleury observes : — " Entierement occupez de Icurs fonctions, ils ne son- geoient pas comment ils etoient vctus ou logez. Ils ne donnoient pas meme grande application au temporel de leur eglise : ils en laissoient le soin a des diacres et des oeconomes, mais ils ne so dechargeoient sur per- 2 E V 314 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL Sonne du spirituel. Leur occupation etoit la priere, r instruction, la correction, lis entroient dans tout le de- tail possible ; ct c est par cette raison que les dioceses etoient si petits ; afin q'un seul homme y fut siiffire et connoiti'e par lui meme tout son troupeau. Pour faire tout par autrui et de loin, il n'auroit fallu q'un eveque dans toute I'eglise." In short, the bishop was required to have a particular knowledge of every individual member of his flock, as well as of his particular case and circumstances ; and the dioceses were sufficiently small to enable him to ac- complish this. In other words, the primitive bishop w'as merely the minister of a moderately sized parish, like those of the Presbyterian Church. Nay, M. Fleury adds, that in the management of the spiritual affairs, even of these small parishes, the ancient bishops were assisted, like the modern Presbyterian clergy, by lay elders, who were not usually allowed to preach. " II est vrai, qu'ils avoient des pretres, pour les soula- ger meme dans le spirituel, pour presider aux prieres et celebrer le saint sacrifice en cas d'absence ou de maladie de I'eveque ; pour baptiser ou donner la peni- tence en cas de necessite. Quelquefois meme I'eveque leur confioit le ministere de la parole : car re- gulierement il n'y avoit que I'eveque qui prechoit ; les pretres etoient son conseil et le senat de I'eglise : elevez a ce rang pour leur science ecclesiastique, leur sagesse, leur experience. Tout se faisoit dans Veglise par conseil: parceqiCon ne chercfioit qua y faire regner la raison, la regie, la volonte de Dieu." * * Discours sur I'Histoire de Six Premiers Siecles de TEglise ; par M. Fleury. Histoire Ecclesiastique, tome Sieme. Paris, 1727. Dr. Kenrirk (Roman Catholic Bishop of Arath) of Philadelphia, in a treatise in the Latin language recently published at Philadel- phia, to which I shall afterwards have occasion to refer more parti- cularly, asserts broadly that the practice which M. Fleury shows to have been universal during the first sis centuries, is contrary EELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 315 In short, the primitive Bishop and the Presbyters of his small diocese, who constituted the council or senate of the church for that diocese, were precisely of the same ecclesiastical standing as the modern Presbyterian minister and lay-elders constituting the Church Session to the universal opinion and practice of tiic ancient Christian church : — "Calvinus arguitur a Wilsone, prseconeipso scctse, quod ad opti- matum conciliandum gratiam, laicos seniorcs regimiuis feccrit participes, contra totius antiquitatis Christianae sensum cL morem." " Who shall decide when (even Romish) doctors disagi-ee ?" I presume, however, that the French confessor is a somewhat better authority in regard to the opinions and practice of the primitive church than the American coadjutor Bishop. It was not, however, to conciliate the chief men of Geneva, that Calvin instituted, or rather restored, the office of the eldership in tliat city. The fact is, that having endeavoured to purge the roll of communicants of unworthy persons, Calvin, like Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton, •was driven into banishment from Geneva, by a popular tumult; and it was during his absence of four years in Strasburgh, where he officiated during that period as Professor of Divinity, that he became acquainted with tlie ancient and apostolic institution of the eldership, which he found had been preserved among the persecuted Protestants of the Alps from the primitive times. On returning to Geneva, Calvin embodied this institution of the Waldenses into the constitution of the Presbyterian church, and thus obtained the Buppnrt of the Christian laity, througli their own representatives, for the enforcement of discipline. AVhen in Strasburgh, in the spring of the year 1837, I attended divine service in the French Protestant church of St. Nicholas, in which Calvin had officiated during his residence in that city. The congregation consisted chiefly of females, among whom there was a considerable number of persons of the class of maid-servants from Switzerland. Tlie discourse was evidently written, but delivered in a most appropriate manner from memory, and in style and general character it was a production of considerable ability. The subject was the immortality of the soul ; which the preacher endeavoured to piove by showing that if it were denied, the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God must be denied also. I am sorry to add, however, there was not a single syllable about Christianity in it from beginning to end ! JIow rhani/eJ, 1 could not help thinking, was the preacher /roin llaU //t'c^or who had once occupied the same pulpit; and how utterly Useless his harangue to his unfortunate congregation ! 316 SKETCH OF THE PKINCIPAr. or ecclesiastical court of a particular parish.* Nay, M. Fleur}^ highly approves of this primitive and Pres- byterian plan of submitting all matters concerning the church to a council thus constituted, and reprobates the idea of the bishop or clergyman deciding on such matters in virtue of his own individual authority. " Les eveques avoient toujours devant les yeux le precepte de Saint Pierre et de Jesus Christ meme, de ne pas imiter la domination des rois de la terre, qui rend toujours au despotique. N'etant point presomp- tueux, ils ne croyoient pas connoitre seuls la verite ; ils se defioient de leurs lumieres, et n'etoient point jaloux de celles des autres. lis cedoient volontiers a celui qui donnoit un meilleur avis. Les assemblees out cet avantage, qu'il y a d'ordinaire quelqu'un qui montre le bon parti, et y ramene les autres, on se re- specte mutuellement, et on a honte de paroitre injuste au public : ceux dont la vertu est plus foible sont sou- tenus par les autres. II n'est pas aise de corrompre une compagnie : mais il est facile de gagner un seul homme, ou celui qui le gouverne ; et s'il se determine seul, il suit la pente de ses passions, qui n'a point de contrepoids. D'ailleurs, les resolutions communes sont toujours mieux executees : chacun croit en etre I'auteur, et ne fait que sa volonte. II est vrai qu'il est bien plus court de commander et de contraindre ; et que pour persuader il faut de I'industrie et de la patience : mais les hommes sages, humbles, et charitables, vont tou- * It does not alter the case in the slightest degree that the pres- byters or elders of the primitive church were styled " clergy" as \yell as the hishop. It is the status and office that are of consequence ; the mere name or designation is of no moment. The presbyters or elders of the ancient church were appointed in the same manner and for precisely the same purposes as the spiritual functionaries who are designated lay-elders in the Presbyterian church ; and the modern Presbyterian minister is as much the bishop of his diocese or parish as any primitive bishop ever \vas, and holds his office ou as good a title as any such bishop ever did. RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 8 1 7 jours au plus sur et au plus doux, et ne plaignent point leur peine, pour le bien de la chose dont il s'agit. lis n'en viennent a la force qu'a la derniere extremite. " Ce sont les raisons que j'ai pu comprendre du gou- vernement ecclesiastique. En chaque eglise I'eveque ne faisoit rien d'important sans le conseil des pretres, des diacres, et des principaux de son clerge. Souvent meme il consultoit tout le peuple quand il avoit interet a I'affaire, comme aux ordinations." — Ubi supra. After this able Roman Catholic vindication of the Presbyterian practice in transacting the affairs of each particular church in a council composed of the bishop or minister, and the elders or representatives of the people, it will not be necessary to spend much time in exposing the ignorance and presumption of Captain Marryat, in ascribing the prevalence of this primitive practice in the leading denominations in America to the evil and innovating influence of the Voluntary system. If that system has indeed been instrumental, as 1 grant it has, in bringing back the American churches, almost universally, to what so unprejudiced a witness as M. Fleury informs us was the uniform practice of the Chris- tian church for the first six centuries of its existence, — I mean in reference to the election of the clergy by the people, and the participation of the laity in the government of the church — it is one of the best arguments in favour of that system which has ever been adduced.* • " Another great evil, aiising from t/ie prctiliarih/ of the Vohtn- tari/ Stfs/nn, is lliat in miiuy of tlie principal sects, the power has been wrested from the clergy and assumed by the laity, who exercise an inquisition most injurious to the cause of religion ; and to such an excess of tyranny is this power exercised that it depends upon the laity, and not upon the clergy, whether any individual shall or shall not he admitted as a communlaint at the Uible of our Lord." — AfarritufsDian/^p. 203. Anier. Edit. Why, even in Scotland, where there is no Vnluntary System. Dr. Chalmers himself was under precisely the same restraint a« a Pies- •1 K -2 318 SKETCH OF THE PRIXCIPAL The following is a list of the various religious denominations that may be classed under the general designation of Presbyterians in the United States ; the first division including those bodies whose whole system of doctrine, discipline, and worship coincides entirely with that of the Church of Scotland, while the other two, coinciding with the rest in doctrine and worship, differ only in this, that their church courts, or ecclesiastical councils, derive their authority, not from any inherent power, but from the force of public opinion, and the practice of the church. I. Presbyterians Proper : — Churches. Ministers. 1. Amer. Presb. Church; 1st Di- vision, or Old School . . 1823 1435* 2. Amer. Presb. Church ; 2nd Di- vision, or New School 3. Dutch Reformed Church 4. German Reformed Church 5. Cumberland Synod 6. Associate Synod 7. Reformed Sjmod 8. Associate Reformed II. Congregational Presbyterians III. Lutherans • 1286 12861 200 200 600 200 500 450 183 87 40 20 214 116 1300 1150 1000 400 Total . .7146 5344 The whole of these bodies are agreed in holding the great doctrines of the Protestant Reformation — the divi- nity of Christ ; the total depravity of man ; atonement liyterian clergyman. The Voluntary System has nothing to do with tlie matter; it is simply the law and practice of the church, under tlie Preshyterian discipline, that the admission of members shall take place with the consent of the eldership, * Including 192 Licentiates, t Including 105 Licentiates. 2 E 2 RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 319 for sin, through the death of Christ ; the necessity of re- generation, through the influences of the Spirit of God ; justification by faith alone. The Dutch Church holds the Confession of the Synod of Dort, and the Lutherans that of Augsburg ; the others receive as their standard of doctrine the Westminster Confession of Faith. I am aware, indeed, that doctrines have been promul- gated, of late, in two of the New England colleges, which have been regarded as heretical by orthodox Presbyterians. I am also aware that something like Pelagianism has recently been taught, in various quarters, in the Second or New School Division of the American Presbyterian Church ; but, from the uniform result of my own frequent inquiries, in all parts of the Union which I visited, I was led to believe that these heretical doctrines were confined only to a few ; and that the great body of the clergy and people, even in that division of the Presbyterian church against which the charge of heresy has been preferred, were still firm and unshaken in their attachment to the doctrines of the Westminster Confession. The charge of heresy had, at all events, been preferred against individuals of the Presbyterian clergy, at a time when there were various other exciting questions agitating the American Presbyterian church ; and it appeared to me, that, in such circumstances, the one party was as much inclined to aggravate the alleged heresies, as the other to over- step the bounds of propriety in tlirowing the shield of their protection over the individuals who had broaclied them. Accustomed as I had been, from my youth up, to the lean, gaunt form of Scottish orthodoxy, with neither a heart nor a soul beneath its ribs of death, and witii its apron of fig-leaves tucked around it to cover the nakedness of tlie land, 1 confess it was not less novel to me, than it was extremely gratifying, to witness the vigour and the life, the piety and the zeal, the self- 320 SKETCH OF THE PEINCIPAL denial and the self-devotedness, that evidently charac- terized both sections of the American Presbyterian Church. In such circumstances — it may have been a weakness in me, I confess, and some of my excellent friends of the Old School may doubtless think it so ; but in such circumstances — I was not disposed to hunt for heresy in America. The past year has been a year of great revival in the churches of the evangelical communions in the United States, especially m New England and New York ; not fewer than a hundred and forty localities, situated in eleven of the States, having experienced " refreshing from the presence of the Lord." The shock which the whole mercantile community of the Union had just ex- perienced, from the circumstances of the times, proved highly favourable to solemn reflection, and led multi- tudes of gay and thoughtless persons to "consider their ways ;*' and many, whom the providence of God had called to mourn over the ruin of their worldly fortunes, or the disappointment of their worldly hopes, w^ere thus enabled to find that pearl of far greater price, which they had never dug for in the field of mercantile spe- culation. In this important crisis, the Presbyterian clergy of the New School were unquestionably zealous and successful, in a very high degree ; an exceeding great number having been added to their churches, on the profession of their faith, in the city of New York alone. One of their revivalist preachers, the Rev. Mr. Kirk, formerly a missionary in France, from the Ame- rican Foreign Evangelical Society, was beyond measure zealous and devoted, during the revival — preaching in the Broadway Tabernacle, and elsewhere, almost every evening in the week, to audiences of upwards of two thousand persons. I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Kirk on one of these occasions, as well as afterwards, in Philadelphia. He is evidently a man of a highly cultivated mind, possessing a brilliant imagination, pe- RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. S'i 1 culiarly adapted for pulpit oratory, and animated with a burning and apostolic zeal. There was nothing ex- travagant in his discourses ; nothing but earnest and impassioned appeals to the understanding and the heart. Certainly, there was no semblance of heresy of any kind. As it was chiefly the case of the Rev. Albert Barnes, minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Phila- delphia, who had been accused of Pclagianism, that had led to the recent division of the American Pres- byterian Church into the two General Assemblies of which it is now composed, I felt naturally desirous — notwithstanding my aversion to enter deeply into the heresy question — of ascertaining what sort of person an American Pelagian was ; and, as I had been accus- tomed to see Pelagianism in Scotland uniformly ex- hibiting the cheerless aspect of a frozen lake in the midst of a wintry forest, with no sign of vitality on its cold and glassy surface, I confess that, in going to hear Mr. Barnes, I was prepared for something of a similar kind. Mr. Barnes is a man of middle age and middle size, of dark complexion, with a countenance strongly bearing the impress of study and intelligence. His manner is by no means characterized by energy; on the contrary, it seems rather flat and cold at first. His voice seldom rises above a moderate pitch, and his language is very rarely impassioned. And yet, he manages, somehow, to get hold of the attention of his audience at once, and to retain a firm grasp of it to the last. I heard Mr. Barnes twice. On one of these oc- casions, the subject of his discourse, which was one of a series on the divine attributes, was. The Mercy of God, from the text, " Tlie Lord God, merciful and gracious." In the outset of his discourse — the object of wiiich was, 1st, to illustrate the nature of mercy ; and, 'ind, 322 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL to prove that God was a merciful Being — Mr. Barnes remarked, that there was nothing so frequently in men's mouths, especially when religion was the subject of their conversation, as the mercy of God ; and the cur- rent phraseology, which described the mercy of God as " his darling attribute " — a phrase for which there was no Scriptural warrant — showed that mercy was the attri- bute of the Divine character, to which men were uni- versally inclined to look as their source of hope, and on which they were disposed to place their reliance. Very inadequate conceptions, however, prevail on the sub- ject. The infidel, for example, trusts to God's mercy, because he thinks it would not be I'ight for God to punish men at all for what he considers their venial offences. Ihis was not trusting to God's mercy ; it was trusting rather to his justice. The case was the same with the formal professor of religion, and with the Universalist — (this heretical sect was making some efforts to attract notice in Philadelphia at the time) — these persons think it would be wrong for God to punish men for ever, for their sins in this life. It is God's justice, therefore, and not his mercy, that consti- tutes the ground of their hope. Mercy, Mr. B. proceeded to show, signifies favour extended to the guilty. No government could subsist if mercy were to be extended to all the violators of its laws. The law would, in that case, lose all power ; all reverence and respect for it would be at an end. On the other hand, if there were no provision for the exercise of mercy, hope would be excluded, on the part of the violator of the law, and despair be the result. It was necessary, therefore, that the attribute of mercy should belong to the Executive under every government. It was equally necessary, however, that the exercise of mercy should be limited ; and the grand difficulty, in all human governments, was how to make the proper adjustment. RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. ^23 Under the second head of Discourse, Mr. Barnes en- deavoured to prove that God was a merciful Being : 1. From the direct testimony of Scripture on the subject ; adducing a variety of passages declaratory of the mercy of God, and concluding the enumeration by reminding the careless and indifferent hearer, that if he continued to turn a deaf ear to the voice of God in these declarations, there would assuredly come a time when he would give all the universe, if he possessed it, to have one of these declarations proclaimed in his hearing. 2. From the state of things around us in the world. It was evident from all around us that we were living under a dispensation of mercy. The Bible represents men as guilty in the sight of God ; as condemned al- ready. But compare the manner in which God treats those who are thus declared, under his own hand, to be violators of his law, with the manner in which man treats the violators of his law. He had lately visited one of the State Prisons, and had there observed how man treated the violators of his law. The criminal was secluded from the world, and confined to a cheerless solitary cell ; his food and bed were of the coarsest description ; his clothing a garb of degradation. He was cut off from the society of his own relatives, and prevented from holding converse with his fellow-criminals, the last con- solation of the wretched. He was condemned, more- over, to unremitting labour, without compensation ; with an eye of vigilance ever upon him, and armed men upon the walls of his prison to prevent his escape. This was the way that man treated the violators of his laws. But how different was the manner in which God treated the violators of his ! If God were not a merciful Be- ing, justice would uniformly overtake the criminal in- stantaneously. The sword would strike innnediately after the crime was committed. But it was evident, from innumerable instances, that, after tiie most flagrant 324 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL violations of God's laws, men were permitted to live at ease and in the midst of enjoyments. Far removed from the scenes of their criminality, year after year was suffered to roll over them, and to leave them undis- turbed in the possession of all that the world affords to promote the comfort and the happiness of men. Nay, even when death came upon them at last, it came di- vested of many of its terrors ; the couch of the dying man was surrounded by weeping friends ; the wife or the daughter was there to administer kindness and conso- lation, and ever and anon to wipe away the cold per- spiration as it gathered on his brow. This was the way in which God treated the violators of his law ; and who could doubt from the fact that he was a God of Mercy ? 3. From the death of Christ. Who ever heard of any thing parallel to this manifestation of the Divine mercy ? A King giving his Son — his only Son — to save a criminal from punishment ? And to such a death — nailed to a cross, his hands and feet transfixed in the tenderest parts with iron spikes — his forehead crowned with thorns driven into his temples — exposed to ignominy, contumely and excruciating pain — and superadded to all this, a degree of mental suffering and sorrow, of which we can form no conception! In short, the minister of the Gospel could take his stand at the foot of the cross, even if he had no other ground to occupy, and proclaim to the world that the Lord was indeed a God of Mercy. 4. From the circumstance that many have actually obtained mercy : appealing to the testimony of holy men in all ages, as well as to that of every Christian man of his own congregation or of their acquaintance ; all of whom testified, each for himself individually, that thev had obtained mercy at the hand of a merciful God. Mr. Barnes then reminded the careless or profane worshipper, that all the arguments that go to prove that RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 325 God is a merciful Being, and that we live under a dis- pensation of mercy, go to prove also that if we reject the offers of God's mercy now, in our accepted time and day of salvation, and be consigned at last to that place of punishment to which God will finally consign the impenitent violators of his law, we shall find that there is no mercy there — nothing but endless and hopeless despair ! Mr. Barnes then concluded with an earnest exhorta- tion to all present to close with the otfers of God's mercy, while it was yet in their power ; reminding them that not only the Spirit of God invited them in the most affectionate language, but the bride or spouse of Christ — the members of his church militant on earth, and the members of his church triumphant in heaven, all of whom had obtained mercy themselves — invited them in the tendercst manner to come and take freely of the water of life. The conclusion of the discourse was deeply affect- ing, aild was well calculated to make a strong impres- sion on the highly respectable congregation to which it w^as addressed, and which must have amounted to about fifteen hundred persons. I kept my eye too intently on the preacher to see much of the congregation ; but a lady and gentleman in the seat immediately before the one I occupied were both dissolved in tears. Such, then, was what I found in the First Presbyte- rian Church in Philadelpliia, where, from the alleged Pelagianism of the preacher, 1 was prepared for some such heartless and cheerless scene as that of the Drnd Sea in the East, where no angel ever comes down honi heaven to trouble the waters, and where the Spirit of God moves not on the face of the deep. I need scarcely inform the reader that I was not a little, though most agreeably, disappointed. In short, Mr. Barnes was by far the most effective preacher, and the man of the most original mind, I heard in the United States. '2 F 326 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL Of the three hymns sung in the course of the service the one after the sermon was Cowper's well known and highly evangelical hymn, " There is a fountain filled ■u-itli blood, Dra-^-n from Immanuers veins, &c." The one immediately before the sermon was the fol- lowing revivalist hymn, which appeared to be rather a favourite with Mr. Barnes, as it was sung on both of the occasions that I attended divine service in his church. I cannot speak highly of its poetry, but there is surely nothing like Pelagianism in the sentiments it conveys. The music was exquisite. I. " The voice of Free Grace cries, ' Escape to the mountain T For Adam's lost race Christ hath opened a fountain : For sin and transgression, and every pollution, His blood flows most freely in streams of ablution.' CHORUS. Hallelujah to Him who hath purchased our pardon ! We 11 praise Him still more "when we pass over Jordan ! H. From Jesu's pierced side it flows like a river, Bringing pardon and peace to the guilty for ever. Though your sins were increased as high as a mountain, His blood is sufficient : O come to this fountain ! Hallelujah, &c. HI. Blessed Jesus, ride on ; thy kingdom is glorious ! O'er sin, death and hell, thou wilt make us victorious. Thy name shall be praised in the great congregation ; And thy people exult in songs of salvation. Hallelujah, &c. IV. When in Zion we stand, having gained the blest shore, With our harps in our hands, we shall praise him still more : We will range the bless'd fields on the banks of the river, And sing Hallelujahs for ever and ever ! Hallelujah, &c." RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 327 There doubtless have been extravagances of various kinds on the part of some of the revivalist preachers of the New School, and most unsound doctrine has un- questionably been preached and even published by some of them ; but that the body is right in the main, and that it will be able eventually to purge off this leaven, I firmly believe. For my own part, 1 have long regarded self-devotedness and self-denial as the chief points of orthodoxy in any church, without which, in- deed, all the rest are of no value ; and I have long considered the want of these cardinal virtues as the greatest of all the heresies that can afflict the Christian church. Now, it appeared to me, that the members of the New School Assembly were just as unexceptionable on these main points as those of the Old ; and it was allowed on all hands that the benetits that had resulted from their instrumentality in many parts of the Union were incalculable. It may be proper, however, to enumerate very briefly the circumstances that led to the recent division of the American Presbyterian Church into two bodies. The American Presbyterian Church having increased within the short period of half a century from under 200 to upwards of 2-200 ministers, it was naturally to be expected that, in its supreme ecclesiastical court, or General Assembly — composed as it was of delegates from all parts of a country as extensive as the half of Europe — considerable variety of opinion would prevail on matters of mere subordinate arrangement, and tiuit the advantages to be derived from the Assembly as a Court of Appeal would be less obvious the more its boundaries were extended, and the number of its mi- nisters increased. Such, accordingly, was the fact : the Assembly became too unwieldy ; parties having oppo- site measures to advocate sprung into existence, and a struggle for power was the result. " As to one Supreme lleprcsentative Both/^' observes the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, in his " Fraternal Appeal," 328 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL •• having even limited jurisdiction over all the confede- rated bodies, there was none such in the apostolic age, and we need none. The tendency of such bodies is naturally to an increase of power — they are the foster- mothers of papacy, and dangerous to true liberty of conscience." Coinciding in this opinion, and foreseeing the re- sult of the actual state of things in the Presbyterian church, the Rev. Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, recom- mended in the year 1832, that the subordinate synods should be constituted supreme ecclesiastical courts for their respective bounds, and the General Assem- bly divested of all appellate jurisdiction, and trans- formed into a mere advisory body. Such a course would have been in perfect accordance with the prin- ciples of the Presbyterian polity, and was naturally suggested by the circumstances of the case. Indeed, it appears to me that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction ought, from the first, to have been confined as it has always been in New England, within the bounds of the civil authority, and a separate and independent Presbyterian Church constituted in each, at least, of the larger States. Such churches would have exhibited a unity of sentiment and a unity of action which were not to be expected in one great unwieldy body, com- posed of men of such different views on many minor points, as those of the East and the West, the North and the South in America. I entirely agree with Dr. Schmucker, in thinking that the idea of one great Re- presentative body, to have jurisdiction over all the churches of any one communion in so vast a countiy as America, is objectionable on all the three grounds he has enumerated. After the General Assembly had co-operated for many years with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and the American Home Mission and Education Societies, — all of them originally New England institutions, — a large proportion of the minister RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 329 and elders who constituted the Assembly conceived that the Presbyterian Church should have Boards of its own for these objects, and that such Boards would command, to a much greater extent than mere volun- tary associations, the confidence and the sympathies of the church generally. They conceived, moreover, and I apprehend rightly, that they were bound to prosecute these objects as a Christian church, rather than as a voluntary association ; and that their doing so would tend to infuse new life and vigour into their body, and to excite a stronger interest among their people on behalf of the missionary work and the general propa- gation of the gospel. The rest of the members of the Assembly maintained, however, that the formation of such Boards was uncalled for ; that the management of boards, and funds, and agencies was not the proper work of the Christian ministry ; that the patronage and the power they would create were dangerous to the purity of the church, and that as the voluntary associa- tions with which they were connected were working well, it would be much better to maintain and strengthen than to dissolve that connexion. It is impossible not to respect the men who dilfer on such points, on such grounds as these. In the Assembly of 183i, the party who preferred having separate Boards had a majority, and engagements were accordingly made, on the part uf that Assembly, to carry their views into effect. In tiie following year, however, the other party having the majority, the votes of the Assembly of 1835 were rescinded, and the engagements into which tiiat Assembly had cntoreter8 of the three denominations they belong to — -"Sill coincided in assuring me of the uniform tendency and effect of an endowment in tliesc churches as being that of lowering and progressively c.xtinguisliing the principle of benevolence in the church that enjoys it. I sub- mit it to the Christian reader, whether a tree which uniformly pro- duces such fruit can be of Christ's planting. 340 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL As there were no Savings' Banks, however, in these primitive times, the worthy Dutchman ordered a hol- low globe of cast-iron to be made for him in Holland, with a small aperture, sufficient to admit a small piece of money. In this domestic bank. Mynheer Haberdinck and his wife regularly deposited their savings ; and when it refused to admit a single stiver more, the stout Dutchman took a sledge hammer, and broke the bank, and, with a part of the money, pur- chased a small farm of eight acres, near the little town of New York, which was then in the market. This farm he afterwards bequeathed to the Dutch Church in New York, making his wife's sister his residuary lega- tee. The little farm is now in the centre of the modern city, and constitutes a property worth from two to three millions of dollars. This property is held in trust for the church by the Consistory, and grants from it are regularly made for the erection of additional churches of the Dutch Reformed com.munion in the city and neigh- bourhood. The representatives of the residuary le- gatee, however, have lately endeavoured to establish their title to the greater part of the property, under the English statute of mortmain, which incapacitates a church from inheriting real estate to an amount greater than £500 sterling, per annum. The suit was insti- tuted in the Court of Errors in New York, but was decided in favour of the church, on the ground of ninety years' possession, by a majority of 22 to 17. All the old and experienced judges, however, gave their written opinion in favour of the claimants, who have since car- ried their claim into the Supreme Court of the United States. The gentleman who informed me of the cir- cumstance — a merchant of New York, of Dutch extrac- tion — added, that some of the more influential members of their communion think they would be better without the property altogether, as it really does them more harm than good. The Dutch Reformed communion RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 341 have a Theological Seminary or Divinity College at New Brunswick, New Jersey, and they support mis- sionaries both in China and France. A large portion of the German emigrants, both of the Lutheran and German Reformed communions, in the United States, consist of Rationalists ; but it is a sin- gular fact, as illustrative of the working of the Volun- tary System, that Rationalism has been quite unable to establish a footing for itself in America. With the ex- ception of a single Rationalist church in Philadelphia, the whole of the American German clergy, both of the Lutheran and Reformed communions, are evangelical men. Rationalist ministers have emigrated to America in the usual proportion with their countrymen ; but with the single exception I have mentioned, they have found it necessary to abandon their profession, and to become instructors of youth, lawyers, and writers for the press ; for they are not admitted into either of the American German communions. In short, Rationalism requires for its maintenance and preservation in the world the fostering support of a European establishment — the Voluntary System starves it out in America. The Rev. Dr. Schmucker, to whom I am indebted for this information, added, that the circumstance beauti- fully illustrates the self-preserving character of genuine Christianity ; for whenever the church degenerates into Rationalism, the people refuse to pay for its support. The salaries of tiie Lutheran and German Reformed clergy in the United States are generally from jUO to COO dollars per annum ; and they have usually two or three churches, at considerable distances from each other, in which they officiate by turns. Next to the different bodies of Presbyterians taken together, the Baptists and Methodists are the most nu- merous denominations in the United Stales. As there has been a separate work, however, published within the last few years, by the Rev. Drs. Cox and Iloby, entitled '2 G !> 342 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL " The Baptists in America," and as I presume the Rev. Robert Newton,* the Delegate from the Methodists of England to their brethren in America, will give some * At the anniversary of the American Bible Society, held in the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, on the 14th of May last, the Rev. Robert Newton addressed the numerous assembly present, in a speech which I confess did not appear to me peculiarly effective ; and there was one of those clap-trap exhibitions at the close of it that would, in my estimation at least, spoil the best speech that was ever delivered. When drawing towards the conclusion of his address, Mr. Newton appeared suddenly to recollect that he had something additional to say, and turning to the chairman, abruptly told him, of course to the wonderment of the audience, that when he was lately in the city of Washington, he had found an eagle's nest. He then entered into one of those descriptions of the eagle which " the good boy who minds his book" will find in Goldsmith's Natural History, or any other work of a similar kind in the Child's Library — its piercing eye, its strength of wing, its lofty flight, &c. &c. — con- cluding by putting into the hands of the chairman, from a small purse he held in his hand, ten or twenty " eagles," an American gold coin of about the value of an English guinea, which a zealous Methodist in Washington had given him for the purpose. " 'Twas pitiful — 'twas wondrous pitiful ! I wished I had not heard it !" I always ask myself on such occasions, Would the Apostle Paul have condescended to such mountebank expedients? And the an- swer I uniformly receive is, No ! Mr. Newton's example, however, was too good not to be imitated, or rather exceeded. For at a subsequent Anniversary Meeting, the Rev. Mr. Kirk, the revivalist preacher, actually produced, from one of his pockets, T forget which, a child's silver caudle-spoon, which had been given him as a subscription to the Society, by one of those " silly women" whom the Apostle Paul speaks of somewhere, who thought, I presume, that her child could do equally well with a horn spoon. Now, as Hamlet says to the Players, I would say to Mr. Kirk, in reference to all such practices in future, " Pray you avoid it !" Mr. K. has no need to descend to such modes of " getting up the steam" at a public meeting. Let him only recollect his proper place and character, and I am sure he will never be at a loss for appropriate matter of address to a Christian assembly ; for he is really a superior man. RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. S48 account of that denomination in the United States on his return to England, I shall confine myself to a few general remarks on both denominations. The Baptists have 4239 ministers, and 452,000 members ; and the Methodists, 8290 ministers, and 740,459 members. It is chiefly, however, to the humbler and less influential classes of the community that the members of tiiese bodies belong. They are not numerous, comparatively, in New England, nor in the Middle or more advanced States. Their strength lies principally in the Slave States of the South, and in the more recently settled regions of the West. It may not be uninteresting even to the philosophical inquirer, and it is certainly a subject of deep interest to the Christian divine, to ascertain the causes that have led to the rapid increase of the Methodist and Baptist denominations in the United States of America ; for the subject evidently involves a problem in philosophy as well as in religion. To solve this problem, therefore, I conceive we have only to consider the peculiar cir- cumstances of American society. In the progressive occupation of tlie vast territories to the Southward and Westward, that have been taken possession of by civil- ized men in the United States during the last fifty years, a large portion of the American people have at all times during that period been separated, so to speak, from the rest of mankind, and thinly scattered over a vast ex- tent of the whole territory of the Union. Now, it is a fact not to be questioned, that when men, who have themselves received a Christian education in their youth, have been living for years in the wilderness, and iiave families growing up around them, with neither a church nor a school within fifty or a hundred miles, they come gradually to sit very loose to all denominational predi- lections ; and when a minister of religion visits them at length in their solitude, and dispenses to them the word of life, and administers his blessing to their little ones, 344 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL — whether that minister be an Episcopalian, a Presby- terian, a Methodist, or a Baptist — they will in all likeli- hood receive him with the utmost cordiality and affec- tion, saying, " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that pub- lisheth peace ; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation !" It cannot be denied, moreover, that among the ori- ginal emigrants of the South and West in America, the number of Methodists and Baptists was much smaller than that of either of the other two leading denomina- tions of the United States ; and it cannot be doubted, therefore, that if these other denominations had adopted the same plan of procedure as the Methodists and Bap- tists, and had animated that plan with the same amount of energy and zeal, they would have been equally suc- cessful. The Episcopalians have certainly had but little of a missionary character in the United States till very recently ; but as the Presbyterian Church in Ame- rica has been a missionary Church from the first, why, it may be asked, has that denomination been left be- hind, as it has evidently been, by the Methodists and Baptists, in the South and West? Why, the answer is obvious ; while the Presbyterians were educating their men for the South and West at Princeton and New Haven, the Methodists and the Baptists, who never troubled themselves about education in the first instance, had their local preachers and their elders on the spot, and, like Absalom, " stole away the hearts of the men of Israel." Now, with the highest respect for education and an educated ministry — and no man can well have a higher — I would appeal to all the Univer- sities of Europe, whether, in such circumstances, it was not rather the Methodists and the Baptists than the Presbyterians, that were the " men of understanding, who knew the times, and what Israel ought to do." In short, the main secret of the wonderful success of RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 345 the Methodists and Baptists in America has been the fact, that the pecuhar character of their machinery — in em- ploying an uneducated ministry — has enabled them to be first upon the common missionary ground of the christian churches in America. There is a charm in this of which the Christian people in the mother coun- try can have no conception ; no other Christian deno- mination, I mean where religion is free, can ever have such a hold on the affections of the dweller in the wil- derness as the one that has first found him out. Whether this fact does not suggest the propriety of some change in the principles and procedure of cer- tain churches in their missionary operations in certain states of society, I leave it to the reader to determine. At all events, if it is the object of the Church of Christ, not so much to raise up a learned clergy as a Ciiris- tian people, it is obvious that the way in which this object can be accomplished the most extensively and the most effectually, must necessarily be the best. But the American Methodists and Baptists have no prejudice against education in their clergy, in so far as I could learn. On the contrary, although they do not regard it as an indispensable qualification for the Chris- tian ministry, they regard it as highly desirable, and are actually making great effurts to obtain it for their future ministers. The Baptists have seven colleges for General Literature, Philosophy, and Science ; and six Theological Seminaries, or Divinity Colleges : the Methodists have eight colleges, in which they conjoin theological with general education. But there is another circumstance that has contri- buted very much to the success of these denominations, especially in the less cultivated portions of the Union. Their religion is very much a religion of excitement : and it has something for the eye and the ear, as well as for the understanding and affections. The ceremony of adult-baptism by immersion is a most imposing spec- 346 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL tacle for a half-educated people, and much more so for a people who are not educated at all. The negroes, I was told, have the highest idea of its efficacy as a reli- gious rite, even when they understand its nature but very imperfectly, and attach as much importance to the opus operatum as the Roman Catholics do to the sacri- fice of the mass. And then the hearty co-operation of the congregation in the services of the Methodist com- munion ; the audible expressions of assent to the propo- sitions of the preacher, even before he has uttered them ; the sympathetic ejaculations of all kinds, and from all quarters, and the peculiar earnestness of the psalmody, loud, long, and frequent — all these circum- stances combined necessarily suggest the idea of "going ahead," as the Americans say, in religion, highly favour- able to the claims and progress of the denomination in a rude state of society. " As for an African Methodist Church," observed a Presbyterian clergyman in one of the Southern States, when I was alluding in conversa- tion to the peculiarities I have just mentioned, and the effect they were likely to have upon the coloured popu- lation, " as for an African Methodist church, it is a per- fect Bedlam ! "' Making all due allowance, however, for a good deal of extravagance of the kind I have just described, there still remains a vast amount of real good, which has been effected by these denominations in the United States, and for which they have laid the whole Christian world under the highest obligations. I attended Divine ser- vice in a Baptist church at Boston, when the ordinance of baptism by immersion was publicly administered to about twenty adult persons, male and female, in suc- cession. The ceremony was not merely imposing, it was impressive ; and the preacher — a young man who had evidently received a superior education, and who spoke with great fluency and propriety — appeared to enter with all his heart and soul into the service ; having RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 347 suitable remarks for the case of each catechumen as ho presented himself for baptism, and seizing the right points for making an impression upon the surrounding people. Two of the new converts were a man and his wife, of respectable appearance, whom the preacher de- scribed as having " come from the mountains of Scot- land." I could not help thinking at the moment that they had, in all likelihood, grown up to manhood under that "form of sound words" which is so unexceptionable in itself, and yet so utterly inefficient in thousands of instances in my native land, but had been led at length, by the good hand of God, to America, to be there awakened out of their sleep of death, through the ministrations of men who had not only " the form of godliness, but the power" also. There was, no doubt, a great deal too much stress laid upon the opus ope- ratum, as if the person baptized had nccessarih/ bid adieu to the world, and was nccessarih/ on his way to heaven, and as if all who had not submitted to the operation were necessarily left behind ; but there was evidently an under-current of genuine piety, far more than sufficient to atone for this froth upon the surface. There is a small class of Baptists in America holding Antinomian principles, and styled in the South //c/rcZ-vAt'// Baptists. Two of the four congregations in IJaltimore are of this class. It has also been found, not unfre- quently, especially in the Southern States, that the ceremony of bidding adieu to the world in the ordinance of baptism by immersion, is just as ineffectual a gua- rantee for purity of morals, as the modes of admission into the Christian church practised in other communi- ons. I have mentioned elsewhere that the people who call themselves " Christians," by way of distinction, in Boston and Philadelphia, are merely Unitarian Bap- tists. Still, however, there is abundant reason to be- lieve that the great majority of professing Christians of 348 A SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL this denomination in America consists of persons of thoroughly evangelical sentiments, and of a correspond- ing practice. If their services in the cause of missions can be taken as a test of their Christian standing, it must be admitted that they occupy the first rank. I attended a Sabbath evening service in a Methodist church in Wilmington, North Carolina. The congre- gation was of a humbler class generally than that of the Methodist Church I attended on a week-day evening in Baltimore, and the gallery was quite filled with negroes. The sermon was a good practical dis- course on the text, " Buy the truth, and sell it not," with a sufficient admixture of the peculiar leaven of the Wesleyan theology. At the close of the service the negroes in the gallery struck up a hymn, in which the Christian life was described, under the figure of a voyage — the world being the sea; " the old ship of Zion," or the church, the vessel ; Christ the captain, and heaven the port. The poetry was certainly by no means ex- quisite ; but it was at least suited to the comprehen- sion of those for whom it was designed, and they ac- cordingly appeared to enter into the sentiments of the piece, with all their heart and soul. Indeed, the rich bass voices of the males, and the fine shrill treble of the woTnen and children — who had all been well trained to sing in parts — formed a harmony truly delightful. Con- sidering the condition of the persons who were thus engaged — all of them slaves, and yet all rejoicing in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free — it was the most deeply affecting scene I witnessed in America. The Methodist churches in the United States are all free ; there are no private pews, and no pew-rents. The rich and the poor, consequently, meet together in their churches, on terms of perfect equality. The fe- males occupy the body of the church, and the males RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 349 the aisles. Every member has certain weekly, monthly, and quarterly contributions to make to the funds of the Society ; from which the salaries of the ministers, and the other necessary expenses of divine worship are defrayed in the first instance, the remainder being appropriated to the general oi)jects of benevolence supported by the vv^hole denomination. The Methodist clergy, I was told, are the best paid, as a body, in the United States, '*and this has doubtless had its influence in contributing towards their success as a denomination. A certain sum, duly proportioned to the comparative expensive- ness of living in each particular locality, is allowed in the first instance as board-wages for the minister's family ; children and servants, house-rent, and the maintenance of a riding-horse, being all included. In addition to this amount, the minister is allowed 100 dollars for himself, an equal amount for his wife, and from fourteen to twenty dollars for each child of his family, according to their ages. Each minister is an Agent of the Methodist Book Concern, an establishment supported by the whole denomination, for the circula- tion of useful religious publications ; and if the other sources of revenue are insufiicient, as is often the case in weak congregations, to meet the amount required for the minister's salary and the other expenses of divine worship, the revenue arising from tliis particular source is made available to supply the deficiency. It thus happens, as it did in another well-known case, that " they who gather much have nothing over ; while they who gather little have no lack." Indeed, it must be acknowledged that tlie Methodists understand the whole system of finance much better than any other Protestant connnunion ; and it would doubtless be well for other Christian denominations to follow their example in this respect. The American Methodists are under a species of Episcopal government. They have six bishops, who 2 u 350 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL derive their apostolical succession from the Apostle John Wesley. It is certainly as respectable a descent as that of those who derive theirs from Pope John XXII. and others of the same stamp. These bishops have no particular dioceses, but travel all over the Union wherever their services are required. Singular as the coincidence may appear to some, the Methodists and the Roman Catholics are the only re- ligious denominations in America, whose system of church government is diametrically opposed to that of the Primitive church, in the two important particulars of a popular election of the clergy, and the participa- tion of the laity in the governm.ent of the church. Their form of church-government is an irresponsible Venetian oligarchy ; over whose movements the subject people have no control, and from whose deci-ions they have no appeal. It is inconceivable that such a system of church-government should continue to subsist in such a country as America, without producing much impatience under the yoke. Among the more intelli- gent members of the body this feeling is generally pre- valent ; but such persons constitute but a very small minority of the Methodist body, and the influence which " the powers that be" have the means of exerting over the dead-ic eight, or rudis indigestaque moles of which it principally consists, keeps them sufficiently in check. There can be no question, however, but that as intelli- gence advances in the body generally, there must either be an infusion of something like popular management into the system, or a general explosion. There have occasionally been indications of something of this kind already. The Episcopal Church is the smallest of the four lead- ing communions of the United States. In the estimation of Captain Marryat, " it is small in proportion to the others ; and although it may increase its members with the increase of population, it is not likely to make any RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 351 vigorous or successful stand against the other sects." * This is certainly a remarkable result, considering that for upwards of a century and a half before the Revolu- tion, the Episcopal Church had been the Established Church of Virginia, and that in certain of the other States, as in both the Carolinas, Maryland, and New York, the whole influence and patronage of the Govennnent had been employed in its behalf. In short, nothing more strongly demonstrates the thoroughly anti-christian character of the policy of forcing a Church into exist- ence in any country, or even of supporting a church in any country, with the mere influence and patronage of the State, than the fact that after a hundred and fifty years of exclusive State patronage and support, the whole fabric of the Episcopal Church in America was virtually annihilated at the first roll of the revolutionary drum.f " The rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell, and great was the fall of it." It was not built upon the rock of popular esteem, but upon the quichsund of State-patronage : and therefore it fell. The late Bishop White of Pennsylvania, a man universally esteemed in the United States, was, in reality, the Father of the Episcopal Cliurcii in America ; for it was a new fabric that was reared after the Revo- lution, and not the old one repaired. Why, then, has the success of this Church been so limited even under its new constitution, in comparison with that of other Protestant denominations in the Union ? Why, simply because its foundation has still been in great measure as unscriptural as ever. The doctrines that were almost exclusively prevalent till a comparatively recent period in the American Episcopal Church, were the High * ^larryat's Diary, Aniev. edit. p. 205. + The late Bishop White of Pliiladclphia was for tliree years at this period the only Episcopal clergy niuu in the great State of Pennsylvania. 352 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL Church and semi-popish doctrines of the apostolical succession, baptismal regeneration, the intrinsic efficacy of the opus operatum, &c. ; and these doctrines, I am sorry to add, are still held by at least four-sevenths of the American Episcopal Clergy. " When the Gospel is proclaimed," says the late Bishop Hobart of New York, a divine of this school, in his " Companion to the Altar," " communion with the Church by participation of its ordinances, at the hands of the duly authorized priesthood, is the indispensable condition of salvation" " Episcopalians," says the late Bishop Ravenscroft of South Carolina, in his " Doctrines of the Church Vindi- cated," " consider the grace and mercy of the gospel as matters of strict covenant stipulation ; as bound up with the authority to dispense them ; as inseparable from that authority, and only by virtue of that authority, (with reverence be it spoken) pledging the glorious source of all mercy and grace to his creatures^ And again : — " The authority of Christ is the only warrant to act in his name ; and succession from his apostles the only satisfactory evidence, that any man or body of men are possessed of this warrant. The ministry of the Church is a substitution for the Lord Jesus Christ in person." And again : — " When you baptize, do you not profess to bring an alien into covenant with God, and seal him to the day of redemption ? When you administer the Lord's supper, do you not negotiate afresh the pardon of the penitent, and replenish and confirm the grace of worthy partakers ? When you visit the sick and dying, are not the consolations of religion at your disposal, according to the circumstances of the case?" Such is the burden of their song!* * The late Bishop Ravenscroft's general style of preaching -was, that "we are justified by baptism, and sanctified by confiituation; that salvation out of the Episcopal Church is hopeless, but that when we are once in that Church we are safe. Baptism," the Bishop cer- tainly allowed, " would not save a man of itself, without the inward RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 333 Now, it is quite impossible that any church should prosper while its ministers promulgate such doctrines as these. We find, accordingly, that, wherever the Ame- rican Episcopal church exhibits this peculiar form, it makes no impression on the community ; its congrega- tions are thin, and consist chiefly of persons of a certain class in society, who, finding they must attach them- selves to some church, either as a salvo to their con- sciences or to save appearances, naturally prefer the one that tolerates the utmost conformity to the world, and savours the least of what such men call fanaticism in religion. The churches of tiiis communion are, therefore, confined chiefly to the cities where persons of the class alluded to are in greatest number ; its con- gregations in the interior of the country being, for the most part, small, few, and far between. Including the Missionary Bishops, who arc sent out by the Episcopal church to itinerate in the new States, and are supported from the General Missionary Funds of the body, there are fifteen bishops, altogether, in the American Episcopal church ; the number of the clergy being 849, and of their churclies 950. The following is a list of the dioceses, with the number of ministers in each : — • Dioceses, Number of Miiiisteri. Eastern District* . . . .80 Vermont . . . . .19 Connecticut . . . . .71 New York 224 New Jersey . . . . .32 and spiritual prace ; but then that grace was the ncvcr-failin? and necessary accompaniment of baptism, when duly administered, that is, by a clergyman episr opally oidainetL" * This diocese comprises the States of Maine (7); New Hamp- shire (6); Massacluisctts (•'•"i); and Rhode Uland (20). The bishop is Dr. Griswold, whom I have had occabion to mention ahead . 2 H 2 354 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL Dioceses. Pennsylvania . Maryland Virginia . North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Kentucky Ohio Illinois Indiana and Missouri ^lichigau Number of Ministers. 85 67 73 20 46 10 20 47 7 20 10 Besides these ministers, there are also in the under- mentioned States and Territories, which have not yet been constituted dioceses, the following ministers, who are respectively considered as being under the Episcopal jurisdiction of the nearest bishop : — Miniiiters. Delaware ....... 7 Georgia Alabama Mississippi Louisiana Florida ^^''iscon3in The late Dr. Bedell, of Philadelphia, a man of de- cidedly evangelical sentiments, and of great piety and zeal, was eminently instrumental in effecting an im- portant change in a portion, at least, of the American Episcopal church. This change is, perhaps, most re- markably apparent in the city of Philadelphia, and is evinced in a striking manner in the missionary efforts of that portion of the American Protestant church. One-half of the bishops, including, of course, the Mis- sionary Bishops, and about three-sevenths of the clergy, are now decidedly evangelical. The evangelical party RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 855 have also been increasing, of late, in the South ; for, on the occasion of the election of a bishop of South CaroHna, a few months ago, they lost the election only by a single vote. The Rev. Dr. Tyng, of Philadelphia, one of the most distinguished of the Episcopal clergy in the United States, was himself brought to the saving know- ledge of the truth under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Spring, one of the Presbyterian clergy of New York. Immediately thereafter, he devoted himself to the work of the ministry in the Episcopal church, to which his family belonged, in the State of Connecticut; and his subsequent labours, both in the pulpit and the press, have been eminently conducive to the advancement of pure and undetiled religion in his native land. On the occasion on which I had the pleasure of attending divine service in Dr. Tyng's church, the sul)ject of his discourse was these words of our blessed Lord, John xvii. 16 : " Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." In the outset of his sermon, as well as in the course of it. Dr. T. informed his congregation, that he had no intention of preaching a sermon on the doctrine of election. He was doing it all the while, however ; but in the way so judiciously recommended by the venerable John Newton, which, however, it is not ne- cessary to particularize. The natural advantages. Dr. Tyng observed, which we enjoy by our birth, and as members of civilized society, are, clearly and unquestionably, the result of God's appointment, and not of our own choice. It could be no matter of choice with us that we were born, not in a land of tyranny and despotism, but in a land of liberty, under institutions so favourable for the development of all our powers, both of body and mind, as well as for the pursuit and attainment of true hap 356 SKETCH OF THE FRINXIPAL piness. All this was, evidently, the result of God's choice, and not of our own. But, our spiritual advantages. Dr. T. proceeded to observe, were equally the result of the divine choice and appointment. It had been no matter of choice with us whether our lot should be cast in a land of gospel light and Christian privileges, or in a land of darkness, deep and dismal as the shadow of death, where we should, in all likelihood, have been the worshippers of idols, or the miserable victims of Mahomedan delu- sion. All this was clearly and unquestionably the result of the divine choice and appointment, and not of our own. Then addressing himself to those of his congregation who had been divinely brought to a saving knowledge of the blessed truths of the gospel, Dr. T. appealed to them as to whether any of them could testify that they had sought the Lord with full purpose of heart before He sought after them — whether they could recollect a period in their past history when they were diligently engaged in seeking after God, and happiness, and heaven, while God was eluding their search, and refusing to be found of them — whether it was not rather when they were going astray from God and from the ways of holi- ness, when they were eagerly pursuing the downward course of folly, sin, and death, that the Lord mercifully arrested them in their progress, and turned their feet into the way of peace. There was still, therefore, the same evidence of the divine choice and appointment in this instance as before. In the close of his discourse Dr. Tyng reminded his hearers that the object of this divine choice and ap- pointment was, that all who were its subjects should bring forth fruit unto holiness, and that that fruit should be permanent ; and concluded with an affectionate appeal to the Christian sympathies of his people on behalf of the heathen, whom, he reminded thera, they were leaving RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 357 nncared for, as a Christian church, till their church-edi- fice should be free from debt — a state of things which it was impossible for a Christian man to think of without pain. In short, Dr. Tyng's discourse, of which I have only given a faint outline, was unquestionably of a superior order ; and I have no doubt that, if the American Epis- copal Church had generally men of a character and spirit at all resembling Dr. Tyng's in the office of the ministry, it would not continue to lag behind the other evangelical communions of the country. But Epis- copacy has hitherto lain under suspicion, on the part of American Christians generally, not so much on account of its form of government, which, I have already shown, has been brought down in great measure to the primitive and republican type, as to the anti-scriptural and semi- popish doctrines it has heretofore endeavoured to pro- mulgate. The differences in point of doctrine in tlie Presbyterian church are mere trities, compared vvitli those that divide the Episcopal clergy in America. In the former case there is a virtual agreement on essentials ; in the latter, it is the fundamentals of Christianity that are in question — the ground of a sinner's acceptance with God, and the efficient cause of his justification. Outward union in sucii circumstances is surely not tbat unity which Christianity enjoins: for how can two walk together except they be agreed on such points as these ? Tbe State of New York, in which upwards of one- fourth of the whole number of the American Episcopal clergy are settled, has hitherto been the nursery and stronghold of High Church princii)lcs in the I'nited States. The Theological Seminary of the Episcopal church in the city of New York is at present exclu- sively in the hands of divines of this stamp ; and the students, I was credibly informed, are Puseyists, to a man. The sentiments of the late Bishop Hobart, of New York, are sufficiently evident from the extract 358 SKETCH OF THE PKINCITAL I have already given from his " Companion to the Altar ;" and a zealot of this school, the Rev. Evan Johnson, of the city of Brooklyn, "New York, after in- forming his people, in a recently-printed sermon,* that he nowhere " finds that any great blessing has ever attended the exertions of separatists and schismatics," meaning the whole category of non-episcopal Protest- ants, issues his sentence of condemnation even against the American Episcopal missions in Greece and France, " because of the schismatical efforts of our clergy, who have gone from hence into the dioceses of the Greek and Roman churches without their consent, and, in many cases, in most express opposition to their will ! " It certainly would be an act of courtesy, on the part of Protestants, to ask permission of the Pope and the Greek Patriarch to enter their dioceses ! If the reader should think it strange, however, that theology of this kind should, nevertheless, have had vigour enough to effect the establishment of upwards of 200 churches in the State of New York, I must inform him that the establishment of these churches is to be ascribed, in great measure, to a totally different cause. Within thirty years after the conquest of the Dutch colony of New York, in the year 1664, the Rev. Mr. Vesey, the first Episcopal minister in that colony, and a missionary of the Venerable Society for the Pro- pagation of the Gospel, married the widow^ of a Dutch clergyman of New York, who died in possession of a farm of 400 acres, situated near the original Dutch town. This farm passed, successively, first, into the hands of the widow ; then into those of her second husband, the Rev. Mr. Vesey ; and finally into those of the Corpora- tion of Trinity Church, in New York. By what right these successive transfers were made, is a question for lawyers to decide ; but the general impression in * Missionary Failures the Reason for Renovated Exertion. A Sermon, by Rev. Evan M. Johnson, Brooklyn, New York. RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 359 New York is, that the Episcopal church had originally no valid title to the property, and has none still. At all events, the descendants of the Dutch clergyman have repeatedly endeavoured to establish their claim to it ; but hitherto without success, chiefly through the influence which the Corporation derives from possessing it. The property in question has long been within the limits of the modern city of New York ; and, being leased out in building allotments, it produces a large annual revenue to the Corporation. A gentleman of Dutch origin, residing in New York, gave me the following estimate of its present value ; adding, however, that a considerable portion of it is leased at a very low annual rent. At sixteen lots per acre, the whole property forms 6400 lots ; which, at 10,000 dollars per lot, are worth 64,000,000 dollars ; or, at an annual rental of 150 dollars per lot, which, my informant told me, was a low estimate, nearly a million of dollars, or £2 1 2,500 sterling, per annum. The actual revenue is, however, consider- ably under this amount ; for, conscious of the insufti- ciency of their title, the Corporation have, from time to time, employed a portion of the property to stop the mouths of murmurers, by resorting to Captain Marryat's aristocratic expedient of " bribery and corruption." About the year 1795, the notorious Aaron Burr, after- wards Vice-President of the United States, having threatened to institute a process for investigating the validity of the title to the Corporation property, the Corporation offered him, as fiush-inoucy, a hundred years' lease of an eiglit-acre allotment, situated in Broadway, with a fine house upon it, for a mere trifle ; and the worthless patriot, forsooth, accepted tlie bribe. Within three years thereafter, he sold the lease for 85,000 dollars, to Mr. Jacob Astor, of New York.* • Mr. Astor, the wealthiest citizen of the Ameriran Republic, arrived in New York, ae a poor rJermnn adventurer, about forty ;^60 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL The possession of the property of the Trinity Church Corporation is the whole secret of the present standing of the Episcopal Church in the State of New York ; for wherever there are a few Episcopalians, in any part of the State, a petition is forthwith got up, to the Corpora- tion, for a grant of money for the erection of a church ; and in this way churches are not only erected, but en- dowed, almost exclusively by the Corporation. If all this were done for the advancement of genuine Christ- ianity, there would be less reason to complain, although the whole affair is directly opposed to the genius and spirit of the American Constitution ; but when the Cor- poration funds are employed, in reality, for the propa- gation of such a system of Popish Protestantism as that of the Rev. Evan Johnson and his numerous coadjutors, and for the consequent lowering of the standard of religion in the land, it becomes the bounden duty of every American patriot to have the matter fully inves- tigated, and the property secured to the right owners. The congregations of the High Church Episcopal clergy, both in New York and in the State generally, are very small ; and the standard of religion in these congregations is necessarily low. When persons of questionable character, of other denominations, recalci- trate against the stricter discipline of their own churches, and become Episcopalians, as is sometimes the case in America, as well as elsewhere, they generally become Christians of the highest caste in their new connexion — at least, in comparison with their new associates. The transition from the other communions to Evange- lical Episcopacy is much more rare, as the new convert finds himself in that case as awkwardly situated after the change as before. years ago. His occupation Lad been that of a fuirier, in \^•hich ca- pacity he began business for himself, after having served for some lime under a master in New York. He is now worth 20,000,000 dollars — upwards of four milliors sterling. RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS!. oG I It has been alleged, that the High Church party hi the American Episcopal church would be quite willing to accept of an endowment from the State, as they feel the rottenness of the ground they stand on in regard to the people. This, however, is probably a calumny. At all events, the late Bishop Hobart, of New York, one of the most thorough-going High Churchmen of his communion, was, nevertheless, one of the most de- cided Voluntaries in America. Indeed, Bishop Hobart appears to have carried his Voluntaryism to an unne- cessary and extravagant length, as is evident from the following circumstance, in which I am sure very few Vo- luntaries in this country would approve of his procedure. On the death of Governor De Witt Clinton, of the State of New York, who died very suddenly, in the year 1828, a resolution of the City Corporation of New York was passed, to the following effect, viz. : — " That the reverend the clergy in the city, be respectfully re- quested to notice, in an appropriate and solenm manner, in their respective churches, to-morrow, the deep be- reavement sustained by our common country, by the death of our Chief Magistrate and fellow-citizen De Witt Clinton." This resolution was forwarded by the Clerk of the Corporation to the clergy of the city ; and, as Mr. De Witt Clinton was not merely universally re- spected in the State of New York, but had been a most distinguished benefactor of the State, through tlie im- portant measures he had recommended and carried in the Legislature, I am sure it will be generally allowed that such a request was quite appropriate on the one hand, and ought to have been received in a correspond- ing spirit, by the clergy of all communions, on the other. Bishop Hobart, however, thought otlicrwise ; and, in a letter to the Clerk of the Corporation, in which he notified his refusal to comply with the re- quest of that body, he assigned the following as his reason : — 2 1 362 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL " The prostitution of religion to the purposes of secular policy has produced the greatest mischiefs ; and I conceive, that the studious separation of the Church from the State, which characterises our re- publican constitution, is designed to prevent religion and its ministers from being made subservient to the views of those who, from time to time, may administer public affairs ; but, if the civil or municipal authority may desire the clergy * to notice, in an appropriate and solemn manner,' the death of a Chief Magistrate of a State, the request may be extended to every distin- guished citizen who has filled a public station, and thus the ministrations of the clergy may be made to advance the influence of political men and political measures — an evil from which, in the Old World, the most un- happy effects have resulted, and against which, in this country, we should most sedulously guard." And again — " Paramount considerations of duty will prevent my compliance with a request, which, in the principle that it involves, and in the precedent which it will establish, appears to me of dangerous tendency in regard to the spirit of our free constitution, and to the spirit of religion, and the character and influence of its mi- nisters."* * I have extracted these t-«-o pai-agraphs of Bishop Hobart's letter, from Stuart's " Three Years iu America" — an able and ex- cellent work — in which I recollected having read it about six years ago. On referring to that work, I found that Mr. Stuart had in- serted the memorial presented to the House of Assembly of Vir- ginia, in the year 1784, petitioning against an assessment for the support of religion, and signed by ten thousand Virginians, to •which I merely referred in Chapter III. I have, therefore, been under a mistake in supposing that the popular agitation in favour of the Voluntary System, in America, had entirely escaped the notice of English writers on thai country. Mr. Stuart is surely in error, however, in ascribing the memorial in question to Mr. Madison ; for the original is still extant, in the hand%\Titing of the Rev. J. B. Smith, who was also the writer of some of the other memorials I have inserted, and the principal promoter of the measure they ad- RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 3G3 Perhaps Bishop Hobavt might not have been so rampant a Voluntary if he had not been aware tliat he had the Trinity Church Corporation endowment to fall back upon. It is easy to talk, about trusting to Provi- dence for one's daily bread, when his pockets are well lined. The Voluntary System requires the church to be thrown for its whole support upon the Christian people. It repudiates alike the principle of endow- ments, whether they be derived from the State treasury, or from the Trinity Church Corporation. I shall conclude this chapter by adverting to a charge which Captain Marryat advances against the Voluntary System in America. " The Voluntary System in America," observes this writer, *' has broken one of the strongest links between man and man, for each goeth his own way ; as a nation there is no national feeling to be acted upon. Where any one is allowed to have his own peculiar way of thinking, his own peculiar creed, there neither is a watch, nor a right to watch, over each other ; there is no mutual communication, no encouragement, no parental control ; and the conse- quence is, that by the majority, especially the young, religion becomes wholly and utterly disregarded."* Now, I have no hesitation in characterising the whole of this statement as a gross misrepresentation of the real state of things in America. The instances in which the different members of the same family are members of different communions are but few in num- ber, even in America, in comparison with those in which they all go one way. But even in these instances, as the protestant communions of the United States are vocated. Mr. Stuart was, unacquainted, moreover, with tlio cir- cumstances out of which the memorial in question had arisen, and especially with the fact of its liaving merely hccn one of a series ot memorials on the same subject, all originating in the self-dcnyinjj and patriotic elforts of the Presbyterian clergy of Vii-ginia. * Diary in America, part i. Ainer. edit, page '20."J. 364 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL almost universally of evangelical sentiments, the peace of families is rarely interrupted, in consequence of the tolerant principles of American society. At Wilming- ton, in North Carolina, I enjoyed the hospitality of a family of which the head, who was then deceased, had been a Quaker. He had left two sons and two daugh- ters ; and one of the sons and one of the daughters were members of the Episcopal church in Wilmington, while the other son and daughter were Presbyterians. But so far was this circumstance from disturbing the peace of the family, that each appeared to feel interested in hearing of the prosperity of the church to which the others belonged. Again, I am confident there is no country in Europe in which the national feeling is half so strong as it is in America. And why should it be otherwise ? Mere Pariahs, or outcasts from society, as the lower orders in this country virtually are, having no political existence in the eye of the State, proscribed by " their betters," and made to feel that poverty is not only bitter, but disgrace- ful — how can national feeling or patriotism spring up in so ungenial a soil ? The briers and thorns of Chartism and Socialism are its natural productions. But the poorest American has his rights and privileges as well as the wealthiest in the land ; and it is natural, there- fore, that he should love the country that secures and protects them. The State has watched over him in his youth, and not only given him an education to fit him for a vigorous manhood, but thrown open to him every avenue to honour and preferment ; it is natural, therefore, that he should love his country, which secures to him advantages which he would look for in vain in any other. As to the youth of America being generally irreligious, the charge is utterly unfounded. There is no Euro- pean nation in which greater efforts are made than in America for the promotion of morality and religion RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 365 among the youth of the country ; and I am sure there is none in which such efForts are more successful. The very division of the great American community into different religions denominations, so far from being an unmixed evil, as it is generally represented, is, on the contrary, one of the happiest circumstances for the country, whether in regard to the preservation of its civil liberty, or its moral and religious advancement. Nay, there is nothing that would more certainly prove injurious to civil liberty and religion in the United States than the universal prevalence of any one religious denomination. Before the recent division of the Gene- ral Assembly of the American Presbyterian Church, that body possessed an overwhelming influence throughout the country; and its leading men were so conscious of the fact that they were actually beginning to turn it to account, by passing resolutions of which the object was to guide the Christian people in voting for members of Congress, in the way of recommending that they should vote for " none but religious men." It is easy to see to what such recommendations might have led in cer- tain circumstances ; and people were accordingly be- ginning to take alarm, when the Assembly, fortunately for the Presbyterian church as well as for the country, broke in two. When P. R. Livingston, Esq. was a candidate for the National Congress, (for the State of Pennsylvania, if I am not mistaken,) he was accosted by a Methodist preacher of his acquaintance, who con- gratulated him on his prospects of success. Mr. L. hinted that these were not very favourable, as the other candidate, a Mr. Bouchette, was likely to carry the election. "What! that blue-skin Presbyterian r*" said the Methodist, " he will never do any thing for us if he gets in. But how comes it, Mr. Livingston, that there has never been a Methodist preacher elected chaplain to Congress ?■' "Indeed," replied Mr. L. getting his cue immediately, " is that really the fact ? Why, it 2 I '2 366 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL never struck me before : it ought to be looked into ; in- deed it ought." This was enough ; the Methodist preacher was a man of some influence in his denomina- tion, and the prospect of having a member of Congress who would advocate their claims to the same distinction as other religious denominations had enjoj'ed, secured for Mr. Livingston all the Methodist votes, in addition to those he had had before, and enabled him to carry the election. When a Baptist preacher, however, pre- suming on the number and influence of the Baptists in one of the Western States, proposed himself either as governor of the State or as member of Congress, his own denomination, perceiving the incongruity of the thing, set their faces against him. In short, although Church and State are separated in the United States, it is nevertheless the fact, that the Church has a still more direct and powerful influence upon the State in America than it has even in England. In such cir- cumstances, it is evidently desirable for both Church and State that there should be a balance of power pre- served throughout the Union, and that no one denomi- nation should absorb all the rest. According to the American Almanac for 1840 the whole number of the ministers of religion, of all deno- minations, in the United States, amounts to 15,763. From my own knowledge, however, as to particular denominations, I have reason to believe that this state- ment is considerably under the truth ; and that, taking into account those really efficient bodies of men, the local preachers of the Methodists, the preaching elders of the Baptists, and the evangelists of other denominations, the whole number of men employed at this moment throughout the United States, in preaching the gospel, is not fewer than 20,000. This, however, is not my estimate, but that of the Rev. Dr. Robert Breckinridge, of Baltimore. This number, for a popu- lation of 17,500,000, the estimated amount of the RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 367 whole population of the United States at the present moment, would give one preacher for every 875 persons in the Union ; but taking the number of ministers of religion even at 15,000, which is certainly under the truth, the proportion is one minister for every 1166 persons in the United States. This is surely no scanty allowance for the Voluntary System. It must be con- fessed, indeed, that the proportion of these ministers in the Far West is still much too scanty for the thinly scattered population ; but what established Church, I ask, in Christendom, could make adequate provision for the religious instruction of not fewer than five millions of people rising up, as if from the earth, in the course of a single life-time, over a country as extensive as the half of all Europe ? In such circumstances the wonder is not that so little, but that so much, has been already accomplished. CHAPTER YIII. UNITARIAXISM IN THE UNITED STATES. The Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, President of New Jersey- College during the first American war, observes in the Preface to his Characteristics — a work which was written about seventy years after the Revolution of 1688, and was intended as a picture of the church in North Britain in the middle of last century — that there is no instance in the history of the Christian church since the apostolic age, in which it ever enjoyed so long a period as seventy years of outward peace, without becoming either exceedingly corrupt on the one hand, or heretical on the other. It is not ray intention to inquire whether the additional period of seventy years of outward peace, which the British churches have experienced since the days of Dr. Witherspoon, has either increased or diminished their corruption ; although it must be confessed that the feeling of satisfaction with their own condition, which universally pervades the British churches of the present day, and is uniformly exhibited at all Religious Meetings, whether of Churchmen or Dissenters, is but a questionable indication of their real state, and has something in it of a Laodicean aspect. After the famous revival in New England, so minutely- described by the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, there appears to have been a strong re-action in that part of America, accompanied with a gradual relaxation of the UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 3G9 ancient discipline of the Puritans.* The Revolutionary War succeeded, opening the way for the influx of French men and French principles into the United States ; and the preaching of the celebrated Dr. Priest- ley, at Philadelphia, at length planted Unitarianism in the Middle States of America. The congregation formed by Dr. Priestley was small, and consisted chiefly of literary men and philosophers ; and it is a singular fact, that it has never increased much beyond its original number to the present day. I have already observed that the King's Chapel, an Episcopal Church in Boston, was the first church of any communion that openly avowed Unitarianism in the United States. This event took place in the year 1785, immediately after the War. The heresy was in the meantime taking root in various quarters, and particularly in Harvard University, which was then the principal college both for general literature and for divinity in New England. The fountain being thus poisoned, it was a necessary consequence that the streams it supplied should diffuse that poison over the land ; and we find accordingly that it was principally in the State of Massachusetts, in which Harvard Univer- sity is situated, and of which the clergy were almost universally educated in that Institution, that the heresy was diffused. As water may be cooled down in a still atmosphere many degrees below the freezing point before it passes into the state of ice, so may Christian theology be gra- dually cooled down, in a peaceful and undisturbed state of the Christian church, many degrees below the freezing point, before it becomes congealed into the solid ice of Unitarianism. The first appointment in * In the churches of Salem — one of the present stronpjholds of Unitarianism in America — an arrangement, significantly designated The Half-nay Covenant^ was introduced before the middle uf last century, by which church-privileges were granted to those who were unwilling to go the tvftole way of the old discipline. 370 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. the University of Harvard that aroused the attention of the Christian public in New England, was that of the Rev. Dr. Ware to the professorship of divinity, in the year 1804. On that occasion, the late Rev. Jedidiali Morse, D.D., a distinguished New England clergyman of his day, and the author of several literary works of merit, broadly accused Dr. Ware of holding heretical opinions relative to the person and ofSce of Christ, and accordingly reprobated his appointment in the strongest terms. This charge was indignantly repelled by the Unitarians of the day as a slanderous and most un- founded accusation ; the orthodox Trinitarian standards, which Dr. Ware and all the rest of them had signed, were triumphantly appealed to as a convincing proof of their soundness in the faith — for it is a grand absurdity to suppose that the mere orthodoxy of its standards can preserve a church from heresy — and the hue and cry of bigotry, fanaticism, and persecution was raised against Dr. Morse, and proved successful for the time in putting him down. It will, doubtless, be alleged, that it is a serious charge to prefer against Dr. Ware and his coadjutors, that they had been guilty of subscribing articles of faith wliich they did not believe. But as the modern Unitarians of the United States claim Dr. Ware and his brethren, and various others who had gone before them in Harvard University, as the apostles and patriarchs of Unitarian- ism in America, I merely receive the fact on their au- thority ; believing they are perfectly in the right in the catalogue they give of their worthies, and leaving it with themselves to reconcile this fact as they best can with the solemn professions and reiterated subscriptions of Dr. Ware and his brethren. In short, the whole history of Unitarianism in America is a history of in- trigue and concealment ; the Unitarian minister never spoke out till, by gradually cooling down the theology of his church to the freezing point, he had gained over UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 371 a majority of the congregation to his views, and was sure, at least, of his personal safety. Unitarians are not the men either to court or to stand persecution for conscience' sake ! It was precisely in this way that Unitarianism was originally planted in the city of Charleston. The con- gregation of the church in which it first appeared in that city, consisted chiefly of New Englanders from Massa- chusetts; the minister was a New England clergyman from Harvard College ; the plot was gradually matured through the propagation of a diluted form of Christianity that repelled pious persons from the church, and when a decided majority of the congregation that remained M'as thus secured, the curtain was drawn up, and the dramatis personce exhibited in the character of Unita- rians. During divine service, which I attended, in the Rev. Mr. Pierpont's (Unitarian) church, in the city of Boston, I was struck on observing that the Psalmody of the church consisted of hymns by such unexceptionable writers of devotional poetry as Covvper, Watts, Newton, Wesley, Logan, &c. ; the name of the author of each hymn being printed in capital letters at the close of it. I looked hastily at the commencement of several of the hymns with which I happened to be well ac- quainted, and finding that all was right, 1 confess I was more than astonished. Observing, however, that there was a preface of several pages in length prefixed to the hymns, I glanced rapidly over it, and found a paragraph nearly at the close of it, in which the Rev. Editors — for it had been a joint-stock compilation — informed their readers that they had in every case scrupulously given the exact words of the real authors of the hymns, but that wherever the sentiments expressed were such as enlightened Christians could not receive, they had simply preferred leaving the passage out, to any other method of treating it. On looking at the hymns a 372 UNITARIAMSM IN THE UNITED STATES. second time, I found, accordingly, that they had been completely exenterated ; every thing that savoured of the divinity of Christ, the entire depravity of man, the atonement, justification by faith alone, regeneration, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, being scrupulously ex- cluded, and nothing but the bare bones and integuments of natural religion left behind. Now, I cannot help thinking that there is a species of dishonesty in all this ; for as not one in a hundred of the persons who use the hymns will ever think of reading the small type preface, they will be led to believe that the religion they are taught in their books of devotion, is precisely the same as that of the eminent men whose names I have enu- merated. In short, the compilers " tell the truth," but not " the whole truth ;" and if the concealment or suppressio veri they practise is not tantamount to false- hood, it has at least something of the essence and character of moral obliquity. It is uncertain how long the process I have described might have gone on, and how extensively it might have shed its withering and blasting influence over the churches of New England, had not the mistaken zeal of a late distinguished Unitarian minister in London brought the ulcer to a head, and caused its timely suppuration. The late Dr. Belsham, in his Life of Lindsey, a famous Unitarian preacher, published in the year 1 815, dedicated a whole chapter of his work to the triumphs of Unitarianism in America. He had himself been in correspondence with the leading men of the body in New England for many years before, and was therefore well acquainted with the real facts of the case : but however gratifying these facts might have been to Unitarians in England, their disclosure in America was certainly a great mistake on the part of Dr. Bel- sham. As soon as the work reached the United States, the chapter on American Unitarianism was immediately re-published by the orthodox party in New England ; UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 373 the charge of Unitarianism was preferred broadly against a comparatively large number of the clergy of Massachusetts, and the public were appealed to as to whether the real state of the case could any longer be disavowed. These statements and charges brought out, as the apologist of his party, the celebrated Dr. Channing, who having then been himself recently ordained to the min- istry, on the Cambridge platform — a highly orthodox, or Trinitarian symbol — naturally felt uneasy under the com- pliments of Dr. Belsham. Dr. C. expressed his decided disapproval of Dr. Belsham's publication ; disclaimed the compliments he had passed on a large portion of the New England clergy, as being altogether such as him- self in religious sentiments ; and modestly expressed his opinion that the state of things in New England was greatly different from what Dr. Belsham had sup- posed. Dr. Channing's paper was immediately taken up and reviewed in an exceedingly able manner by the late Rev. Dr. Worcester, of Salem, — thefather of the Rev. S. M. Worcester, A.M., now minister of the Tabernacle church in that city — who, although greatly inferior to Dr. Channing as a literary man and a man of talent, was as much his superior as a Christian divine. In the course of his review, Dr. Worcester demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all candid persons, that Dr. Belsham had not mistaken his men ; that there had long been a grievous apostasy from " the faith once delivered to the saints" in New England, and that a large proportion of the clergy of Massachusetts were downright Unitarians. Dr. Worcester's paper was unanswerable, and Dr. Chan- ning made no reply. The mask that had been worn so long had at length fallen off, and the Unitarians were thenceforth obliged to assume their proper designation, and to stand or fall by their own merits. Heresy has almost uniformly obtained admittance into the Christian church, as it unquestionably did in 2 K 374 UNITAHIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. this instance, through the seats of learning ; for it has ever been the master-stroke of Satan's policy to poison the stream of Christian influence at its fountain-head. It would be difficult, however, to ascertain in whose per- son Unitarianism first obtained a footing in Harvard University, from which, as its grand source and centre, it spread so widely over the State of Massachusetts : it is certain, at all events, that Dr. Ware was not the first Socinian in that Institution. The Rev. Dr. Kirkland, who was elected President in 1810, was an avowed Unitarian ; and from that period there has been a con- stant struggle to preserve it exclusively in Unitarian hands. The prevalence of Unitarianism in America has often been triumphantly appealed to as an illustration of the antiscriptural character and the inefficiency of the Voluntary System. It is a singular fact, however, that the Voluntary System is in no respect chargeable with the rise and progress of that heresy in America : it arose, and spread, and prospered under the shelter of a powerful State-Establishment of religion ; and the Voluntary System is now recording its decline and fall. As Unitarianism prevailed chiefly among the wealthier classes of society in the commercial cities of Massachu- setts, which are all situated within a small distance of Harvard University, it soon acquired considerable influ- ence in the State Legislature ; and that influence was employed in the first instance, in common with the combined influence of the different denominations op- posed to the Congregational Establishment, in procuring a modification of the State-law for the support of that Establishment — in virtue of which any person disap- proving of " The Standing Order," as the Congrega- tional ministry were designated, was at liberty to sign off, as it was called, in favour of wliatever other com- munion he might prefer ; the amount of his proportion of the tax for the support of religion, which was still UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 375 imposed universally, being thenceforth appropriated to that communion. The law of 1811 was decidedly favourable to the Unitarians, especially after that body became a separate denomination ; for as the Standing Order were still the decided majority throughout the State, and as a consi- derable portion of the community were strongly op- posed to the tax for the support of religion altogether, many, who were of no religion, but were nevertheless obliged to pay the general tax for its support, 5?/7»er/ off in favour of the Unitarians and other heretical denomi- nations, for the express purpose of annoying the Stand- ing Order as much as possible. In this way the State of Massachusetts became a perfect nursery and hot-bed of heresy for the whole Union : Unitarians, Universal- ists, Restorationists, Swedenborgians, &c. — being all State Churches, under a law that compeNed every man to be of some religion, but left him entire freedom of choice — were all supported indiscriminately from the State treasury. This law, however, had an effect which was not anti- cipated by its Unitarian authors. For in all cases throughout the State in which the Unitarians were the majority in particular congregations, it enabled the orthodox portion of the congregation to sir/?i off" and form an orthodox church on the old basis, leaving the Unitarians in possession of the old church and endow- ments. The Unitarians did every thing in their power to prevent these divisions of congregations, as they had penetration enough to foresee their general tendency, but without avail ; the new churches having purged out the old leaven, and having the vigour of scriptural Christianity to support them, gradually waxed stronger and stronger, while the Unitarian as regularly declined. This state of things continued till the year 18150, when the general assessment for the support of religion was entirely abolished in the State of Massachusetts, 376 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. and the last remnant of a civil establishment of religion annihilated in America. Since this period, Unitarianism has rapidly declined in the State of Massachusetts; and in not a few instances in which the Unitarian majority had enabled that denomination to retain the old church and the other property attached to it twenty- five years ago, the Unitarian minister is now left with little besides, and appears, in the midst of the solitude he has created, to resemble the domestic cat, that continues to haunt the old house after the family has gone. In short, since the mask was first torn off the visage of the Unitarians of New England by the Rev. Dr. Worcester in 1815, and especially since the abolition of the general assessment for the support of religion in 1830, Unitarianism has been rapidly going down in the United States. At the former of these periods there were only two or three orthodox churches of the Standing Order in the city of Boston ; there are now at least thirteen, besides all the orthodox churches of other denominations. I have already detailed the procedure of the orthodox portion of the inhabitants of Massachusetts, when they found that Harvard Univer- sity had passed into the hands of the Unitarians. They withdrew their students of general literature and science, and sent them to Yale College in Connecticut; and they founded and endowed the Theological Semi- nary or Divinity College at Andover, some of whose professors have already attained to eminence, especially for their attainments in biblical literature, even in Europe. The Unitarians have recently been appre- hensive lest they should lose their hold even of Harvard College ; and as that Institution is now but little frequented by candidates for the ministry, they have endeavoured successfully to transform it into a school of law. Judge Story, one of the most distin- guished lawyers in the United States, is the Professor LNi'J ARiANISW IN TKli UNITED STATES. 877 of Law in the Uiuversity ; and the students of that Department already amount to 70. Exclusive of the students of law, those of general literature and science in Harvard University amounted, during the past year, to 237. In connexion with the University there is also a Theological Seminary or Divinity College for the Unitarians, well endowed by private benevolence ; but the difficulty of getting students to qualify for the Unitarian Church is so great, that one of the professors recently resigned his office — not because he had no salary, for his chair was well endowed, but because he had nothing to do. The number of divinity students is at present 20. The number of Unitarian churches in the United States is at present 200 ; the number of the ministers of that denomination being 174. Of these churches not fev.'er than 141 are situated in the States of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, there being only a solitary one in that of Connecticut. In the States of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, the number is very small. There are a few in the western cities of the State of New York, and a few also in Ohio, where the country was extensively peopled by settlers from New England ; but in the great city of New York, the commercial capital of America, there are only two, and one of these is in a languishing condition. Dr. Priestley's society in Philadelphia I have already mentioned ; there has recently been another Unitarian church erected in that city, at the instance of immi- grants from Massachusetts. The Unitarian church in Baltimore was built about twenty-five years ago. The late Commodore Barney, of the United States Navy, having acquired a taste for a more liberal form of Christianity during his long residence in France, had, it seems, sunk a considerable sum in the building : and as it turned out a bad speculation, he is represented by his Unitarian biographer as consoling one of his sons on 2 K 2 378 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. the subject by predicting that Unitarianism would ere long be the universal religion in America, Unfortu- nately for the prophetical character of the gallant Commodore, there is as yet no greater likelihood than ever of his prediction being accomplished. The Unitarian churcli in Baltimore is still languishing and in debt ; an old Unitarian lady iu New England having still a mortgage on the building. In short, the Unitarians are far from being adepts in that species of Church Extension in America which consists in building new churches and forming new congregations where there were none before. They are rather like those birds that build no nests for themselves, but watch their opportunity and take possession of those of their neighbours. This was the prudent way they went to work at Charleston ; where the constant influx of mercantile men from the commercial cities of the Ice and Granite State creates a demand for Unitarianism and ensures a corresponding supply. Proselytism to Unitarianism in America is one of the rarest occur- rences imaginable. The middle and humbler classes of all the evangelical denominations in the Union have a perfect abhorrence of the name. The present Unitarians in America are divided into two parties ; the one of which may, with some latitude of interpretation, be designated Semi-Evangelical Uni- tarians, the other being pure Deists, or rather Pantheists, holding the system of Spinoza, and identifying God with the works of his hands. The former party have a sort of indistinct feeling that there is something wrong with them, and that they are not precisely where they should be in matters of religion. The spirits of their Puritan forefathers visit them occasionally in " the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men ;" and they start up in terror at the thought, and bless themselves that it is only a dream. The late Dr. Tuckerman of Boston was of this school. He la- UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 379 boured hard, but unsuccessfully, to get up a Unitarian Mission to India ; but succeeded in establishing the Unitarian City Mission in Boston, to which I have already alluded. The object of that mission is the intellectual and moral improvement of the poor and outcast population of the city ; and by giving it some- what of a secular character it has hitherto been kept up. There is a small Botanic garden, for the use of the converts, connected with the Mission-church, and lectures on Botany and the other kindred sciences are occasionally delivered. In short, it is a sort of Missionary Mechanics' Institution. The theology of the other party of American Uni- tarians being of a much looser texture, sits more easily upon them. Their belief of the divine origin and in- spiration of the Holy Scriptures is at least problemati- cal. They symbolize pretty much with the German Ra- tionalists ; and, to tell the real truth, they see very little in Christianity worth preserving. They have been in- dulging of late in certain wild speculations about the nature of God, till they have conjured up in their own minds a sort of Anima Mundi quite identical with the works of creation. The transition from such a state of mind to the wildest fanaticism is by no means unprece- dented. At all events, it is not long since several of the Divinity-students in the Unitarian Seminary became Swedenborgians ! The atheistical tendency of the speculations of the Unitarian liberals is well known, and was recently the subject of a peculiarly severe, but somewhat humorous, sarcasm. The Students of Law in Harvard University are in the habit of getting up mock-representations of a court of justice, for the purpose of exercising them- selves in the duties of their future profession. On one of these occasions, one of the students was deputed to go over to the Unitarian Theological Seminary, which is hard by, to request as many of the students of divinity SSO UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATED. as were required for the purpose to attend the representa- tion, for the purpose of forming a jury. Having performed his task, the student returned to the court and informed the presiding judge that he was sorry a jury could not be constituted, as he " could not find tv/elve men in the Seminary who believed in the being of a God !" The Unitarian clergy are by no means profound theo- logians. An orthodox minister of the Standing Order in Massachusetts told me that one of them, a class- fellow of his own at college, had called on him some time since, and, in the course of conversation, had told him he had been consulting Dr. Owen on Church Go- vernment, to ascertain the meaning of the terms " Co- venant," and " Confession." He was not sure whether he had succeeded ; but he presumed " covenant" meant the constitution, and " confession" the legislation, of the church ! In short, as all the ideas of the old Puritans on the subject of politics seem to have been bor- rowed from religion, so all the ideas of their Unitarian descendants on the subject of religion seem to be bor- rowed from politics ; for theology is the science of which the Unitarian minister is in general the most profoundly ignorant. In such circumstances, it is not to be wondered at if there should be a great sameness and monotony in the discourses of the Unitarian clergy — equally uninterest- ing to the preacher and the people. The beauties of nature, and the singing of birds, are all very well in their proper place ; but people do get tired of them in the pulpit, and nobody more so than the unfortunate individual who is compelled to ring the changes upon them from Sabbath to Sabbath — I mean the preacher himself. There is therefore no class of ministers who are more at a loss what to talk about in the pulpit than the Unitarian clergy ; and any thing in the way of ex- citement — as, for instance, the burning or blowing up of a Steam-boat, an Abolition-meeting, or a Temperance- UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 381 agitation — is quite a windfall for them, as it supplies them with a subject. Their mode of improving such extraordinary occasions for oratorical display is certainly somewhat original. On the burning of the Lexington Steam-boat in Long Lsland Sound last winter — a fright- ful calamity, by which upwards of a hundred persons were either burned to death or drowned — the Rev. Dr. Dewey, a Unitarian clergyman of some eminence in New York, whose congregation have recently built him a handsome church in Broadway in that city, preached a sermon on the occasion ; and I was told by a young gentleman of Dutch extraction, but of evangelical sen- timents, who was present, that the gist of the discourse was, that in the chain of Divine Providence such calami- tous events are necessary as " sacrifices for the advance- ment of the arts and sciences!" Truly, if any of the surviving relatives of any of the unfortunate sufferers had been present, they might surely have said with pe- culiar propriety, " Miserable comforters are ye all !" " The American clergy," says Miss Martineau, mean- ing the clergy of all the evangelical denominations in the United States, " are the most backward and timid class in the society in which they live ; self-exiled from the great moral question of the time ; the least informed with true knowledge — the least efficient in virtuous ac- tion — the least conscious of that republican and Chris- tian freedom, which, as the native atmosphere of piety and holiness, it is their prime duty to cherish and dif- fuse." The plain English of all this is, that the great majority of the evangelical clergy of all denomina- tions, in the United States, are neither Mountebank-po- liticians nor Abolition-agitators, which certain of Miss Martineau's friends and brethren, the Unitarian clergy in New England, notoriously are. It would take a great deal of argument, however, to make me be- lieve that the Unitarian clergy in the United States are really more concerned about the maintenance and propagation of civil and religious liberty, or about the 382 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. real welfare and entire emancipation of the African race, than the clergy of the evangelical denominations throughout the Union. The simple fact — which Miss Martineau either lacked penetration to discover, or chose to conceal — is, that the Unitarian clergy in New England are miserably in want of an exciting subject ; and as their religion unfortunately does not afford them any thing of the kind, they are glad to avail themselves of those of " politics " and " abolition." If the Unitarian clergy were really in earnest about the abolition of slavery, they would go at once, with their lives in their hands, to the Slave States, and not "waste their sweet- ness" in the air of New England, where there are no slaves to liberate. If they were really anxious for the general and spiritual welfare of the African race, they would sometimes be seen, like Dr. Jones, of Columbia College, in South Carolina, abandoning their professor- ships or their city-churches, to go as missionaries to the negroes in the Southern States — they would occasionally be seen accompanying the Methodist, and Baptist, and Presbyterian, and Episcopalian Missionaries to Western Africa. Oh, no ! Miss Martineau has yet to learn that Christianity is a religion of self-devotedness and self- denial — not of rant. There is nothing that so strongly characterises the present age, as an ostentatious display of philanthropy, where there is every reason to believe that the reality is altogether wanting : and I am only sorry to add, that the denomination to which Miss Martineau would indirectly arrogate the exclusive honour of exhibiting that Christian virtue in America is not the only one that is open to the charge. Per- haps, indeed, it would be pretty safe, as a general rule, to give men credit for philanthropy, in the inverse ratio of their profession of it. The Rev. John Pierpont, minister of the Unitarian church, Hollis-street, Boston, is one of those Unitarian preachers who feel themselves at a loss for an exciting subject. Nobody suspects Mr. Pierpont of being even UNITArtlANISM IN THE UNITKD STATES. D83 a Semi-evangelical Unitarian. On the contrary, he is quite a liberal, and goes the whole length of that school. But he wants a subject, and has therefore taken up what INIiss Martinoau would call " the great moral question of the time" in Massachusetts — that of Tem- perance. In short, Mr. Pierpont is quite a leading man in the Temperance-agitation — an out-and-out '* Rtpealar of the Union" of alcohol and water in all forms — a perfect fanatic for the doctrine and practice of water-drinking. Unfortunately, however, the princi- pal members of his congregation are distillers ; and these worthies, finding their craft in danger by Mr. Pierpont's incessant agitation of the subject of Temperance both in the pulpit and elsewhere, exercised their Democratic privilege, under the Congregational system, by holding a Church-meeting, and voting, " That they no longer wished the services of the Rev. John Pierpont, as pas- tor of their society." Mr. Pierpont, however, could not be induced to receive this vote as a "notice to quit ;" and very properly taking up the subject as one that involved an important principle, observed in a paper in reply to the vote, " The question is, whether in this country, where the pulpit is not propped by a Bishop's staff, and does not lean upon a throne, it can stand upright upon the basis of the people's hearts. Is a pliant pulpit the only one that can be sustained upon the Voluntary Principle ? " After reminding the voters that it is "not what they wish, but what they want,"' that is best for them, Mr. P. proceeds as follows : — " But, gentlemen, this vote dis- covers not only some misconception on your part, as to the object of the Christian ministry ; it shows also a great misapprehension both of my rights, and of your own powers. You seem not to have learned, or to have forgotten, that there are two parties to the con- tract between you and myself ; and that, in the eye of the law, these parties are equal ; that if you have rights, 384 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. SO also have I — that if I am under obligations to you, so also are you to me — and that you can no more dis- solve the relation based upon this contract, without my consent, than I could either dissolve it, or constitute it without yours. " Aside from the act of God, which shall dissolve all the contracts and relations of life, there are but two ways in which the contract between us can be set aside : hy agreement of parties and by process of law. If in neither of these two ways it is set aside, it must stand as it is. But neither of these ways is attempted in the vote before me ; and as it is equally without the sanction of the law, and in derogation of my rights, I trust I shall be excused if I treat it as altogether nugatory." He then inquires for the cause of their opposition, for which he has searched in vain in their preamble and votes ; neither unworthiness nor incompetency having been alleged : and after appealing to them as witnesses of his faithfulness, he proceeds to analyze the votes. In this analysis he finds that the majority of those v/ho had voted for his removal were either distillers and wholesale-dealers in ardent spirits, or persons who, although proprietors of pews, were not worshippers in the church ; while the real majority of his actual con- gregation were earnestly desirous of his continuance. In these circumstances Mr. Pierpont proposes to sub- mit the whole case to an Ecclesiastical Council, agree- ably to the Cambridge Platform, and concludes his paper with the following solemn and energetic appeal to the rum-and-brandy aristocracy of his church : — " And now, my brethren, as this may possibly be the last counsel that, as your minister, I may ever have an opportunity to give you, those of you especially who have been most active in disquieting the sheep of this Christian fold, by your persecution of its shepherd, — indulge me, I pray you, in one word more of counsel. UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 385 The time is coming when you will thank me for it ; thank me the more heartily, the more promptly you follow it. Desist — I counsel you to desist, from that part of your business which has been the cause of all this unhappy controversy ; the cause of your troubles, and of my trials and triumphs — for I shall be triumphant at last. Desist from the business, that, through the poverty of many, has made you rich ; that has put you into your palaces by driving them through hovels and pri- sons down into the gates of the grave. Abandon the business that is kindling the fires of hatred upon your own hearth-stones, and pouring poison into the veins of your children, — yea, and of your children's children, and sending the shriek of delirium through their chambers ; — the business that is now scourging our good land as pestilence and war have never scourged it ; nay, the busi- ness, in prosecuting which, you are, even now, carrying a curse to all the continents of the world, and making our country a stench in the nostrils of the nations. I counsel you to stay your hands from this work of destruction, and to wash them of this great iniquity, as becomes the disciples of Him who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. As his disciples I coun- sel you no longer to absent yourselves from your wonted place of worship, but to return to your allegiance, to your church, and to God. Say to your minister, ' Well done, good and faithful servant! you have faithfully done the work you were ordained to do. You have neither spared us nor feared us. You have even wd"unded us ; but faithful are the wounds of a friend. We commend you for your work, and charge you to go on with it, that we may meet together, and rejoice toge- ther, in the presence of God.' " This is the course, my Christian brethren, which it will be for your peace to take ; — and not more for your peace than for your honour and profit ; for thus you will become more rich unto God. The acts of ' many ' 2 L 386 UMTARIANISM I\ THE UNfTFD STATES. of your number, to whiv-^h you allude, in the paper before me, ought to admonish you that though you mai/ take this course now, the day is not far distant when you may not." * From the ground he has thus taken on the subject of Temperance, which, for several years past, has been peculiarly the question of high debate in the State of Massachusetts, and from the persecution he has conse- quently experienced from the distillers, Mr. Pierpont has engaged the sympathies of a large portion of the orthodox communions in the Northern States. I am happy to add, he has been enabled to maintain his ground even under the Voluntary System ; and there is now no prospect of his removal from his church. However one may lament the utter inconsistency of his theological opinions with the gospel of our salvation, it is impossible not to give Mr. Pierpont credit for entire honesty of purpose and for great manliness and decision of character. As I was unfortunate in not hearing Dr. Channing on the Sabbath I spent at Boston, I Wi.s induced, from the interest I had taken in Mr. Pierpont's case, as also from having seen a beautiful hymn of his composition on the landing of the pilgrims in New England, to go to Holhs-street Church ; as I was desirous, at all events, of hearing some one or other of the more eminent of the Unitarian clergy in the chief city of their apostasy. Hollis-street Church was originally built for orthodox w^orship in the year 1732. It was burnt in the year 1787, and rebuilt during the following year. It was afterwards taken down and rebuilt in its present form in the year IS 10. It is a plain but substantial brick building, with a granite-basement and a handsome spire, and will contain 'about 1200 persons. Mr. Pierpont evinces superior ability in the manage- * Extracted from the Christian Watchman, a New England Religious Newspaper, for April 1840. UMTARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 387 ment of his subject. His style is remarkably pleasing, and occasionally ornate ; his allusions are often felici- tous ; and a vein of delicate irony runs through his paragraphs, in a manner which appeared to me quite suited to the character and exigencies of a Unitarian pulpit. His manner, however, is singularly deficient both in earnestness and in energy ; but I presume these qualities would rather be out of place in a Socinian orator. The subject of Mr. Pierpont's discourse was Isaiah i. 11, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord." This question, INIr. P. observed, was capable of two different significations. It might either mean. What object do ye propose to serve in your religious obser- vances ? or. What object are these observances calcu- lated to subserve ? Taking it under the former of these significations, Mr. P. observed that we should arrive at the proper answer to the question by considering the character of the persons — the prophet's contemporaries and fellow- citizens in Jerusalem — to whom it was originally proposed. The character of these persons, therefore, appeared from the whole chapter from which the text was taken to have been very bad. The multitude and the regularity of their religious observances were fully admitted ; but the prophet brings against them at the same time this very serious charge, " Your hands are full of blood." In such circumstances it was to be supposed that J . Many of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would perform the regular religious services of the Jewish church from the influence of habit. They had been led to the House of God from their childhood ; they had been accustomed to spend a certain portion of their time in holy exercises ; they would feel uneasy not to be engaged in such exercises when the holy time 388 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. recurred ; and their object, therefore, in their religious observances was simply to get rid of the feeling of uneasiness which the non-performance of such services would occasion. 2. Others of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would engage in the regular religious observances of the Jewish church, because other people did so, and because it was fashionable. The land of Israel was the chosen land, and the Jews were the chosen people of God. It was therefore fashionable in Jerusalem to spend a certain portion of time in religious services ; and the object of these persons in engaging in such services was simply to escape observation and the charge of singularity if they did not. 3. Others would engage in the customary services of the period to square accounts with God for the past week. They were conscious they had done many things contrary to the divine law during the previous week, and it was therefore necessary to spend a certain portion of time in prayer and other holy exercises, to settle their accounts with God. 4. Others would attend the religious obser\^ances of the period to keep up the institutions of religion. The profession of religion was necessary, they would conceive, to the well-being of the State. Other nations had their religious institutions, and so should they. The Levitical priesthood and the Temple services were of divine institution : it was necessary and proper, therefore, that they should be kept up. For this purpose they would patronize religion ; they w^ould give its services the countenance of their presence. 5. Others again would attend the public services of the church to observe and criticise the priesthood. They wished to see that the prayers were repeated in a proper manner, and with suitable and becoming gesticulations. They wished to see whether the priest UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 389 ascended the altar-steps in the right way, and held the bunch of hyssop and sprinkled the blood with the right hand. All these things, and a great many others besides, required to be done aright ; and the object of such persons was to see that they were so done. 6. Others would attend the religious exercises of the period to set a good example. It was unquestion- able that religion was a good thing — for the working classes of society. It was necessary for the preser- vation of public order, and for the well-being of the community, that they should be encouraged to perform religious services. They would therefore give them the benefit of their example. Under the second general head of his discourse, Mr. Pierpont proceeded to sliow that all such religious services or observances as were prompted by the motives and feelings he had enumerated were not only worthless, but positively evil. They would not only fail of propitiating the Divine favour, but were certain to call forth the Divine displeasure. It was unquestionable that our religious services or observances could in no respect be profitable or advan- tageous to God. Ills were the cattle on a thousand hills, and he certainly stood in need of nothing from us. Nevertheless, there was a tacit feeling on the part of many that by performing such services they laid the Divine Being under obligation, and settled their accounts with him for the past. This, however, was a great de- lusion. To heinous was no compensation for being un- righteous. Mr. Pierpont concluded by showing that the proper object of Divine worship was to contemplate the cha- racter of God, that we may resemble him : exhorting his people to come to God's house, cherishing devout feelings of gratitude towards Him for the bounties of His providence, earnestly contemplating His righteous- ness and holiness, and asking forgiveness for all they 2 L 2 390 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. had done amiss, or had not done aright — remembering the condition on which alone such forgiveness could be granted, viz., that they forsook the evil they professed to deplore. Such, T have reason to believe, is a very fair speci- men of American Unitarian sermonizing. There was no reference to Christ of any kind throughout the dis- course. It was quite impossible that it could have ex- cited devotional feelings in any quarter. Indeed the irony with which the first part of it abounded was so exqui- site of its kind, and the result — I mean the picture in the mind's eye, especially that of the Jew watching the priest — so vivid and so ridiculous, that feelings of a to- tally diflferent kind were repeatedly excited in my own mind in the course of the sermon. I could not help regarding Mr. Pierpont's sermon, in so far asit exhibited the motives that induced to the per- formance of religious observances among the ancient Jews, as affording an excellent explanation of the phenomena of Unitarianism in New England. Under the overruling providence of God, however, the Unitarian apostasy has been made to contribute indirectly to an extensive, and I trust, permanent revival of religion throughout the orthodox communions of the Northern States. On the detection of that apostasy, in the year 1815, the New England churches were aroused at length from their fatal security, and found, to their own astonishment, how extensively the enemy had been sowing his tares while they slept. A reaction com- menced forthwith. The orthodox, few and feeble at first in the head quarters of the apostasy, gradually ac- quired strength and confidence ; another and another lodgment was successively effected in the enemy's ter- ritory ; another and another of his strongholds gave way, till the whole system finally received its death- blow, when the separation of Church and State was at length effected in Massachusetts, about ten years ago, UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 391 and entire religious freedom proclaimed in the land. Tlie American Unitarians themselves are now convinced that they have already passed the meridian of their glory, and that their sun is going down while it is yet day.* Mr. Pierpont's congregation did not amount to one-third of the number of the congregation of the orthodox churcli I attended in Boston on the same Sabbath. Unitarianism is the disease to which Christianity is subject in what may be called its frigid zone. There are others, however, to which it is equally exposed in the feverish regions of the tropics. Such are the heresies of the Universalists, the Restorationists, the Sweden- borgians, and the Mormons. The aggregate amount of all these heretical sects, however, is a mere nothing when compared with the sum total of the orthodox de- nominations. Their congregations are few in number and of insignificant amount. They make no impression on the general population. * " / really believe that the majority of men \vho go to church in America do so not from zeal towards God, but from fear of their neighbours ; and tltis very tyranny in the more established persua- sions is the cause of thousands turning away to other sects which are not subjected to scrutiny. The Unitarian is in this point tlie most convenient, and is lluiref ore fast gaining ground.^'' — MarryaCs Duinj, p. 217. I have very little respect for Captain jMarryat's Beliefs and sliall therefore say nothing on the subject. As to his fact — the rapid in- crease of Unitarianism in America — it is a gross misrci)resentation of the truth, which is exactly the reverse ; the Unitarians them- selves being judges. CHAPTER IX. POPERY IN AMERICA. I HAVE already remarked that the finger of God is especially observable in his having repressed the Ro- man Catholic emigration to the English colonies of North America, even after it had commenced under favourable auspices in the year 1634, for the long pe- riod of a century and a half, or until the churches of the Reformation, which were early planted in these colo- nies, had increased and multiplied and replenished the land.* There appears, indeed, to have been a conside- rable Roman Catholic emigration to the colony of JSIary- land during the seventeenth century ; for in the year 1690 there were not fewer than six Roman Catholic priests officiating in that colony. Many Roman Catho- lics also must have emigrated to all the thirteen colonies * In a manuscript paper which the Rev. Cotton !Mather informs lis had been circulated among the intending emigrants, previous to their embarkation, containing, " General Considerations for the Plantation of New England," the first is, " That it will be a ser- vice unto the church of great consequence, to carry the gospel unto those parts of the world, and raise a bulwark against the kingdom of antichrist, which the Jesuits labour to rear up in all parts of the "world." For " what," they add, " can be a better or more noble work, and more worthy of a Christian, than to erect and support a reformed particular church in its infancy, and unite our forces with such a company of faithful people, as by timely assistance may grow stronger and prosper ; but for want of it may be put to great hazard, if not be wholly ruined." What a noble design, and how nobly accomplished I POPERY IN AMERICA. 393 (luring the eighteenth century ; but the number of emi- grants of this communion from the United Kingdom was quite insignificant, when compared with the full tide of Protestant emigration from the continent of Europe, as well as from Great Britain and Ireland, during the whole of that period. The State of Louisiana, which was purchased by the United States' Government from the late Emperor Napo- leon, during the peace of Amiens, was originally a French, and, consequently, a Roman Catholic colony ; and the banks of the Ohio, and certain of its tributary streams, as well as the upper waters of the Mississippi, and the American shores of the great Canadian lakes, were ori- ginally settled by French emigrants from Lower Canada. Since the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States, there has also been a considerable emigration to New Orleans from the South of France ; many Gascons hav- ing emigrated from Bourdeaux, especially since the ter- mination of the last war, to push their fortunes among their countrymen in that part of America. The territory of Florida also was a Spanish, and, con- sequently, a Roman Catholic colony, previous to its acquisition, at a still later period, by the United States. I am not aware of the amount of the population of this territory at the period of its cession to America ; but so early as the year 1709, an emigration of loOO Greeks and Minorcans was conducted to East Florida, under the superintendence of a Dr. Turnbull.* Towards the commencement of the present century a considerable number of French refugees, both from France and St. Domingo, settled, chiefly as merchants, shop- keepers, instructors of youth, and professors of music and dancing, in all the Atlantic cities of the American republic ; and, during the last twenty-five years, the emigration from France to the United States has been very considerable. * Holmes' American Annals, s»A anno. 394 rUFERY IN AMERICA. According to the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, about one- third of the numerous German emigrants to the United States are Roman Catholics ; and Dr. S. adds, that, of all the Roman Catliolic immigrants in America, the Germans are the most liberal, and the least unwilling to attend the services of the Protestant clergy. The emigration from Poland, during the last ten years, has been exclusively Roman Catholic. It is chiefly, however, to the emigration from our own Green Isle that we are to ascribe the rise and pro- gress of Popery in America. The Irish emigration to the United States, during the last twenty-five years, has been prodigious. It has filled the cities with Irish labourers j it has scattered them in thousands all over the Union, especiallj^ wherever there were railroads to be constructed, or canals to be dug ; and during the recent struggle of the two great political parties of the United States, it has been sufficient to affect the ba- lance of power, and to turn the scale in favour of de- mocracy. Judge Torrey, the present Chief Justice of the United States, who, it seems, is a Roman Catholic,* owes his appointment to the earnest desire of President Jackson to conciliate the Roman Catholics of the Union in favour of his friend and successor, Mr. Van Buren. The mortality among this class of the population of the United States is quite appalling, A gentleman of experience in such matters, told me that the average duration of life among the Irish immigrants in America is only four years ; and a Scotch gentleman, from New Orleans, informed me that not fewer than 500 Irish labourers die annually in that city and its immediate neighbourhood. Allured by the prospect of high * Of the other six judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, one is an Episcopalian, another a Presbyterian, a third a Methodist, and a fourth a Unitarian. I forget what the other two are. At all events they agree to differ in the great point of religion. POPERY IN AMr:FICA. ?95 wages, they accompany the American contractors down the Oliio and Mississippi rivers to the pubhc or other works in progress in that part of the Union ; and through their own reckless and dissipated habits, con- joined with the dreadful unhealthiness of the climate, they are mowed down like the standing corn before the sickle of the reaper. Something of the same kind occurs in the Atlantic cities, where multitudes of Irish labourers gradually find their way to the southward from New York to Charleston, to labour for a year or two as mere beasts of burden, and then to sink under the deadly malaria of that pestilential clime. Every year of more than or- dinary sickliness, large collections are made in Charleston to send the Irish and other poor away from the city to save their lives.* A numerous detachment of these Irish emigrants is uniformly left in every American State prison on their way to the South and West, to bear testimony, I pre- sume, to the moral and religious character of the Green Isle. Of the twenty-two foreigners received into the State prison at Philadelphia, during the past year, not * The streets of Charleston used to be ornamented on each side with a row of the beautiful trees called the pride of India ; tho shade of which was most agreeable in the hot summer. But some medical gentlemen of the place, having one of those public nuisances called theories, persuaded a late Mayor of the city to cut them down, under the idea of their being unfavourable to the health of the inhabitants. To mend the matter, the streets are covered over with a sort of sea-sand, formed of oyster shells, from which thu reflection of the sun's rays is almost intolerable. It has since been ascertained that it is safest for a planter in thi"'sc sickly regions to build his house in the woods, without cutting down a single tree if he can help it; the noxious qualities of the atmosphere being \tYO- bably neutializcd by the exhalations from the foliage. There ic always a sickly season after an extensive coufiagration in Cliaileston. The smoke from the inhabited houses counteracts the influence of the malaria ; while it is generated powerfully by the exposure of the soil and ruins to the direct rays of the sun. 396 POPEHY IN AMERICA. fewer than thirteen were Irishmen. Of the remainder, three were Englishmen, three Germans, one a Scotchman, one a Frenchman, and one a Dutchman. Of the twenty- three foreigners received into the Maryland State prison at Baltimore, during the same period, not fewer than seventeen were Irishmen. Of the rest, one was an Englishman, four were Germans, and one a West Indian Creole. From the preceding enumeration, the reader will be prepared to find a considerable Roman Catholic popu- lation in the United States. That population has been more than doubled by immigration from Europe during the last fifteen years, and it now amounts to at least a million.* \ The Romaiv Catholic clergy in the United States consist of 1 archbishop, 11 bishops, and 418 priests. -j- The following is the distribution of this clerical force. "'Sopl*'' fees?J. Extent of country under the Bishop. Boston . /. 23 New England. New York / . 43 New York and New Jersey. Philadelphia/ . 40 Pennsylvania and Delaware. Baltimore / . 75 Maryland, Virginia, and D. of. / Columbia. Charleston/ . 28 North and South Carolina, and / Georgia. Mobile /. .10 Alabama and Florida. * Dr. Breckinridge, of Baltimore, estimates the Roman Catholics in the United States at a million and a half; but I suspect he is somewhat of an alarmist on that subject. Dr. Kenrick, of Phila- delphia, Titular Bishop of Arath, estimates them at a million ; and I should think he has better means of forming a correct estimate. His words are — " In his foederatis provinciis ad milUonem fere pertingere censemur.'''' \ In the American Almanac for the present year the number of priests is stated to be 478. Probably, therefore, the numbers I have given in the following list are those of the churches; the priests being somewhat more numerous. POFERY IN AMERICA. 307 Stations of the No. of Uiiliops. Priests. Extent of country under the Bishop. New Orleans . 31 Louisiana and Missouri. Bardstowu . 4 I Kentucky and Tennessee. Cincinnati . 21 Ohio. Vincennes . 15 Indiana and Illinois. St. Louis , . 68 Missouri and Arkansas. Detroit . . 22 Michigan and Wisconsin. Baltimore is the residence of the Archbishop. The person holding that office at present is Dr. Eccleston, a native American, and originally a High Church Epis- copalian. As the Roman Catholics, however, have been in considerable force in the State of Maryland for two centuries past, the wonder is that they are not much more numerous there than they are. Mobile is in the ter- ritory of the old Spanish Colony of Florida; and New Or- leans, and St. Louis, within the limits of the old French Colony of Louisiana ; while Cincinnati, Vincennes, and Detroit, are in the districts long settled, though very thinly, by French Canadians. In the other districts the Roman Catholic population consists chiefly of Irish, German, and other foreign immigrants ; the number of nrUive American Roman Catholics being as yet very small. The Roman Catholic clergy of the United States have made great efforts to get the education of the youth of the country as extensively as possible into their hands. Funds have been supplied to them for this purpose, as well as for the general objects of their Church, from Italy, France, and Austria ; the Pope himself having granted them 24,000 dollars, or about 5000 guineas per annum, through the Society de Pro- pagandd Fide. They have not fewer than ten col- leges in different parts of the Union ; but of these only two or three are of any note as yet. They have also established various schools for superior education, which are conducted chicHy by foreigners 2 M 398 POPERY IN AMERICA. from the continent of Europe, and in which education is afforded at a comparatively cheap rate ; and by great professions of liberality, and assurances of their having no intention to interfere with the religion of their pupils, they succeeded for a time, after the first establishment of these schools, in lulling asleep the suspicions of the public, and in deceiving many parents who were desirous of seeing their children adepts in the fashionable accomplishments of music and dancing, or in talking French and Italian. But the zeal of certain of the conductors of these establishments led them to overact their part, and at length awakened the suspi- cions of the public. In several instances young ladies in the Romish Seminaries requested permission from their parents to conform to the Romish Church, which their teachers, who had gained them over by undue in- fluence, were too conscientious, forsooth, to permit them to do without the concurrence of their natural guardians. Nay, in one instance, the two sons of Pro- testant parents, who had been persuaded to intrust their offspring to the Heads of a Roman Catholic col- lege, were actually taught to believe that their parents were not duly married, because the ceremony had not been performed by a Roman Catholic priest. After a few occurrences of this kind, improved as they were by Protestants of zeal and influence in the country, the eyes of the American public were effectually opened to the danger of encouraging Romish Educa- tional Institutions of any kind in the United States ; and the supplies of Protestant pupils to these Institu- tions were consequently in great measure withheld. The Rev. Dr. Miller, of Princeton ; the Rev. Dr. Tyng, of Philadelphia ; the Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, of Balti- more ; and the Rev. Dr, Brownlee, of New York, were all eminently instrumental in various ways in directing public attention to the subject throughout the Union. These efforts were not uncalled for ; for there is reason POPERY IN AMERICA. 399 to believe that previous to the French Revolution of 1830, there was a regularly organized con.si)iracy against the civil and religious liberties of the United States on the part of certain of the greater continental Powers of Europe, and that the mode which was deemed the most likely to be successful in effecting their object, was that of monopolising the education of the youth of the higher classes of society throughout the Union. The rise and progress of Popery in America, and the certain predominance of that system at no distant pe- riod in the United States, have for some time past been the favourite chords on which every writer on America who hates either the Republican Institutions, or the Voluntary System, or the evangelical religion of the United States, delights to harp, in "discoursing the sweet music" of his doleful ditty. " Judge Haliburton asserts," observes Captain Mar- ryat, " that all America will be a Catholic country. That all America, west of the Alleghanies, will event- ually be a Catholic country, I have no doubt, as the Catholics are already in the majority."* I have already stated that the population to the westward of the Alleghany mountains is at present estimated at five millions ; and that Dr. Kenrick, an American Roman Catholic Bishop, whom I have just quoted, estimates his body as still under a million — ad millionem fere pertingere censemur. Now, as the Roman Catholics in the United States consist chiefly of persons of the labouring classes, and as the great public works in which these persons find employment are situated chiefly in the Atlantic States, there is reason to believe that at least one-half of the whole Roman Catholic population of the Union resides in these States. Nay, this must be the case ; for of the 418 priests in the Union, 219 are stationed in the * Mairyat's Diary, American edit. Part i., p. 2'22. 400 POPERY IN AMERICA. Atlantic States. If, therefore, there are five millions of people in the Valley of the Mississippi, and if only half a million of these are Roman Catholics, how, I ask, can that half million be the majority ? The thing is absurd; and, to use a sea-phrase. Captain Marry at may *' tell it ill future to the marines ; for the sailors will not believe it." A clergyman from Missouri informed me that the proportion of Roman Catholics in the West was one in ten. This tallies exactly with the numbers I have given above. In regard to the supply of the ordinances of religion for the western population generally, I have no hesita- tion in asserting that, in proportion to their numbers, the four millions and a half of Protestants have a larger nmnber of ministers and missionaries to dispense the ordinances of religion among them than the half mil- lion of Roman Catholics. The missionaries of the Presbyterian denominations alone, exclusive of their settled clergy altogether, are nearly double the number of the whole Roman Catholic priesthood in America. And the reader will bear in mind that the Presbyterians in the West are greatly out-numbered by the Metho- dists and Baptists, who, it is well known, are never be- hind in this labour of love. " The Protestant cause," observes Captain Marryat, " is growing weaker every day ; the Catholic church is silently, but surely, advancing''^ " While the Presbyterians," observes Miss Martineau, " preach a harsh, ascetic, persecuting religion, the Catholics dispense a mild and indulgent one ; and the prodigious iiicrease of their riumbers is a necessary con- sequence." I could easily reply to these general assertions, which are merely the offspring of ignorance and spleen, with an uuquahfied contradiction. But I choose rather * Diary, &c., p. 220. POPERY IN AMERICA. 401 to refer to specific facts. The Rev. Dr. Tyng, of Phi- ladelphia, informed me that, during the eleven years of his ministry, as an Episcopalian clergyman, in that city, he had admitted to the communion of his church twenty-five Roman Catholics, and had not lost a single memher of his own church. Dr. Breckinridge, of Bal- timore, informed me that, during the last thirteen years, including five years of the incumbency of his predecessor, 05 Roman Catholics had joined the Second Presbyterian church in Baltimore, some of whom are now the most active and zealous members of his church. These are only specimens of what, I have reason to be- lieve, is taking place in numberless instances all over the country. Dr. B. has been delivering a series of lectures, recently, on the Romish controversy, one of which I had the pleasure of hearing, during my stay in Baltimore. The introductory prayer on the occasion was oifered up by a Methodist minister, who, I was afterwards told, had been born and bred a Roman Catholic. In front of the pulpit there was sitting, in the area of the church, a Maltese, who, I was informed, had been in training for some time for the Romish priesthood, but had been savingly converted by reading an English Bible to an American sailor, who was dying at sea. The young foreigner had never had a Bible in his hand before, and he did not read it to the dying man, who, it seems, had shown him some kindness, from any belief that he could derive any benefit from it, but simply because he saw he liked it. Tiiis person is now a member of one of the Baptist churches in Baltimore. Indeed, I was given to understand that the number of the converts from Popery, in America, who join the Methodist and Baptist communions, is much greater than that of those who join the Presbyterian or the Episcopal church. A few weeks, however, before my arrival at Charleston, a Romish priest in that city had publicly renounced the errors of the Church of 2 M 2 402 POPERY IN AMERICA. Rome, and was shorti)' to be ordained as an Episcopal minister, for tlie State of Georgia. Many, also, of the German Roman Catholic immi- grants in the United States, who, in their own country, had never seen Protestantism under any other aspect than that of Rationalism, have had their understandings enlightened, and been savingly converted, under the zealous and evangelical ministry of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in their adopted country. In passing through Baltimore, in May last, I happened to have a few religious newspapers, from various parts of the country, put into my hands by a clergyman of that city. Among the rest, there was a number of the " Lutheran Observer," of the 1st May, 1840, in which 1 found a letter, addressed to the editor, by a Lutheran clergyman, of date " Fell's Point, near Baltimore, April 21, 1840," of which the following is an extract : — " The first Easter-day, we partook of the Lord's Supper, and FOUR Roman Catholics partook with us, for the first time, of the holy Eucharist, and joined the Lutheran Church at the Point, besides some formal Protestants, who became awakened through the preaching of the gospel. Two of the above-mentioned Roman Catholics give sufficient evidence of their real conversion to the Lord Jesus ; the two others are not so far advanced in spirituality, but are desirous not only to leave the darkness of Popery, but to flee from the wrath to come."* In short, the number of conversions from Popery to Protestantism, in the United States, is, beyond all com- parison, greater than that of the conversions from Pro- testantism to Popery. Dr. Breckinridge informed me they were as twenty to one ; and, from all I saw and * I forgot to mention, in the proper place, that the American Lutheran clergy use the liturgical service of their church only at the communion. Their prayers are extempore, and they do not read their sermons. POPERY IN AMERICA. 403 heard, I liave reason to believe that this estimate is not far from the truth. Indeed, Protestantism has an ag- gressive character in America, which it has long since lost in Europe ; for I firmly believe that the United States are, at this moment, the only Protestant country in Christendom in which Protestantism is actually gaining ground upon Popery. Nay, so strongly is this the opinion of the Americans themselves, that a dis- tinguished American clergyman observed to me, in conversation on the subject, " that, if there were a sea of fire between their country and Europe, to put a stop to European immigration, Popery would be extinct in America in fifty years." I have already remarked, that the scriptural educa- tion of youth in the common schools of the Middle and Northern States, and the mental freedom necessarily engendered by the political institutions of the country, are decidedly unfavourable to the maintenance of the Popish system in America. Even where the attach- ment of the parents to that system remains unabated, the children in very many instances grow up with Pro- testant feelings, and throw off the yoke entirely when they come to manhood. Very few native Americans have, as yet, been educated for the Romish priesthood ; the great majority of the American priests being still either native Irishmen, or Frenchmen and Belgians. Of the twelve bishops, only two are Americans, and one of these, Bishop Miles of Mobile, has been but very recently appointed * In such circumstances, it must be evident to every intelligent reader, that the efforts of the Papacy, as a proselytizing com- * Of three Ameriran Romish bishops, and three priests, who were all fcllow-passengcrs of mine, from New York, in the British Queen, only one — Bishop Miles — was an American. Tlic rest were all Frenclimen, Italians, and Belgians. Tlic priests were on leave of absence, coming to visit their relatives in Europe. The bishops were all going to Rome, I presume, to rcjiresfnt to the Tope, in person, in what real danger tiie Church is, under the Vo- luntary System, in Republican America. 404 POPERY IN AMERICA. muiiion in America, must necessarily be very feeble, especially when it comes in contact witii tlie intel- ligent New Englanders, who generally constitute the pioneers of civilization in the West. In short, the re- presentations of Captain Marryat and Miss Martineau, as to the prodigious increase of Roman Catholics in America, from proselytism, are not only contrary to the fact, but contrary also to the reason of the case. Nay, even Popery itself has not escaped the plastic iniluence of the Presbyterian and Republican institu- tions of America. The Roman Catholic laity in the United States must have something to say in the go- vernment of the church they belong to, as well as their neighbours. Something of this kind has, I understand, been conceded to them already ; but, as soon as a generation of them shall have passed through the State Schools, they must have a great deal more, otherwise Popery will not continue to be tolerated in America — I mean by the Roman Catholics them- selves. On remarking to an American clergyman, before I had ascertained some of the facts I have detailed, that many intelligent Christians in Europe were under great apprehensions as to the future predominance of Popery in the great valley of the Mississippi, he observed, in reply, that the American Protestant clergy were under no such apprehensions. They had far more, he added, to apprehend from Popery in the Atlantic States : not from proselytism, however, for of this they were under no apprehension ; but from the profanation of the sab- bath, which Popery uniformly brought along with it, and from its acknowledged tendency to lower the standard of morals and religion wherever it prevailed. The marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics, which necessarily resulted from a Romish immigration, were also, he observed, a great evil ; and wherever Popery prevailed extensively, infidelity was its never-failing accompaniment, among the higher and influential POPERY IN AMERICA. 405 classes of society. It is for these reasons, and not from any dread of proselytism, that the Americans de- plore the influx of Roman Catholics into their country, and that a feeling of uneasiness has latterly been evinced, in various parts of the Union, in regard to the immi- gration of foreigners altogether. I have already remarked that Popery in the United States is peculiarly open to the aggressive influence of American Protestantism. Protestants in England can have no idea of the extent to which this influence is exerted, or of its astonishing results. A young man of the name of Harlan Page, who died lately in New York, and who held, during the latter years of his life, the comparatively humble situation of a clerk in the New York Tract Depository, was known to have been directly instrumental in the conversion of upwards of a hundred persons in that city. In his work of faith and labour of love, as an occasional distributor of tracts, he was in the habit of following up the distribution of his tracts with other direct eff'orts for the spiritual welfare of those to whom he had presented them, whenever there was any thing either in their character or circum- stances that encouraged him to proceed. And these humble but zealous efforts for the everlasting welfare of his fellow- men were blessed by the Spirit of God to an extent which, in all likelihood, will never be known till the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. The Rev. Mr. Hallock, the Secretary of the Society I have just mentioned, was in the habit of walking out in the evening with his wife, and visiting every house in the particular district of the city he selected for his tour, with a parcel of tracts. In one of these tours he happened to enter the house of a player in the 15owcry theatre ; and, finding the player's wife at home, lie told her that he was engaged in distributing tracts in the neighbourhood, and that, although he was aware, from her manner of life, that she could not be in the habit of 406 POPERY IN AMERICA. thinking seriously on lier eternal welfare, his conscience would not allow him to pass her by ; and he hoped, therefore, she would noi take it amiss if he earnestly recommended to her to read the tract he had come to offer her, and to make it the subject of her serious meditation. The actress, for such she was, replied that she had often thought seriously on her manner of life, and had even resolved to forsake it entirely very shortly. As her husband, however, had an engagement in the Bowery theatre on the Monday evening of the following week, and as she was also engaged for the same evening, she had resolved, after that engagement was over, to give up the Stage. Mr. Hallock made no reply. In the course of the week, however, the actress called at his house, to tell hira she could bear her manner of life no longer. She felt that she was dis- honouring God, and contracting great guilt ; and she had therefore resolved to give up the stage immediately. In these circumstances she desired Mr. Hailock's ad- vice, as to what course she should pursue in regard to her engagement for the following Monday. Mr. H. told her he could give her no advice on the subject ; but that if her determination was the result of princi- ple, and of conscientious feelings of duty, she might safely leave the issue with God, as he would bring about her deliverance, by some means which it was impossible to foresee. With this advice the actress returned home, and on the Saturday night, or rather, the Sabbath morning thereafter, the Bowery* theatre was burnt to the ground. Such then is the species of Protestant influence and agency to which the Roman Catholic emigrant is ex- * Tlie Bou-ery is the name of a wide street in New York. It derives this name from the locality having formerly been the site of the Baiu'rey, or " fai'm," of Governor Stuyvesant, the last Dutch crovernor of New York. POPERY IN AMERICA. 407 posed in America, on the part of each of the four leading evangelical communions in the United States — the Methodists and Baptists, the Presbyterians and Low Church Episcopalians. I am unable to state which of these denominations is the most active and zealous in this work ; but it is generally allowed that the Methodists and Baptists are the most successful. At all events, the Methodists are now by far the most numerous denomination in what was once the Roman Catholic State of Maryland. Whether it is because they preach a less " harsh and ascetic" religion than the Presbyterians, I leave it to Miss Martineau to de- termine. The establishment of convents or nunneries has always been one of the notable devices of Popery, for the propagation of its influence, and the consolidation of its power ; and ruinous as such establishments have ever proved to the morals of nations, and directly op- posed as they are to the principles of civil liberty, the practice is one which every Protestant government ought to watch over with the utmost jealousy. A Lady Abbess and a corps of nuns were engaged some time ago in France for the establishment of a convent in New Orleans, and took their passage in an American vessel commanded by a captain from Connecticut. The captain was a bachelor, and during the voyage one of the nuns happened to engage his affections, which it seems were strongly reciprocated. How the story was mutu- ally told is one of those difficult questions which none but a professed novelist could be expected to answer ; for the captain could not speak one word of French, nor the nun one word of English. Tliere are other languages in the world, however, besides these ; and the parties happened to hit upon one which they both un- derstood sufficiently for their purpose. On the ship's arrival at New Orleans the captain got a Protestant clergyman to go on board and solemnize a marriage 408 POPERY IN" AMERICA, between himself and the nun, who of course remained on board-ship when the Lady Abbess and the rest of the sisterhood went on shore. When the circumstance w^as noised abroad in the French portion of the city, there was a prodigious burst of pious indignation ; and the pub- lic authorities were appealed to to compel the captain to surrender the nun to public justice and the priests. But Jonathan was right when he " guessed there was no law in the States to compel him to send his wife ashore." She is now the mother of a reputable family in the "Land of Steady Habits;" and in such a situation she is surely occupying the place for which Divine Provi- dence assigned her, and discharging her duty to society much more effectually than if she had lived and died within the walls of a Romish prison. As to the broken vow — the unnatural and unholy vow of an anti- chris- tian superstition — to use the language of an eloquent writer on another occasion, " When the Recording Angel wrote it down, he dropt a tear upon the words, and blotted them out for ever." A nun who had been nineteen years in a convent in Baltimore having escaped in the course of last year, a powerful sensation was produced in the public mind ; although the nun refused to disclose the secrets of her prison-house, and merely solicited protection. In short, there is nothing more likely to lead to popular tumults and popular outrages in the United States than the Romish mania for the establishment of convents. In alluding, in conversation with an intelligent American gentleman, to the burning of the convent in Massachu- setts a few years ago, and to the growing disposition to disregard all law and justice, which it was supposed in England to evince, on the part of the Americans, the American indignantly repelled the insinuation ; observ- ing, in explanation of the feelings of his countrymen, " There is no law in the United States to authorise un- rOPERY IN AMERICA. 409 married men to erect a prison for unmarried women and to lock them up in it." The lecture on the Romish controversy which I attended in Baltimore, was the seventh of a scries which Dr. Breckinridge had been delivering. The afternoon had been very unfavourable ; there had been much thunder, lightning, and rain ; but the large church was quite full, and the subject appeared to be deeply interesting to all present. The object of the lecture was to exhibit the condi- tion of the Church of Romp, or rather of Christendom, at the period of the Reformation, and the previous suc- cessful efforts of the Papacy to extinguish the light of Christianity in Bohemia, in England, and in Southern Europe among the Waldenses. On this subject. Dr. B. had some theory of his own, which he had previ- ously developed, but which I could only guess at, to the effect that as the Dragon is said, in the 14th chap- ter of the Revelation, to give his power to the beast, the characteristics of the Papacy had all along been those of Satan, who is described in Scripture as a liar and a murderer from the heyimmig ; its steps being traceable in blood, and deceit having been uniformly written on its forehead. Dr. B. showed at great length, and with great ability and effect, how these character- istics had been exhibited by the Papacy all along, and particularly in crushing the Reformation in Italy and Spain, and in the bloody tragedy of the Netherlands. Dr. B. then showed how the constitution of the German empire was peculiarly favourable to the pro- gress of the Reformation ; comparing it with that of the United States — a series of independent sovereign- ties, bound together in one common federation. Such a state of things was unquestionably favourable to the progress of the Reformation, when conjoined with that love of liberty and of free institutions which was so characteristic of the German race. 2 N 410 POPERY IN AMERICA. In giving a slight sketch of this period, Dr. B. ad- verted to the question " whether resistance is in any case allowable in a Christian man for the maintenance or defence of his religious liberty ;" alluding to the opinion of Andrew Fuller that in no case is it allow- able. This opinion Dr. B. controverted ; but I cannot say with much success. For my own part, I have long been of opinion that the resort to the sword was the measure which proved the most fatal to the Refor- mation — the one that immediately arrested its progress and stripped it at once of its moral and resistless power. Nay, I confess that I have never been able, on this prin- ciple, to justify certain of the military demonstrations even of the Scottish Covenanters. The best apology that can be made for these excellent men is doubtless that "oppression maketh even a wise man mad ;" for they were surely not in their senses when they organized an armed resistance to the civil power. In the course of the lecture, which occupied upwards of an hour and a half, and was listened to throughout with the utmost attention, Dr. B. read brief but appro- priate extracts from Guicciardini's Storia d' Italia : Maimbourg's Histoire du Lutheranisme ; Miiller's His- tory of the German Empire ; Llorente's History of the Inquisition ; Dr. McCrie's Account of the Suppression of the Reformation in Italy and Spain; and Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scriptures. Although I disapprove entirely of all such Societies as the Reformation Society, and of all such prize-fight- ing exhibitions as the public disputations of Protestant ministers and Roman Catholic priests, — on the principle that the preaching of the truth is the best means of assailing error — I am nevertheless of opinion that it is the bounden duty of every Protestant minister to em- brace every opportunity of enlightening his congrega- tion and the public generally in regard to the real cha- racter and the past history of the Romish religion ; POPERY IN AMERICA, 411 especially wherever the public mind has sunk into a state of quiescence on the subject, and when irreligious and ungodly men have endeavoured, as was extensively the case a few years ago in America, to propagate the de- lusive idea that Popery is just as good a religion as that of Protestants. In this way Dr. Breckinridge's lectures were certainly calculated, to judge from the specimen I heard, to be of real service to the cause of Protestantism, or rather of genuine Christianity, in the United States. At all events they were evidently the production of a man of talent and learning, and of great historical research. The Roman Catholics in America are almost uni- versally attached to the democratic party, and vote for Mr. Van Buren. The following is M. de Tocqueville's theory on the subject, which, however, I am by no means prepared to admit : — " About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a Cathohc population into the United States ; on the other hand the CathoUcs of America made proselytes ; and at the present moment more than a million of Christians, professing the truths of the church of Rome, are to be met with in the Union. These Catholics are faithful to the observances of their religion ; they are fervent and zealous in the support and belief of their doctrines. Nevertheless they constitute the most republican and the most democratic class of citizens which exists in the United States ; and although tliis fact may surprise the observer at first, the causes by which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon reflection. " I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon as the natural enemy of democracy. Amongst the various sects of Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on the contrary, to be one of those which are most favourable to the equality of conditions. In the Catholic church the religious community is com- 412 POPERY IN AMERICA. posed of only two elements, the priest and the people. The priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and all below him are equal."* There is no necessity for so recondite a theory to explain a very simple fact. The great majority of the American Roman Catholics — originally the lower Irish of our own country — were Radicals, and Repealers, and Universal-SufFrage-men before they went to America. They were therefore prepared beforehand to attach themselves implicitly to that political party to which the Carbonari in all countries universally belong ; and the only thing that surprised them in the matter w^as to find that party supported in America by many of the heads of society as well as by the tail. The Roman Catholic merchant is as much a Whig in America as his neighbours, and he will not thank M. de Tocqueville for telling the world that " the priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and that all below him are equal." I have already referred to a work recently published in America, by Dr. Kenrick, Roman Catholic Coadjutor Bishop of Philadelphia. It is intended as a sort of manual for R.oman Catholic students of divinity in the United States, and is entitled, " TheologicB Dogniaticm Tractatus Tres de Revelatione, de Ecclesid, et de Verbo Dei, quos concinnavit Revmus Dnus Franciscus Patricius Kenrick, Epus Arath, in Part. Infid. et Coadj. Ep. Philadelphiensis. Philadelphia? ; Typis L. Johnson, in Georgii vico, 1839 — 1840." As a Theo- logical work, it is characterised by its American reviewer, the Rev. Dr. Hodge of Princeton, as a super- ficial production, in which the Bishop vainly endeavours to make the semi-pelagianism of the modern Romish church symbolize with the doctrines and opinions of the celebrated Augustine. The notices it contains, * Democracy in America, page 283 ; 2nd American Edition, New York, 183(3. POPERY IN AMERICA. 418 however, of the various divisions of the Protestant Church, and especially of the Protestant churches of America, are singularly interesting and amusing ; and I shall therefore conclude this chapter with a few quota- tions from the Bishop's work, which the mere English reader can pass over. The following is the Bishop's general account of the Protestant churches : — " Protestantes in innumeras divisi sectas, plnres Europaj obtinent provincias, Angliam scilicet, Scotiam, Daniam, Sueviam, Norvegiam, Borussiam, Bataviam, pluresque Germania? provincias, et magnam Provinci- arum Fa3deratarum partem. In insulis quoque nonnullis Indiarum Occidentalium et Orientalium, et in oris maritimis Asia} reperiuntur. Lutheranismus in Dania, et provinciis vicinis, in Saxonia, et in aliis nonnullis Germanise partibus prasertim viget : Calvini principia in Scotia, Borussia, Batavia, et Anglia potius obtinent. Anglicani tarn en Hierarchice servant umbram, pluresque ritus fere Catholicos : imo plura propugnant principia, quae specie Catholica sunt, vel parum a Catholicis dissita." This well-merited commendation, which the Romish bishop bestows upon the High Church, or Puseyite, Episcopalians, is not altogether unqualified ; for he adds, " Anglicani autcm schismatis crimen vehementer exag- gerant, sui vulneris liaud rncmores." " In his Foederatis Provinciis Presbyteriani, Calvini principia plcrumque propugnantes, numero et studiis pollent, sed in plurimas sectas sub-dividuntur, Veteris a NovcB Scholce, uti aiunt, sectatoribus, nuperrime novo dissidio scissis. Baptistfip, immersionis necessitatem, ut valeat baptismus, statuentes ; Methodists, Episcopaliani, aliique omnis generis numero baud parvo reperiuntur. Exorti sunt ante paucos annos MormoniUe, aureo libro, Bibliis pnt'Stantiuri, uti ipsi contcndunt, dctccto, qui jam in provincia Missouriensi armis se tuentur." 2 N 2 414 FOPEEY TN AMERICA. The Mormonites are a recent American reproduction of something like the famous Johanna Southcote af- fair in our own country — equally extravagant and equally contemptible. The following is really a very correct view of the principles of Church government held by the principal denominations of the Protestant Church : — " Anglicani Episcopale regimen tenent, cui fideles singuli sunt subjiciendi; qua autem ratione Episcopi per orbem inter se conjungantur, ut in unum veluti corpus coeant, hand feliciter explicant, charitatis vinculum cum fide dograatum fundamentalium sufficere arbitrantes : quod tamen aliquando verbis obscurioribus enuntiant. Episcoporum autem institutionem ab Apostolis repetit "White : Bingham a Christi ordinatione. Methodistas nonnulli Episcoporum regimen agnoscunt, quod tamen divinitus institutum vix possunt habere, quum Joannem "Wesley, Episcopali charactere plane carentem, Thomam Coke Episcopum primum sectse ordinasse ipsi referant, et Episcopum ordinari posse a senioribus, prseconibus scilicet saltern tribus numero, tradant, si temporum cala- mitate contigerit nullum in secta superesse Episcopum. Apud coetum generalem seu collationem, Anglice, 'Ge- neral Conference^ praecipuam constituunt potestatem : ea quippe ex senioribus, qui in annuls collationibus eliguntur, constat, quolibet quadriennio congregatur, ipsosque quos vocant episcopos su£e subditos auctori- tati habet. Baptists consulunt ut data occasione inter se Ecclesise locales societatem ineant, communibusque utantur consiliis, sed omnem auctoritatis notionera ab- esse jubent. Presbyterian! Comitiis Generalibus, ' Ge- neral Assembly' ex tota America Foederata collectis, prfficonibus et laicis senioribus in id electis, potestatem summam in suae sectae negotiis tribuunt. Singulas parcecias apud illos regit praco cum duohus saltern laicis senioribus, qui tribunal constituunt ' Sessionem' vocatum ; plures sessiones tribunal Presbyierii efficiunt, POPERY IN AMERICA. 415 in quo conveniunt prcpcones omues qui ad eas pertinent, una cum laico seniore ex qualibet : si/nodus tria saltern Presbyteria complectitur, et ex pra'conibus, et laicis senioribus, pari ratione constituitur : Comitia Geiieralia fiunt semel in anno, pra?cone uno ex viginti quatnor cujuslibet Presbyterii, et seniore uno pariter coadu- iiatis. " In ditionibus Anglias rex, vel regina, in omnibus causis, tum ecclesiasticis, turn civilibus, prajcipuam habet potestatem juxta articulos Anglicanos : sed Epis- copalian! Americani profitentur civilem Magistratum nullam habere auctoritatem in rebus mere spiritualibus. Habetur Coetus Generalis Episcoporum, * General Con- vention ;' Ministris cum laicis etiam intervenientibus. Omnibus priest Episcopns senior ordinatione, qui tamen nullam in caeteros exercet auctoritatem. Angli- cani Episcopum Romanum nullam habere in Anglia? ditionibus jurisdictionem affirmant ; sed de eo silent Americani Episcopaliani. Methodistai nullam exteram jurisdictionem agnoscunt ; sed Baptistic et Presbyte- riani in Episcopum Romanum tanquam Antichristum debacchantur." — Vol. i., pp. 140, 141. In the following paragraphs, Bishop Kenrick exhi- bits the views of the principal Protestant denominations in regard to the authority of the Churcii, and shows how much they all stand in need of a common centre of infallible authority, like the Pope in the Church of Rome. He also evinces no slight acquaintance with the facts of the recent division of the American Presby- terian Church into the Old and New School Assemblies, and evidently regrets the departure of the American Episcopalians from the better practice of the Cliurch of England, in regard to confession and absolution. " Presbyteriani in Comitiis suis Generalibus agnoscunt potestatem judiciariam in doctrina; controversiis, sed earn contendunt esse mere declaratoriam, adeo ut Sanc- ta; Scripturae sint unica rcgula fidci et morum. Des 416 POPERY IN AMERICA. truunt manifesto quod Eedificant, dum errorem subesse posse hujusinodi judiciis baud gravantur fateri. Deest igitur uiiitatis principium, nullum enim est tribunal quo doctrina certo dijudicari valeat. " De Ecclesi^ potestate in controversiis fidei silent Methodistae, verba articulorum Anglicanorum alioquin plerumque excribentes. " Baptistae supremum controversiarum judicem nul- lum alium agnoscunt propter scripturam a Spiritu tradi- tam. " Liquet igitur apud Sectas nullum esse tribunal quo fidei unitas servari possit, quum summa judicia in- certa ab ipsis agnoscantur, et erroris periculo obnoxia," Vol. i. p. 182. " Ex Paley audivimus quae opinionum licentia ob- tineat apud eos qui articulis Anglicanis subscribunt. Recentissime vero luculentum datum est argumentum Confessionem Presbyterianam nullam vim apud sectara obtinere ; in ipsis enim Comitiis Generalibus, singulis fere annis sententiee contrarias obtinuerunt, alternatim fere ScholcB NovcB, quJE a confessionis principiis longissime discedit, vel Scliolce. Fe^erz Calvinianse faventes. Quum autem commentationes in epistolam ad Romanos a Bar- nesio, Philadelphioe ante paucos annos editae, haereseos fuissent insimulata?, ipseque ex Synodi auctoritate a munere prsedicandi suspensus, Comitia Generalia Pitts- burgi anno 1836 eum absolverunt : anno vero sequent! Comitia Generalia Philadelpbise habita, omnes Novae Schola3 fautores et Ecclesias in quibus eee circumfere- bantur opiniones a consortio suo absciderunt, qua ratione sexcenti fere prsecones simul abscissi dicuntur. Hsec sane ostendunt confessionem nullatenus idoneam fidei unitati perpetuo servandee." Vol. i. p. 18-1. " Re quidem vera Episcopaliani nostrates in baptism! administratione omittunt singillatim interrogare de Sym- boli articulis, utrum scilicet credat baptizandus in Pa- trem, Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, Sanctam Ecclesiam POPERY IN AMERICA. 417 Catholicam, remissionem peccatorum, et castera : sub- stituta interrogatione general! : utrum teiieat omnes articulos fidei Christianoe prout in Symbo'o Apostolico continentur. Quamvis haec mutatio parvi momenti possit cuiquam videri, ex industria facta quum sit, peri- culum pra?sefert lie sensim sine sensu a pluribus fidei dogmatibus recedendi quai'ratur occasio. Quod vero ad rem magis facit, in visitatione nsgrotorum olim apud Anglicanos prcescriptum est ut minister a^grotum hor- taretur ad specialem peccatorum confessionem peragen- dam, eique confesso absolutionem auctoritate sibi a Christo commissa impertiretur : quam absolvendi potes- tatem Ecclesia^ denegare esset, teste Pearsonio, haere- sis Novatiana. Jam vero omnem mentionem confes- sionis, et absolutionis, Rituale Americanum prorsus oraittit. " Quum Methodista; Episcopalianos imitentnr, Bap- tistsB vero et Presbyterian! nullam fere habeant formam cultus, sed pleraque praeconum permittant arbitrio, qui orationes fundere, legere scripturas, bymnos canere, et conciones facere pro occasione debent, liquet fidei uni- tatem in cultuet sacramentorum administratione nullum apud sectas habere pryesidium. "Nullum est principiu77i apud Sectas quo in regimine servari possit unitus, vel foveri sacra cum Cliristi fideli- bus per orbem communio : nam nulla est communis auctoritas (pja teneantur. Comitia Generalia in America nullo auctoritatis ligamine cum Calvinianis Scotis, An- glis, Gcnevensibus conjun^nntur, sed sola imitatione regiminis, et doctrina? similitudinc, plurimis capitibus, qua? odium paritura forent, mutatis, se fratres exiiibent.* Ipsa comitia non valcnt unitatem in sua provincia ser- vare, quum auctoritatcm nullam sacram habere agnos- cantur, et oscillatione quadem in varias ferantur partes. Episcopalian! nullo cummuni vinculo tenentur, Angli- * The only cliange is in the chapter of the Civil Magistrate, whose autliority in the church the Americans totally deny. 418 POPERY IN AMERICA. cani enim regem vel reginam in omnibus causis civilibus et Ecclesiasticis, intra suam ditionem, suprema auctori- tate pollere fatentur, quod ex Dei ordinatione repetit rex in solerani sua declaratione articulis praefixa. Nos- trates autem Conventione Generali res suas moderantur, in singulis dioecesibus coetu quodam statute, quo et Episcoporum arctetur potestas. Adeo autem carent communionis sacro vinculo, ut non nisi humanitate qua- dam conjungi cum Anglicanis dici possint, cujus exer- citium leges Anglicanae coercent, vetantes ne exterus quis episcopus in suis Ecclesiis concionetur. Anglican! porro cleri comitia, quse Convocationem vocant, ne- queunt haberi absque venia regia, qualem etiam sanc- tionem ejus decreta exigunt ut valeant." — Vol. i. p. 186. I shall conclude with the following quotation exhi- biting Bishop Kenrick's view of the tenets of the four leading evangelical denominations in America, in re- gard to the office of a Bishop : — " Plerique sectarii in hac regione vel Episcopale re- gimen prorsus rejiciunt, vel illud ad Ecclesiasticam politiam referunt, quin a Christi institutione derivetur. Presby teriani contendunt nullam specialem auctoritatem regiminis Episcopi vocabulo designari, sed de simplici quovis animarum pastore illud usurpari. lis Baptistee, ut plerumque, assentiuntur, ISIethodistiE nonnuUi Episcopalis regiminis noraen retinent, sed illud repetunt ex Wesleyi in banc formam voluntate magis propensa, eum Episcopatus sui auctorem agnoscentes. Episco- palian! eo gloriantur ; sed ex Apostolorum institutione illud derivat White, qui, moderationis laudem cupiens, animadvertit Ecclesiam Anglicara absolutam ejus neces- sitatem nunquam affirmasse, et Bancroftum ipsum, dum ageretur de Episcopis Scotias dandis, ab ea quees- tione dirimenda consulto abstinuisse, ne omnes pene EcclesicB Reformat£e ministerio carere viderentur." — Vol. i. p. 246. CHAPTER X. SLAVERY, ABOLITION, AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. The existence of slavery in the United States is the grand anomaly in the political and social system of America ; the dark spot in the national banner ; the source alike of present weakness and of future calamity. There are certain things, however, which every in- telligent and candid Englishman ought to bear in mind before visiting the Americans with unqualified condem- nation for the existence of slavery in the United States ; and the first of these is, that slavery in America is en- tirely of British origin and creation. There was a period when slavery was not only lawful in the British domini- ons, but when the Slave-trade itself was regarded as one of the most important branches of the national indusiry. It was encouraged by the Commons ; it was protected and promoted by the Lords ; it was made the subject of solemn treaties with other Powers, in which the British Government stipulated for a monopoly of the traffic, and aspired to the character and office of Kidnapper Gen- eral for the world. By the treaty with Spain in the year 1713, commonly called the Treaty of Ayun- tamiento, it was stipulated that Great Britain should have the exclusive privilege of importing slaves into the Spanish colonies for thirty years, and that during that period she should import not fewer than 144,000, or 420 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 4800 per annum. The privilege had previously been enjoyed by the French Guinea Company, and it was considered an important object gained for the nation to have it transferred to Great Britain. It was in this state of feeling throughout the civilized world towards the unfortunate children of Africa, that certain of the British colonies of America became slave- holding colonies. Certain, indeed, of the American colonists petitioned, from tim.e to time, that the import- ation of negroes into these colonies might be dis- continued ; but the trade — the Slave-trade — was a source of profit to Britain, and the petitions were not granted. In process of time the American colonies rebelled against the tyranny of the mother-country, and forming a League for their mutual defence, proclaimed themselves Sovereign and Independent States. By this League, the independent sovereignty of each of these States was distinctly recognized by all the rest, and the permanence of the civil institutions it had enjoyed during its colonial existence guaranteed from all inter- ference from without. This League was subsequently matured into the Constitution of the United States ; and to the Government created by that Constitution, each of the Sovereign and Independent States sur- rendered the administration of certain matters of general concernment, retaining their independent and sovereign jurisdiction in reference to all others. Those matters of general concernment that were thus intrusted to the General Government were — 1st. Intercourse with Fo- eign Powers, or the Concerns of War and Peace. 2nd. The Regulation of Foreign Trade, and the Department of Customs. 3rd. The Administration of the Post Office ; and 4th. The Management of the Public Lands. In all matters, therefore, that cannot be dis- tinctly arranged under one or other of these heads, the Government of the United States is precluded from intermeddling. The civil institutions of society AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 421 throughout the Union are left by that Government as it found them, to be modified or changed agreeably to the sovereign will and pleasure of each sovereign and independent state. But why, it may be asked, did the Americans not abolish slavery when they proclaimed their national in- dependence ? In other words, why were the Ameri- cans at the Revolution not at least half a century in ad- vance not only of Great Britain, but of the whole civil-* ized world? Unfortunately the mercury had not then risen so high in the thermometer of public opinion in any part of the world, as to indicate the wrongs of Africa — the monstrous injustice with which her children were treated in every country and by every nation. The perception of the enormity of the Slave-trade, and of the whole system of slavery, was, so to speak, a sixth sense which was only slowly communicated even to the British nation, within the last forty years, through the labours of Clarkson. It may be asked, however, with much greater pro- priety, why did the British Parliament not abolish slavery in America when it had the power — when it claimed " the right to make laws to bind the colonists in all cases whatsoever?" The opportunity of abolishing slavery in America was then lost for ever by the British Parliament — lost through its own gross mismanagement and tyranny, a circumstance that only aggravates its guilt. But it is absurd to talk of the British Parliament abolishing slavery in America at the period referred to : more than a quarter of a century was suffered to elapse after this period before it abolished the Slave-trade. The existence of slavery, therefore, under the Con- stitution of the United States, was the necessary result of the circumstances and feelings of the times in which that constitution was framed — it was the necessary re- sult of the British training and education of the patriots of American Independence. It was no disparagement 2 o 422 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, to these men, as compared with all their contemporaries, that, in this important particular^ they were not half a century in advance of their age. It would only have been miraculous if they had. Slavery could scarcely be said to have ever existed in New England. It was formally abolished in that part of the Union immediately after the War of Inde- pendence. In the great States of New York and Penn- sylvania, the leading States of the Union, as also in the intervening State of New Jersey, it was abolished shortly thereafter. And how was it abolished in these States, in which it had been maintained to the last under British supremacy ? Simply through the influence of Christianity on the public mind, and the prevalence of a strong conviction of the sound policy of the measure, as a measure of mere political arrangement. And has Christianity entirely lost its influence on the public mind now in the Slave-holding States in America? Is the conviction of the impolicy of the institution of slavery peculiar to the Free States ? Why, so general had this conviction become about nine years ago, and so strongly had the influence of Christianity prevailed on the sub- ject, in the great State of Virginia in particular, that a bill for the abolition of slavery in that State was intro- duced into the legislature of Virginia in the year 1831 or 1832, and was all but passed. At that period also, the state of public feeling on the subject was precisely similar in the neighbouring Slave States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee ; and if circum.stances had not subsequently intervened to change the direction of the current of public feeling on the subject, there is no ques- tion but that slavery w'ould very soon thereafter have been voluntarily abolished in all these States. For in addition to the powerful influence wliich Christianity had brought to bear upon the question, it was evident to the in- habitants of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennes- see, that the population was increasing much faster in AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 423 the neighbouring free States of Pennsylvania and Ohio, that the value of property was much higher in these States, and that the people generally were in more prosperous circumstances.* The Abolition-agitation commenced, however, about the period I allude to j and, on the passing of the Bill for the emancipation of the slaves in the British colo- nies in the year 1834, that agitation was greatly- increased. Abolition Societies were formed all over the Free States ; Abolition newspapers and magazines were established; tracts on the subject — some of them of a very exciting and even inflammatory character — were circulated in the Slave States ; and lectureships and itinerancies were organized. By these means the slave- holders of the Southern States were indiscriminately assailed in the most unmeasured terms ; they were de- nounced as enemies of the human race and as utterly unworthy of the name of men ; and the Christian churches to which many of them, as well as of their slaves belonged, were characterised as mere synagogues of Satan, and virtually excommunicated. In the midst of this agitation, Mr. George Thompson, the apostle of Abolition, arrived in America, and added to all the * The Slave-state of Kcutucky was settled iu the year 1775, and admitted iuto the Union as a Sovereign State in 1792. That of Ohio, ^vhich is separated from Kentucky merely by the Oliio river, and in which the soil and climate are precisely simihir, but which has been free from the first, was settled in 17HIJ, and was not admitted into the Union till l!i02. In lU'di), however, the popula- tion of the two States was as follows : — Kentucky (including Slaves) . . . 687,917 Ohio (all free) 937,903 Tlie difference is now far greater; and the value of property in Ohio is double its value in Kentucky. In 17!{0, Population of Virginia, G50,000; of New York, 400,000 — 1}{30 ditto ditto 1,211,40.5 ditto l,9l«,60!i Of this Population Slaves . 409,724 ditto ■• 46 The dillereuce is much greater now, and the value of propctty is three times greater in New York than in Viigiuia. Slavery is now quite extinct in New York. 424 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, Other grounds of complaint which the slave-holders con- ceived they had against the whole scheme of Abolition, that of foreign interference. Now, while I am quite w'illing to give entire credit to the Abolitionists for sincerity, and for honesty of intention, and while I am most willing also to admit the excellence of the object they had in view, I must nevertheless be permitted to record my entire disappro- val of the course they have pursued, as being directly calculated to defeat that object, to irritate and exaspe- rate the slaveholder, and, what is worst of all, to embit- ter the bondage of the unfortunate Negro, and to rivet his chains. The Abolition-agitation has been utterly powerless and inefficient in regard to the ultimate liberation of the Negroes. Nay, it has unfortunately had quite the opposite effect ; for, as it was necessarily confined to the Free States, and as it avowed the determination to effect its object at all hazards, the Slave States were naturally led to regard it as an unconstitutional and foreign interference with their independent sovereignty, and to band together for their mutual protection. The laws for the restraint and coercion of the Negroes, and for their exclusion from the benefits of instruction and civilization were, therefore, increased in severity ; and the measures in actual progress for the abolition of slavery in the Domestic Legislatures of the four States I have referred to, were at once identified by interested parties with those of the Northern abolitionists, and con- sequently put a stop to. The Bill for the Abolition of Slavery in the State of Virginia, which was calmly discussed upon the real merits of the question, in the Legislature of that State, in the year 18;il or 1832, and was lost only by a small majority, would, in all proba- bility, not find a single supporter in that Legislature at this moment : simply and solely because of the Abolition agitation from without, and because of the general con- viction throughout Virginia that that agitation is an un- AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 425 constitutional interference with the independent sove- reignty of the State, and an unwarrantable attempt to force upon it the measure of slave-emancipation, whe- ther it will or no. In short, as it often happens in this world of anomalies, that a man's sincerest friends are, in reality, though unintentionally, his greatest ene- mies ; the unfortunate Negro in the Southern States of America has at this moment good reason to exclaim, " Save me from my friends ! " In the meantime, through the efforts of the Aboli- tionists to force the consideration of the question of slavery upon the General Government, and to bring the whole influence of that Government to bear upon it, the utmost alarm began to prevail in all quarters for the permanence of the Union. For if the General Go- vernment had, in conformity to the wishes of the Abolitionists, ventured to interfere with the question of slavery, which, under the constitution that created that Government, belonged exclusively to the State Legisla- tures, in the capacity of independent sovereignties, the Slave States would in that case have dissolved the Union, and constituted themselves a separate Republic, as in such a casus foederis, they would unquestionably have been justified in doing. Now I am quite wilHng to say with the Abolitionists, " Perish the Union, if it can only be maintained at the expense of slavery !" But the grand misfortune of the case is that if the Union were actually dissolved, and the Slave States formed into a separate and homogeneous Republic, excluding every thing like freedom from within its terri- tory, the ultimate abolition of Negro Slavery in Ame- rica, would only be indefinitely and hopelessly postponed. The unrestrained intercourse that is at present taking place between the Free and the Slave States ; the in- fluence of the right feeling and Christian sentiment of the former upon the latter, and the much higlier degree of prosperity that is enjoyed under the free in:stitutions '2 o 2 426 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, of the North, than under the bondage and degradation and compulsory labour of the South — all these causes combined are exerting an influence upon the Slave States, before which slavery cannot stand. But if the Slave States should be driven to dissolve the Union, and to erect themselves into a separate Republic, all this in- tercourse and influence would immediately be stopped ; the Slave-territory would thenceforth be guarded from intrusion with all the vigilant jealousy that surrounds an Eastern harem, and the monstrous institution of slavery would by every means be maintained and perpetuated. The alarm, in regard to the permanence of the Union, was therefore well founded ; and a strong re-action, in opposition to the violent measures of the Abolitionists, necessarily ensued, on the part of many real friends of the Negro in the Free States. This state of public feel- mg will be better understood and appreciated by the reader, when he takes into consideration the prevailing sentiments of the Americans in regard to their National Union. The attachment of the Americans to the Union is strong and universal. It is like the feeling of loyalty to the sovereign under the old monarchies of Europe ; and it is in so far superior even to that feeling, that it is not merely an instinctive impulse, but the result of a de- liberate and enlightened conviction. Their great patriot Washington bequeathed it to them as a sacred duty to preserve the Union inviolate under all circumstances, and to permit no conjuncture to hazard its dissolution. The following are the words of that illustrious man in his Address to Congress, in the year 1796. " It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your National Union to your collective and individual happiness ; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable at- tachment to it ; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity ; watching for its preservation with jealous AND ALRICAN COLONIZATION. 427 anxiety ; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned ; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."* Now, not only was there a general belief on the part of the intelligent portion of the American community that the violent measures of the Abolitionists were hasten- ing on a dissolution of the Union ; but even the cha- racter of Washington himself — the man whom they uni- versally regard as sans peur, et sans reproche — was pub- licly assailed by certain Abolition orators, in the most in- temperate manner, in one of the chief cities of the Re- public. In the Pennsylvania Hall, a large building erected by the Abolitionists for their public meetings, in the city of Philadelphia, it was stated by one of their orators, that Washington himself had proved a renegade to his principles, as he had not even liberated his own slaves.f This however was more than Jonathan, cold and phlegmatic as he is generally, could stand ; a large concourse of people, not of the lowest class either, assembled around the Hall as soon as the cir- cumstance was reported, and measures were de- liberately taken to burn it to the ground. For this purpose the gas-pipes were broken, and the ends of them turned under the shutters and doors of the build- ing : lights were applied, and the Hall was in flames. The Mayor of the city and a posse of constables ap- peared, but the rioters were too numerous and deter- mined for their interference in any way. The city fire engines were brought to the spot, and even the rioters — unlike the Birmingham people on such occasions — assisted the firemen to the utmost in protecting the * "Washington's Farewell Address to Congress, 1 TOG. t He had ordered, in his will, that they bhould be liberated on tlio deatb of his widow. 428 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, neighbouring houses ; but not one drop of water would they suffer to be thrown upon the Pennsylvania Hall. As soon, however, as the building was entirely de- stroyed, the rioters dispersed quietly to their respective homes. If Pennsylvania had been a Slave State this outrage could easily have been accounted for. But as it is a Free State — a State in which slavery has been entirely abolished for many years — it could only have arisen from the causes I have assigned ; viz., from the preva- lent conviction that the measures of the Abolitionists were tending to a dissolution of the Union ; and from their having unnecessarily attempted to throw oppro- brium upon the man whom his country " delights to honour." I received this account from a clergyman of Philadelphia — a real friend of the African race — who pointed out to me the ruins of the Pennsylvania Hall, as we happened to pass them in the city. The idea generally prevalent in England on the sub- ject of slavery in the United States is, that slavery could just as easily be abolished in America by a vote of Congress, as it was in the West Indies by a vote of the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain. But the fact is, that the Congress of the United States has just as little to do with the abolition of slavery in the States of Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, or North Carolina, as the Parliament of Great Britain has to do with it in the dominions of Portugal. Each of these Slave States is an independent sovereignty, and the measure of abolition, therefore, can only originate in its own Domestic Legislature. Now, does any candid per- son suppose that, if the case had been at all similar in our own "West India Islands, the British Parliament- ary measure of Abolition could have been carried, even with the twenty millions of compensation ? Cer- tainly not. Why, if the British Parliament had been precluded by its constitution, like the American Con- AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 429 gress, from dealing with the question of slavery in any way, and if the West Indies had had a domestic legis- lature competent to decide absolutely upon that ques- tion, they would most certainly have rejected the offer even, of the twenty millions, with indignation, and told the British Parliament to mind its own affairs. And are slave-holders in the United States totally dif- ferent men from slave-holders in the West Indies ? Unfortunately, they are men of like passions in every way. Believing, therefore, as an unprejudiced and dis- interested observer, that the Abolition-agitation, bo^h in this country and in the United States, has been alike, unfavourable to the cause of Abolition and to the pre- sent welfare of the American negro, I proceed to state that there are only two sources to which we can look, with any degree of hope, for the abolition of slavery in the American Republic — the influence of Christianity on the one hand, and a general conviction of the im- policy and unprofitableness of slavery on the other. Christianity has already done much for the negro in America. It has brought hundreds of thousands of his unhappy race within the blissful influences of the gospel of Ciirist ; it has elevated many, even of the slaves, to the rank of " the Lord's free-men ;" it has lighted up the charities of heaven in the breast of many a master, and shed blessings innumerable upon many a slave. In short, it has fitted a very large portion of the African race in the United States for the due exercise of liberty, whenever, in the good providence of God, they shall obtain that inestimable boon. I am well aware that the idea of a " Christian slave- holder" will appear to many in this country a contra- diction in terms. It is sufficient, however, to rc^j^ly to all such general assertions, that, if the apostle Paul had thought so, he would scarcely have addressed an epistle to his " dearly beloved and fellow-labourer," the slave- 430 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, holder " Philemon." Christianity was originally fitted by its Divine Author for all states of society, for all political institutions ; and it appears to me, that it is by no means the right way to promote either Christi- anity or the abolition of slavery, to launch out an in- discriminate sentence of excommunication against whole classes of professing Christians, in a state of society, and under political institutions, to which we are total strangers. For my own part, I was more than aston- ished at finding evidences of the extensive prevalence of Christian influence in a land in which, I confess, I had anticipated something very different — I mean a land of slaves. But how few are there, even in the most favourable circumstances, whose character and conduct are at all influenced by Christian motives ! We are divinely taught that real Christians are only as " the salt of the earth ;" that is, not merely designed to preserve the great mass of society from absolute putrefaction, but small also in proportion to that mass, as the handful of salt is, when compared with the carcase it preserves. And if this is the case even in free countries, how much more so must it not be in a land of slaves ! It is unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that Christian influence alone will suffice to carry the measure of Abolition in the United States. Man is essentially a mercenary being : his duty must be identified with his interest to insure its performance ; his understanding and affections must be addressed through his pocket. In other words, it is hopeless to look for the general abolition of slavery in the United States till slavery has become generally unprofitable to the slave-holder. In this view, the effort that is now making for the exten- sive cultivation of cotton in the East Indies deserves every degree of encouragement and support from the British philanthropist ; for the successful accomplish- ment of that important object will not only tend to AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 431 elevate the character and to minister to the comfort of the millions of India, but will tend directly to diminish the value of slave-labour in the United States, and thereby to accelerate the unconditional emancipation of the American Negro. Nay, I would not rest satisfied with a single effort of this kind. I would have a cot- ton-growing colony established on the north-east coast of New Holland, where the climate and soil are pecu- liarly adapted to that species of cultivation, and where thousands and tens of thousands of free labourers would gladly settle of their own accord, from the Malay Islands, from China, and from Ceylon. Tliis were, in- deed, a legitimate mode of agitating for the abolition of slavery in America, and, I may add, a patriotic one also.* In connexion with these efforts for the ultimate ex- tinction of slavery, I have long regarded the philan- thropic attempt to establish colonies of coloured men on the coast of Africa as one of the likeliest means of eff'ecting a great moral revolution in favour of the Negro, both in Africa and America. The individual to whom Christian philanthropy stands indebted for this idea is the celebrated Granville Sharpe. That eminent philanthropist having interested himself considerably in the famous case of the slave Somerset, in which the English judges decided that slavery could not exist upon the soil of England, several hundred Negroes who wore liberated in consequence of that decision, but who were altogether unaccustomed to the profitable employments of a great city, were suddenly thrown upon their own resources on the streets of London, and in that helpless situation naturally looked to Mr. Sharpe as their friend and patron. After much reflection on the part of the * There is already a British colony estahlislicd at Port Kssington, on the North coast of New llolhunl ; but I do not know that the idea of its becoming a cotton-growint: colony has ever been enter- tained by its founders. I sec no reason why it should not. 432 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, philanthropist, it was determined to colonize the Negroes on the coast of Africa ; and the Government of the day patronizing the undertaking, the establishment of the colony of Sierra Leone was the result. In the year 1787, four hundred negroes and sixty Europeans were sent out to establish that colony at the expense of Government. In the year 1789, thirty-nine additional negroes were forwarded to Sierra Leone ; and in 1791, twelve hundred African refugees from Nova Scotia, who had fled thither from bondage in the United States during the revolutionary war,were also forwarded to that colony, at the instance of the venerable Clarkson. A number of Maroons from Jamaica were also added to the colony in the year 1805, and since the abolition of the Slave trade it has been the usual receptacle for the liberated victims of that horrible trafiic. The population of the colony of Sierra Leone is now 40,000. Unfortunately for the cause of philanthropy and especially for the welfare and advancement of the African race, the colony of Sierra Leone has been sub- ject all along to the same system of petty jobbing and general mismanagement that has hitherto in a greater or lesser degree characterised all the trans-marine set- tlements of the British empire. Offices of trust and emolument have been exclusively in the hands of Europeans, who, with only a few honourable exceptions, have been men of broken fortunes and questionable cha- racter, who look to their offices as a mere source of profit, and who set the unfortunate natives the worst possible example. The missionary spirit has long been too fee- ble in England to supply the requisite number of mis- sionaries for so deadly a climate and so unpropitious a field as that of Sierra Leone ; the agents of the Church Missionary Society in that colony have accordingly been principally Germans ; and to the labours and success of these missionaries an American Presbyterian missionary whom I had recently the pleasure of meeting at Phila- AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 433 delphia, and who had himself been for some time actinj; governor of the neighbouring American colony of Liberia, bears the most honourable testimony. Still, however, it must be acknowledged that liberated negroes from slave ships are but an indifferent species of materiel for the planting of a colony ; and it is deeply to be regretted that the European machinery of the colony of Sierra Leone has hitherto been any thing but unexceptionable. Compared with the actual results of that benevolent enterprise, the expenditure of life and of British money has hitherto been prodigious ; and it must be confessed that the African colonists are just as far from being fit for self-government as the Bri- tish authorities are from being inclined to make the experiment.. In short, the past history and the present condition of the colony of Sierra Leone, after a colonial existence of upwards of fifty years, sufl[icienily demon- strate that Great Britain has not the right men for such an undertaking, and is therefore not likely to be very successful in the great work of colonizing Africa. The American colony of Liberia was founded in the year 1820. Its object has been variously represented, as well by its friends as by its enemies ; but without noticing the misapprehensions of the former, or the calumnies of the latter, it may be regarded as three- fold : 1st, To provide a suitable asylum for the coloured men of America, in which they may have all the ad- vantages of entire freedom, of a fair field, and of self- government, for their own intellectual and moral and political advancement ; 2nd, To exert a salutary influ- ence over the surrounding tribes of Africa, and thereby to extend the reign of civilization and religion over that vast continent ; and 3rd, To exert a similar influence on the institution of slavery in the United States, and thereby to lead to its eventual and speedy abolition. The territory of Liberia is situated on the west coast of Africa, and extends from Cape Mount to Cape PaU 2p 434 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, mas, a distance of 300 miles ; extending inland from 20 to 50 miles. It is under the general superintend- ence of the American Colonization Society ; from whose funds — which are derived exclusively from voluntary contributions obtained from benevolent persons through- out the Union — the salaries of its public officers, and the other expenses of the government that are not pro- vided from its ordinary revenue, are defrayed. The Governor is a white man, a native American, and is appointed directly by the Society in America. All the other public officers of the colony are coloured men, and no white man is eligible either to office or to citizen- ship in the territory. The political institutions of the colony are all thoroughly republican ; all offices, but that of the Governor, being elective, and universal suf- frage being extended even to the liberated Africans who have been recaptured in slave ships, and settled in the colony under the protection of the Government of the United States. The laws of the colony are en- acted by a Legislative Council, the members of which are all elected by the people ; and after receiving the Governor's sanction, they are transmitted for the ap- proval of the Society in America, as our own colonial laws are to the Privy Council in England. It is by no means remarkable that the principles of this form of government should be but imperfectly un- derstood, and its benefits imperfectly appreciated by a company of men recently liberated from a captured slaver, as a proportion at least of the colonists are; but man is a rational and imitative animal even in his lowest form, and it is astonishing how soon he learns to act with propriety when he is treated as such, and when his sense of justice is appealed to at every step. Speaking of the liberated Africans, the historian of the colony of Liberia observes : — " At Millsburgh there was no good school, and none of any kind among the recaptured Africans, except AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 435 Sunday-schools, ivhich icere ivell attended, and tcmglit by their own people, many of wJwm coidd read. " Each tribe had a house of worship, and a town or valaver house built by voluntary subscription and joint labour. A street separated the neat and well-built villages of the Eboes and Congoes ; their farms adja- cent to the village were under excellent cultivation, and they were stated to be the most industrious and thriving of any people in the colony ; but they had very imperfect notions of republican government. They had several times attempted to choose a chief without suc- cess ; the minority refusing submission to the person chosen. This year (1832) they solicited the Colonial agent to superintend their election. It was held in his presence ; and after he had explained to them the object of an election, and the necessity of submitting to the will of the majority, they appeared perfectly satisfied.* " These recaptured Africans not unfrequently pro- cured wives from the adjacent tribes by paying a small sum to the parents. The women thus obtained were married and dressed according to the customs of the colony, and in a short time adopted the habits of the settlers, so as scarcely to be distinguished from those who had been several years in the United States.^f In fact, the distinguishing feature of the colony of Liberia is, that the colonists are permitted to govern themselves, and that their American and republican * It is humiliating to tliink that tlic Autliorilics of our own country sliould still think the British Colonists of New South Wales unfit to exercise a right, with which the Americans find il perfectly safe to intrust the poor creatures \\\\o have been but yes- terday, as it were, dujj; out of the hold of a slave ship! If men are not humble in such circumstances, surely they ought to be so. f Concise History of the Commenconiout, Progress, and Pre?cnl Condition of the American Colonies in Liberia. Wy Samuel Wil- kcson, Esq. Washington, 1839. 436 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, training, the religious character which a large propor- tion of them had borne in America previous to their emigration, and the direct Christian influence to which they are all subjected in Liberia, on the part of the numerous corps of ministers of religion and missionaries to the heathen, stationed in that colony, enable them to discharge the important duties of self-government with propriety and success. The " Acts of the Governor and Council of Liberia, in Legislature assembled, passed at their Session in August and September, 1839, and printed by Authority, at Monrovia," would do honour to any European nation, and are greatly in advance of the political institutions of most of the governments of Europe. Their titles are as follows : — 1. " An Act regulating the judiciary of the Com- monwealth of Liberia" — Establishing courts of justice on the American model. 2. " An Act regulating the fees of public officers in the Commonwealth of Liberia." 3. " An Act regulating Agriculture and internal Improvement for the Commonwealth of Liberia." The first two sections of this Act are as follows : — " Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Legis- lature of Liberia, in Council assembled, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, — That there shall be a standing Committee appointed by the Governor and Council for the counties of Montserrado and Grand Bassa, to be known as the organs of the government in all matters relative to agriculture and internal improvement. " iSec. 2. Be it further enacted, — That the Com- monwealth shall afford assistance to farmers, by pro- viding such animals and agricultural implements as may be required to carry their operations into effect, provided such loans be refunded by two or three in- stalments, with three per cent, interest, in three years in agricultural produce." AND AFBICAN COLONIZATION. 437 4. " An Act regulating the residence of native Afri- cans in the Commonwealth of Liberia." The first section of this Act is as follows : — " Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Coun- cil in Legislature assembled, — That all native Africans who may become residents of this Commonwealth, or remain within the limits of the corporation, whether minors or adults, shall be compelled to wear clothes, under the penalty of being fined in a sum not exceed- ing five dollars nor less than one dollar." 5. " An Act concerning Apprentices." 6. " An Act constituting and regulating a Post Office Department." 7. " An Act regulating and ordering the building and repairs of fortifications." 8. " An x\ct regulating the employment and over- sight of the Poor" — Establishing asylums and providing suitable labour. The first section of this Act is as follows : — " Sec. I. Be it enacted and ordained by the Governor and Legislature of Liberia, in Council assembled, — That the support and maintenance of aged widows, destitute orphans, or poor persons and invalids, shall be borne by this Commonwealth out of any monies in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated." 9. *' An Act relating to Government Offices, Sec.''' — Appropriating 3000 dollars for continuing the build- ing of a jail, and 500 for that of a lighthouse. 10. " A Bill to establish a Circulating Medium," c^'c. — Fixing the rate of interest at G per cent., Sec. 11. " An Act to regulate the Militia of this Com- monwealth." — Authorising the ap[)ointment of a Com- mander in Chief, a Brigadier-General, and four regi- ments of Militia whenever the colony shall recjuirc that number. The present militia force is of course smaller. 12. " An Act regulating Common Schools." — The first section of this act is as follows : — 2 p 2 438 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, " Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Coun- cil of the Commonwealth of Liberia, in Legislature as- sembled, — That there shall be established in each set- tlement and township, that is or hereafter may be formed in this Commonwealth, one common school ; the same to be under the supervision or control of a School Committee, to be created for that purpose by the Governor and Council." By a subsequent section, the fees for education in these schools are not to exceed three dollars per annum. 13. "A Bill to prevent fraud in the management of intestate and other estates." 14. " An Act to provide regulations for the coun- ties and towns in the Commonwealth of Liberia." ] 5. " An Act legalizing marriages, and legitimating illegitimate children." — By this law the solemn ac- knowledgment of the parties before the Clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions, is held as legal evidence of a marriage — as in Scotland. 16. "A Bill for the regulation of the towns and villages in this Commonwealth." — Under this act a census is ordered, "so as justly to apportion the rates of representation to the Legislative Council to be held in the year 1841." 17. " An Act regulating the commerce and revenue of the Commonwealth of Liberia." — The first section of this act is as follows : — " Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Coun- cil of the Commonwealth of Liberia, in Legislature as- sembled, — That from and after this date, the importa- tion of all and every kind, species, or quality of ardent spirits into the Commonwealth, be and the same is hereby prohibited, excepting in such quantities as may be absolutely necessary for the medical department. A committee, to consist of the Governor, — or, in his absenQe, the Lieutenant-Governor, — the Physicians, AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 439 and the Apothecary, shall determine from time to time, what quantities of alcohol and other kinds of ardent spirits may be required for the use of that department, and the care of all such ardent spirits shall be com- mitted to the Apothecary, who shall not allow it to go out of his charge on any pretext whatever, unless by regular prescription from a physician." Previous to the year 1839, the different settlements of the colony of Liberia were each under separate manage- ment and independent of each other. In the course of last year, however, these settlements were all consoli- dated under one general Government, and the preceding general enactments were therefore in part merely the re-enactment of local regulations previously in force, and their adaptation to the whole colony. The Go- vernor is a Mr. Buchanan, of Philadelphia, a gentleman eminently qualified in every respect for the important office he holds, of great energy and decision of character, and perfectly enthusiastic in the cause of Africa and the African race. As slavery and slave-trading are utterly prohibited in Liberia, Mr, Buchanan was desirous, before embarking for the colony, of being informed by one of the most influential of the Directors of the Colo- nization Enterprise, what he should do in the event of any slave-traders establishing themselves within the limits of the colony. " Root them out of it," was the brief reply. " But if they offer resistance ?" added the Governor-elect. " Blow them sky-high," was the an- swer of the American. Mr. Buchanan had accordingly scarcely reached his government, when he was informed that a French slave-trader had just fixed himself in one of the rivers of the colony, and had erected a factory or store, and landed a large quantity of goods to barter for slaves. The Governor immediately sent him a notice to quit ; but the slave-trader refusing to obey, a party of the Colonial Militia was despatched, under a trustworthy officer, to root liim out, and to seize or de- 440 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, stroy his property. And this service was accomplished so effectually, that the slave-trade has been completely annihilated along the whole coast of Liberia. It would be out of place, in this brief sketch, to enter into a minute detail of the circumstances connected with the establishment of this most interesting colony — the great and serious difficulties which it met with at its outset ; the apathy and indifference it experienced from its professed friends, and the virulent opposition it has hitherto encountered from its enemies. I may observe, however, that the state of things arising from these difficulties, has proved singularly favourable to the real welfare and advancement of the colony ; as it checked the emigration of many unsuitable persons, who might otherwise have flocked to it in great numbers, and ren- dered it necessary for the Directors to exercise the ut- most vigilance in the selection of colonists. The result of this vigilance is apparent in the superior character, as to morals and religion, of the inhabitants of Li- beria, of which I shall subjoin a few notices from recent publications. The following extract, exhibiting the rapid progress and the present condition of the colony, is from a pam- phlet entitled " Colonization and Abolition Contrasted," by the Rev. Calvin Colton. " In 1825, the population of Liberia, the fifth year of its history, was 400 souls. In 1833, there had been 3123 immigrants, including 400 re-captured Africans; and the population was 2916. In 1838, the immigra- tions, also including all the recaptured Africans to that date, had been somewhat less than 4500 ; the actual population exceeded 5000. We believe there is no other instance of colonization recorded in history, where the first settlers suffered so little of fatal casualty. There are now four Colonial Jurisdictions, under a new Federal Government organized in 1839; twelve flour- ishing towns, Monrovia, the metropolis of the common- AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 441 wealth, having a population of 1500 ; there are four churches at Monrovia, two at New Georgia, two at Caldwell, two at Millsburgh, two at Edina, three at Bassa Cove, two at Marshall, two at Cape Palmas, and one other — in all twenty ; forty clergymen distributed among them, and several missionaries among the Pagans within and without the jurisdiction of the Common- wealth, with their religious and educational establish- ments ; the children and youth are generallj' well pro- vided with schools ; there are several public libraries, one of 1200 to 1500 vols. ; a public press and two newspapers ; a regularly constituted and w'ell-ordered government ; a competent military ; an increasing trade with Europe and America ; — in short, a good de- gree of civilization and prosperity. * The militia,' Governor Buchanan represents as ' well organized, efficient, and enthusiastic ;' and the * volunteer corps,' he says, 'would lose nothing by comparison with the city guards of Philadelphia.' The morals of the people are spoken of by the governor as better than in any equal portion of the United States. ' More than one-fifth of the population are communicants in their respective churches, and exemplary Christians' — a greater propor- tion, we presume, than can be found in any other part of Cliristendom. ' As might be expected, where so large a portion of the people are pious, the generjil tone of society is religious. Nowhere is the Sabbath more strictly observed, or the places of worship better at- tended.'" The ministers of religion and missionaries to the heathen abovementioned, are all of one or other of the four leading denominations of the United States ; their relative numbers being in the following order, Metho- dists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Episcopalians. By these bodies the same benevolent objects that engage the attention of Christian churches elsewhere, are pur- 442 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, sued in the same manner and with equal success. In the Methodist church in Monrovia, a public meeting was held on the 17th of October, 1839, to obtain sub- scriptions and donations for the Centenary Fund of the Methodists ; and the sum of 447^ dollars, or upwards oT £95 sterling, was contributed on the spot, independently of the contributions of the other Methodist congrega- tions in other parts of the colony. It would seem, therefore, that the Voluntary System is not less efficient in sustaining the ordinances of religion in Africa than it is in America. And if it is found sufficient for this purpose in a community of negroes, most of whom were very recently slaves, will any person, who has the slight- est respect for himself as a white man, venture to assert that it would not be equally efficient in England, if the Englishman only enjoyed the ssime freedom of I'eligion as the African colonists of Liberia ? The Treasurer of the Centenary Fund at Monrovia, on the occasion re- ferred to, was S. Benedict, Esq., Chief Justice of Liberia, who for many years had himself been a slave at Savan- nah, in Georgia. Having a benevolent master, however, who afforded him many opportunities of self-improve- ment, he had given himself a superior education, and his private library, when he emigrated to Liberia with all his children and grandchildren, amounted to upwards of 1000 volumes. The Methodists have seven schools, containing altogether 254 pupils, and the other deno- minations are fast following in their train. The influence of the ministers of religion in Liberia is by no means confined to the colonists. One of them, who is stationed at a place called Heddington, among the native Africans of the country, observes in a letter, of date September 26, 1839, published in the " African Repository" of March last ; " Under God, I have charge of one of the most interesting little flocks that God has in all the world. This flock consists of 59 native con- AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 443 verts^ all of whom, I have the fullest confidence, have met with a Gospel change of heart, and all of whom were converted in the mission-house." There is a Temperance Society at Monrovia, a La- dies' Benevolent Society, of which the Fourth Annual Report was recently published, and an Anti- Tobacco Society! The cultivation of sugar and coffee has been introduced into the colony, and the trade of Monrovia is advancing so rapidly, that not fewer than 23 vessels had arrived in the port from the 27 th of October to the 7th of December last. In regard to the general pro- gress of the settlement, the following extract of a despatch from Governor Buchanan, of date May 17, 1839, giving an account of a rapid tour he had just made through the colony, sufficiently demonstrates its stead)'' advancement in real prosperity. " I was very much gratified, in passing up the St. Paul's River, to see the extent of improvements since my last visit, three years since. From New Georgia to Millsburgh, a distance of about seventeen miles, the right bank of the river exhibits an almost continuous line of cultivated farms ; many of them, too, of con- siderable size. The opposite shore still wears the rich foliage of the unbroken forest, and presents one of the most beautiful specimens of native scenery ; but, though ever charmed with the luxuriant drapery of an African forest, I must say there was, in this case, something in the appearance of the right bank, with its line of neat cottages, the waving fields of rice and corn, and even in the blackened clearing just preparing for the seed of the husbandman, more cheering to my feelings than all the wild beauties with which nature has so profusely embellished this sunny land." " Millsburgh is pleasantly situated, and exhibits a highly picturesque appearance from almost every point of view. It has but one street which runs parallel 444 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, with the river, and is about a mile and a half long. This street is neatly turnpiked and bordered the whole distance, on both sides, with plantain and banana trees, which throw over it an air at once refreshing and orna- mental. Judging from the neat and thrifty appearance of the houses, and the highly-cultivated enclosures, I should say there are none but independent people in this beautiful settlement ; and, indeed, all my inquiries confirmed this first impression. Of course, I use the word independent in a moderate sense. There were about four thousand bushels of potatoes raised here last year, besides corn, cassada, rice, and various garden vegetables. This year, there is, both at Millsburgh and along the whole line of the St. Paul's, at least ten times the quantity of corn planted that has been in any former year." In regard to the settlements of Bassa Cove and Edina, the Governor remarks, in speaking of the indus- try of the inhabitants of these colonies, " Since the first of January last, not less than two hundred or two hundred and fifty acres of new land had been cleared in the two settlements, and the business of clearing and planting was still going on with a vigour that astonished me." But the most important and gratifying circumstance in the efforts of the American Colonization Society, is, the stimulus they have given to voluntary emancipa- tion in the United States, by demonstrating the prac- ticability of elevating the African race to the rank of civilized and Christian men. Captain Ross, an extensive proprietor in the State of Mississippi, lately deceased, ordered the whole of his slaves, to the number of nearly 200, to be liberated, and sent to Africa, at his death ; leaving the whole of his estate, amounting to upwards of 200,000 dollars, for the defraying of the expense of their outfit and passage to Africa, for their settlement in the colony, and for the establishment of seminaries of learning in Liberia. AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION'. 445 Of the whole number of emigrants to Liberia, per the Society's ship " Saluda," during the past year, 122 had previously been slaves, all of whom were liberated by their masters, and most of them provided, in addi- tion, with outfit and passage-money to Liberia. One of these slaves had cost his master a thousand dollars. One of them was a Moravian preacher ; the rest were chiefly mechanics and farm-labourers, of reputable cha- racter and industrious habits. Thirteen of them had been emancipated by a Mr. Johnson, of Virginia. They were all the slaves he had ; and, it is added, "he had for years contemplated their liberation, and with great diligence had applied himself to their religious in- struction, and otherwise prepared them for their free- dom. The husband of one of them he had purchased from a neighbour, with a view to his liberation ; and, with great effort, (for it seems he was not wealthy,) he had defrayed the whole expenses of their journey, ac- companying them himself to Washington, and contri- buting 4a0 dollars for their outfit to Liberia."* In the year 1831, the Legislature of Maryland, re- cognising the great benefits that had already resulted, and were likely to result, from the scheme of African Colonization, appropriated 20,000 dollars per annum, for ten years, to assist in promoting the object ; and, during the first eight years thereafter, not fewer than 18(37 slaves were manumitted in that State alone. In short, I am decidedly of opinion, that there is nothing more intimately connected with the universal emanci- pation of the African race in America, than the welfare and progressive advancement of the colony of Liberia. In the course of last year, an extensive proprietor in the colony of British Guiana, residing in Liverpool, * African Repository and Colonial Journal. Washington, March, 1840. 2 Q 446 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, conceiving, from the representations of the Aboli- tionists, that the only object of the Colonization So- ciety was to get rid of the American Africans, wrote to Judge Wilkeson, the General Agent of the Society, proposing that they should be sent to British Guiana, rather than to Africa, and offering to employ a large number of them himself. The following is an extract from Judge Wilkeson's reply, of date Buffalo, New York, Sept. 9, 1839 ; and, from my own acquaintance with that gentleman, I am confident it expresses the sentiments of his heart. " The inducements offered by the West India planters to the American coloured labourer principally relate to his physical comfort, and contemplate a dependent and servile condition, in which he will be estimated in pro- portion to the amount of labour which he performs. But the American Colonization Society, regarding his moral and intellectual being, and believing that nation- ality of character is indispensable to the highest eleva- tion of the human mind, have aimed to establish a free and independent commonwealth, composed entirely of Africans, on their own patrimonial soil — to give them a chance to rise in the social state, according to their own merits as a distinct people. Every where in con- nexion with Europeans, the African, whether bond or free, seems destined to a subordinate and menial con- dition. If he should even fall heir to the highest blessings anticipated by the British Emancipation Act, he could never hope to rise to a social equality with his European employers. But in Liberia he knows no superior, and is influenced by the most ennobling motives of action — there he cultivates his own soil, prosecutes his own trade and commerce, administers laws which he himself has made, and fills the highest offices of Church and State. All history seems to have proved that there is little chance of the African's doing AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 447 himself justice, in the same society with Europeans. We despair of it amongst ourselves. For aught we can see, their only and perhaps last hope of rising to equality in the social state, and of developing those powers which dignify humanity, hangs suspended on some such enterprise as that in which we are engaged. Certainly there is no other such opportunity now open to the race. Every where else, they are either in a state of barbarism or degradation. But in the com- monwealth of Liberia, they constitute a civilised and Christian community, without admixture, and there already they begin to show the higlier and more com- manding powers of man ; there they breatiie the air of freedom, and enjoy the advantages of social and po- litical equality ; and there they know that empire is their own, and may be extended at their option." " I may also add, tliat, in sending our beneficiaries to the British West Indies for tlie purposes you pro- pose, we should not, in my opinion, satisfy the feehng which prompted and has sustained the scheme of colo- nization in Africa, and, consequently, we should be likely to paralyse that public spirit which is engaged in this enterprise. If we subtract from it the aim of ele- vating the character, and securing the social and po- litical rights of a people so long depressed both at home and in foreign lands, we shall take away and crush the soul of the undertaking. I think. Sir, that it would be impossible to sustain our Society among the American people, for any dhjcct less than this. It is not a political or commercial, but a benevolent scheme, and, as such, must have its high and inspiring motives. It is for the most part a Christian effort, and will not be satisfied simply with the temporal weal of its bene- ficiaries. It has still higher and more extended aims. It seeks, through the infiuence of its colonies, to intro- duce Christian civilization among the native tribes. It 448 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, looks to Africa as an open field, inviting effort for the spiritual as well as the social regeneration of the many millions of her sons and daughters."* Such, then, is the scheme of benevolence — a scheme which is sustained by so large an amount of Christian philanthropy, which is guided by so much practical wisdom, and which promises such magnificent results both for Africa and America — that the Abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic denounce with a fierceness of intolerance, and an unrestrained license of invective, which, in my estimation at least, go far to demonstrate that, if they are in the right track themselves, they are, at all events, pursuing it in the wrong way. The " great Philanthropist" has said, " Whosoever will be my disciple " — that is, will be a true philanthropist — " let him deny hiynself.'" Now, I am sorry to say, that I have seen very little of this divine quality in much of the professed philanthropy of the present day, with- out even excepting the philanthropy of Abolition. Show me men like Mr. Johnson, of Virginia, whose philan- thropy is an affair of great personal sacrifice and serious cost, and I shall most willingly acknowledge them as genuine philanthropists ; but I confess I am exceedingly sceptical as to much of the philanthropy that has no such origin or accompaniment. As this little volume may possibly find its way even to Virginia, I would earnestly recommend the example of Mr. Johnson to the general imitation of the slave- holders of that State. Virginia has already earned, on two different grounds, the gratitude of mankind. She has given the world a Washington. She has established that system of entire religious freedom^ which is now * African Repository and Colonial Journal. >yaBhington, January, 1840. AND At'IlICAN COLONIZATION. 449 universally enjoyed in America, and of wliich the be- nefits and the blessings can only be appreciated where they are practically known. She has yet one ettbrt more to make, to earn for herself a triple crown of glory. Let her emancipate her slaves. Let her wipe off this reproach from her otherwise fair character. Let her stand forth once more as the example of all that is great and glorious, to America and the world ! In regard to tlie reproach which is so frequently cast by the Abolitionists on the friends of African Coloniza- tion, that they are opposed to the abolition of slavery, I am confident that, in the case of the men who con- stitute the life and soul of that undertaking, there is no foundation for the charge. Can Dr. Breckinridge, of Baltimore, who, with his two brothers, emancipated the whole of the slaves left them by their father, be sup- posed to be desirous of perpetuating slavery ? Tlie idea is absurd. Dr. B. is a warm friend and advocate of the scheme of colonization ; and yet I have never seen a stronger denunciation of the whole system of slavery than is contained in a pamphlet of his, on the subject, entitled " Hints on Colonization and Abolition." In that pamphlet, however, there is the following sen- tence, which, as I consider it unquestionably true, I would earnestly recommend to the consideration of all whom it concerns. *' We speak from the deepest conviction when we say, that, in our judgment, the Abolitionists in America have done more to rivet the chains of slavery, than all its open advocates have done." " What, then, is slavery ?" asks Dr. Breckinridge, in the able and eloquent pamphlet to which I have just referred. " It is that condition enforced by the laws of one half the States of this confederacy, in which one portion of the community called masters, is allowed such power over another portion called Slaves, as " 1 . To deprive them of the entire earnings of their 2 u 2 450 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, own labour, except only so much as is necessary to con- tinue labour itself, by continuing healthful existence ; thus committing clear robbery. " 2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal concubinage, by denying to them the civil rights of marriage ; thus breaking up the dearest relations of life, and encouraging universal prostitution. " 3. To deprive them of the means and opportuni- ties of moral and intellectual culture, in many States making it a high penal offence to teach them to read ; thus perpetuating whatever of evil there is that proceeds from ignorance. " 4. To set up between parents and their children an authority higher than the impulse of nature and the laws of God ; which breaks up the authority of the father over his own offspring, and, at pleasure, separates the mother at a returnless distance from her child ; thus abrogating the clearest laws of nature — thus outraging all decency and justice, and degrading and oppressing thousands upon thousands of beings created like them- selves in the image of the most High God." " This is slavery as it is daily exhibited in every Slave- state. This is that ' dreadful but unavoidable neces- sity,' for which you may hear so many mouths uttering excuses in all parts of the land. And is it really so ? If indeed it be, if that ^necessity' which tolerates this condition be really ' unavoidable^ in any such sense that we are constrained for one moment to put off the course of conduct which shall most certainly and most effectually subvert a system which is utterly indefensi- ble on every correct human principle, and utterly ab- horrent from every law of God ; then, indeed, let IcHABOD be graven in letters of terrific light upon our country ! For God can no more sanction such per- petual wrong, than he can cease to be faithful to the dignity and glory of his own throne." AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 4.51 And again — " Slavery cannot endure. The just, and generous, and enlightened hearts and minds of those who own the slaves, will not allow the system to endure. State after State, the example has caugiit and spread. New England, New York, the INIiddle States on the Sea Board, one after another, have taken the question up, and decided it all alike. The state of Slavery is ruinous to the community that tolerates it, under all possible circumstances, and is most cruel and unjust to its victims. No community that can be in- duced to examine the question, will, if it be wise, allow such a canker in its vitals ; nor, if it be just, will per- mit such wrong. We argue from the nature of the case, and the constitution of man ; we speak from the experience of the States already named ^ we judge from what is passing before us in the range of States along the Slave-line in Maryland, Virginia, and Ken- tucky ; from the state of feeling on this subject in foreign countries, and from the existing state of opinion throughout the world. The very owners of slaves will themselves, and that, we hope, at no distant day, put an end to the system. " But more than all. He who is higher than the highest will, in his own good time and way, break the rod of the oppressor, and let all the oppressed go free." After showing that the Abolition-agitation had noto- riously failed of its object, and materially injured the cause which it desired to advance, Dr. B. proceeds as follows : — " What then shall we say ? Let tlie abolitionist give up his cause as impossible of execution, ruinous to the cause of the blacks, and founded upon principles wrong in themselves. Let tiic colonizationists no longer make excuses for Slavery, which loo many have done ; but acknowledging the evils of that wretched system, and taking for granted, as from the beginning, 452 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, that it was so bad, men only needed to see their way clear to break it up, let us lay open before the pub- lic, in the practical operations of our cause, the great and effectual door which God has set for the deliverance of this country, for the regeneration of Africa, and for the redemption of the black race. The second of those great objects is, with ordinary faithfulness and prudence in conducting the affairs of the society and the colony, already rendered nearly certain. Freedom, and religion, and civilized life have been transplanted, in the persons of her own sons, into that desolate continent ; and we commit to God the issue on which his own glory is so deeply staked. What the Colonization Society is now doing, would, at the end of a single century, if con- tinued at the same rate, exhibit more than a million of persons in Liberia, as the fruits of its operations. That colony will be a nation, pow^erful and respected, before this generation passes entirely away. Those are now alive who will yet see her banner float proudly over the mighty outline of an empire." Of the numerous Religious Societies that held their anniversary meetings in New York, in the month of May last, the only one at which the interest was suf- ficient to require an adjourned meeting was, the African Colonization Society. I was present on the occasion ; and, having been requested to take a part in the pro- ceedings, I delivered an Address, explanatory of my own views on the subject, of which the following is the substance, and with which I shall close this volume: — " Address at the iVnnual Meeting of the American Colonization Society, held in the Middle Dutch Church, New York, 13th May, 1840. " As it may seem somewhat remarkable that a fo- reigner, and especially a foreigner from England, should AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 453 appear on this platform to advocate the cause of this Society, while he has remained as a mere spectator, undistinguished among the multitude, at the anniver- saries of all the other religious and benevolent societies of your land ; I have only to state, in explanation of the circumstance, that, as a citizen of the world, I have long regarded the enterprise of this Society as one of the noblest in its character, and one of the most im- portant in its probable results, of all the enterprises of benevolence that characterise the present age. For the last ten years, I have read with the deepest interest whatever intelligence on the subject has, at any time, reached the distant land where Divine Providence has appointed my own lot; and instead of regarding the many discouragements and disappointments that marked the outset of the undertaking, or the apathy and indif- ference which it has experienced, from almost all quarters, in its progress, or the long-continued and virulent opposition with which it has hitherto had to struggle — instead of looking upon any of these things as a ground of despair, in regard to the enterprise of your Society, I have always regarded them as one of the best earnests of its ultimate success. My own ex- perience, for the last eigliteen years, in a far distant and somewhat different field of philanthropic labour, has taught me to lay it down as a fixed maxim, for my own future guidance in the world, that, in any undertaking which lias for its object the glory of God and the good of mankind, disappointment and opposition in the outset are always the best earnest of prosperity in the end. ' He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bring- ing his sheaves with him.' Indeed, if the enterprise of your Society were not likely to prove, ultimately, disastrous to the interests of the Prince of Darkness, and to the permanence and stability of his kingdom in 454 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, the world, there is reason to believe he would not have made such a stir, in all quarters, to put it down. We read in Scripture of Satan transforming himself into an angel of light : it is no new thing, therefore, to see him arrayed against this Society, in the garb of philan- thropy. " I am well aware that the opposition which this So- ciety has experienced has arisen, in great measure, from a suspicion of its being favourable to slavery, as a civil institution, and unfriendly to its discontinuance or abo- lition. Now, I will not deny that there may be men of such sentiments as these in connexion with this So- ciety : but I should like to know what Society, having a benevolent object, does not include among its mem- bers men who labour in its peculiar field from the most questionable motives. It is an evil incident to the best of causes, under the present constitution of things, that men should be found labouring for their promotion or advancement, for the most exceptionable ends. It is recorded of Amaziah, one of the kings of Judah, that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, BUT NOT WITH A PERFECT HEART. Now, if men are doing what is right in the sight of the Lord, as I con- sider the enterprise of this Society to be, it is the Di- vine prerogative, and no business of ours, to investigate their motives. For we know well, that the All-wise Governor of the Universe often employs men's actions for the accomplishment of the very opposite ends to those they are aiming at themselves. " But if I believed that connexion with this Society necessarily implied a tacit approval of the institu- tion of slavery, and a secret desire for its continuance, I trust no consideration whatever should have induced me to appear on this platform as an advocate of its cause. I trust I am under no obligation to conceal from this assembly my own cordial abhorrence of slavery, as a civil institution, and m.y own earnest de- AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 455 sire for its immediate and entire abolition. I have ever regarded slavery as an evil and bitter thing for the country in which it exists, as well as for its miserable victims. It is the grand calamity of this country, that such a system was entailed upon it from a bygone age. It constitutes the only dark spot in your star-spangled banner — the only gloomy and portentous cloud in the firmament of your glory. And as such a system can- not exist in any country, without a high degree of cri- minality in the sight of God, it is unquestionable that, unless they who have the power shall adopt effectual means for its speedy and entire discontinuance, the vials of God's wrath will eventually be poured out, in some form or other, on their guilty land. " But the question is, how is this object to be ad- vanced ? Now, it has always appeared to me, that there is no question as to the part which a Christian man ought to take in the matter. The character of the Divine Author of our holy religion, as well as of tlie influence which that religion has uniformly exerted in the world these eighteen hundred years, is described in these words, ' He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall his voice be heard in the streets.' And such, precisely, is the influence which this Society exerts, in direct opposition to the practice of those who would use threatening and violence for the accomplishment of their object. Convince the slaveholders of the high capabilities of the African race ; convince them tiiat they will be more profitable to themselves, and better far for their country, as freemen, than as slaves ; ex- hibit them transformed into an enlightened and Chris- tian people, rejoicing not only in the possession of civil liberty, but in the enjoyment of that higher liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free, — and emanci- pation will not only become general, but slavery will be abolished. " Now, this is just what this Society has been en- 456 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, deavoiiring to do, and what it has hitherto been doing well — beyond the highest anticipations. In short, I have all along regarded the influence of this Society — contemptible as it has hitherto appeared in the eye of the world — as somewhat like the barley-cake in the Midianite's dream, which, you will recollect, fell so heavily upon the tents of Midian, that it overturned them all. I have all along regarded the enterprise of this Society as destined, in the good Providence of God, to accomplish a great moral revolution in this land, by revolutionising the understanding and the will of the slaveholder, and by inducing him of his own accord to break every yoke, and to let the oppressed go free. " The influence of this Society in regard to the aboli- tion of slaverj'', as compared with that of the Society which, by an obvious misnomer, is styled the Abolition Society, has always appeared to me like that of the sun, in the fable of the sun and the wind. These two powerful agents, you will doubtless recollect, were once contending for the superiority ; and it v/as determined, as a trial of strength, to exert their influence succes- sively on a traveller who was seen trudging across a plain, muffled up in a cloak ; the palm of victory to be given to the contending party who should soonest oblige the traveller to throw off his cloak. The trial commenced with the wind, which blew with violence, and made the traveller pull his cloak tightly around him. The wind blew still more violently, and the traveller drew his cloak still more closely around him, tucking up its skirts, and binding them tightly around his person ; and the more fiercely the wind blew, the more firmly did the traveller hold by his cloak. At length the sun shone out, and darting his piercing rays upon the traveller, the latter slowly unclasped his cloak, and as it waxed hotter, he threw it off altogether.* As the Rev. Joel Parker, who addressed the meeting of the AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 457 " Exactly similar is tlie influence of the two Societies that profess to deal with slavery in tiiis country. Tlie Abolitionists assail the slave-holder with thrcatenings and violence, denouncing him as a monster in human form, and an enemy of the human race. They array against him the powers and influence of society. They menace him with a species of warfare both from with- out and from within, if he refuses to yield at discre- tion. And what is the result of all this? Why, the slave-holders band together for the maintenance of the enormous system by which they live. They lay a heavier yoke of laws and ordinances upon the unfortu- nate negro, and make his burden still more intolerable than before. They guard all the approaches to their country against the influence of the Abolitionist, and stop up the very streams of knowledge lest they convey enlightenment to the slave. In short, with all their honest violence, the Abolitionists do not appear to have advanced a single step towards the ultimate at- tainment of their object, but have rather aggravated and embittered the bondage of the negro, and con- firmed the determination of his master to hold him as a slave. " But the influence of this Society is of a totally dif- ferent kind, it does not profess to interfere with the existing institutions of society in the slave States, in- iquitous as these institutions confessedly are. It leaves them to the gentler influence of public opinion, en- ligiitened by Christianity, and to the growing conviction of their utter impolicy, as well as of their gross in- Colonization Society before mc in a very able spcecb, happened to make use of the illustration of the sun and the wind in the very same manner as I had proposed to do, I omitted tlie passage con- taining tiiat allusion in my address. It was singular that the same idea should huve occurred to two disinterested obsoivers so diffcr- eiitly circumstanced. — Mr. Parker spoke from his own recollections of Louisiana and New Orleans ; my ideas were the result of my own recent observations in various parts of the Union. 2 R 458 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, justice. Instead of arming the negro against his master, and steeling the hearts of both against each other, it endeavours to create kindly feelings between them, and to make the master instrumental in raising the slave to the rank and privileges of a freeman. It exhibits the emancipated slave in this condition in the land of his fathers, surrounded by all the comforts of civilization, discharging all its duties, and enjoying all its honours and advantages. And it silently appeals to the under- standing and the heart of the slave-holder, saying, ' Such are the men whom you are still retaining in chains and slavery. Such is the high rank for which God has evidently designed and fitted them among his intelligent creatures, but which you are doing all in your power to prevent their ever attaining ; thus calling down upon your own heads the just vengeance of God and the reprobation of men.' " I am well aware that most extravagant ideas have been entertained by individuals among the friends of this Society in regard to the likelihood of its eventually removing the whole of the coloured race from the United States to Africa. Such an idea can only be entertained by a madman, and I certainly do not hold your Society responsible for it in any way. The vast number of the African race in the Southern States, and their rapid increase, compared with the necessarily slow progress of all colonies both in population and in re- sources, preclude the possibility of such a removal even if it were desired. At the same time, if the Society should prove successful in its main object — and I am happy to state that, in my estimation at least, it has succeeded beyond the highest expectations — the volun- tary emigration of coloured persons from the United States to Africa will soon be tenfold, nay, perhaps, a hundredfold greater than it is now. Only let them hear of the welfare and prosperity of their brethren in the land of their fathers ; only let them see their ships AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 459 frequeutiug your harbours, and their flag respectable and respected in your ports ; only let them see their consuls and other government agents stationed in your cities, and holding their proper place in society, and multitudes will, of their own accord, go forth to join them in their emigration. Your means of conveyance will then be too limited, and the resources of your colony too confined for the thousands and the tens of thousands who will then be willing to embark for Africa to join their friends and brethren in their great, and honourable, and glorious undertaking. " To any man who gives the subject the slightest con- sideration, it must be evident that ' He who fixeth the bounds of men's habitations,' has, in a peculiar manner, assigned the great continent of Africa to the negro race, and designed it as the principal scene of their moral and intellectual elevation. With the exception of a comparatively small extent of country- at its north- ern and southern extremities, Africa has ever been the grave-yard of the white man ; in which he breathes an atmosphere of death, and stalks along for a few weeks, or months, or years, with a sickly and cadaverous car- case, and drops at length into an untimely grave. Divine Providence has, as it were, stationed an angel on the coast of Africa, with a flaming sword in his hand, to say to the white man, * Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further ;' and the penalty of venturing on the forbidden ground in the face of this prohibition is death ! But the negro flourishes in this region ; all his powers both of body and mind are tiiere capable of their highest and healtiiiest development — in one word, it is his own, his father-land. " But independently of the indirect but certain in- fluence of the operations of this Society in extinguish- ing slavery in the United States, it is well calculated to exert a mighty and a highly salutary influence in Africa itself. The colonization of Africa by civilized and 460 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, Christian men of the African race, affords the only prospect that there is for the extinction of the slave trade. All the treaties that Great Britain and America may make with all the civilized nations of the earth will never avail to put down this accursed traffic so long as things remain as they are at present. Tlie Slave- trade will be continued in spite of every effort to put it down, till Africa is extensively colonized by civilized and Christian men of her own stock and lineage — by her own children's children. The insatiable cupidity of the white man will induce him to run every hazard, and to brave every ordinance of every government upon earth; and when successful in carrying his unlawful cargo across the horrors of the middle passage to the place of his destination, the very governments that sign the treaties for the extinction of the slave-trade, will wink at their violation. " A striking instance of this happened to fall under my own observation during the past year. On my voyage from New South Wales to England, I happened to spend a few days in the large city of Pernamxbuco, in the Brazils, where our vessel touched for water and refreshments. During our stay a schooner arrived from the coast of Africa, and was pointed out to me in the harbour by an English gentleman residing in the city. Her whole cargo, as was duly certified in the Alfandega, or Custom House return, was fifteen butts of water ; but the fact was — and that fact was well known to the authorities of the place — she had brought over a cargo of slaves, in direct contravention of the treaty with England, and had landed them a few miles oft' on the coast ! In short, there is no prospect whatever of the ultimate extinction of the slave-trade, so long as Africa remains in the hands of its petty barbarian chiefs. These men will just continue to do as they have ever done for the last three hundred years — to wage inces- sant war with each other, and to spread ruin and de- AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 4G1 solatiou over the length and breadth of their land for the supply of the foreign slave-market ! But if colonies of civilized and Christian men of the coloured race were established along the coast of Africa, they would soon be able to defy any white man to take a single skive from that coast. *' But the gradual elevation of the native African race, which will be the necessary and direct result of the operations of your Society, is a still more important consideration than even the extinction of the African slave-trade. The African colonist will not embark alone for the land of his fathers. The minister of re- ligion and the missionary to the heathen will go along with him to second his humble efforts to extend the blessings of civilization and religion to the numerous tribes of Africa ; for ' Ethiopia is already stretching out her hands unto God.' The field for Christian coloni- zation in Africa is absolutely unbounded ; and the prospect as well for the mercantile man as for the Christian philanthropist, is favourable in the highest degree. " And let it be remembered by all here present, that America is peculiarly called by Divine Providence to the great work of colonizing Africa. Great Britain, as you are all doubtless aware, has all the wealth and enterprise that are requisite for such an undertaking ; but she wants the men that are capable of carrying it out. She has no sucii men as are fitted by the pecu- liarity of their physical constitution, by their previous habits and training, and, above all, by their Cliristian character for the colonization of Africa, ^^'ithout such men, neither wealth nor enterprise will avail for this great work. But America has such men in thousands among her coloured population — men, who if not Af- ricans i)orn, are at least Africans by descent, and piiy- sical constitution, and are, liicrefore, fitted to stand the climate of their new land. The jircvious habits and 2 n li 462 SI-AVERY, ABOLITION, training of these men — I refer particularly to those in the Southern States — fit them in a pecuHar manner for being successful colonists in the equatorial regions of Africa ; and as very many of them are pious and intelligent members of Christian churches, they are quite capable of discharging the important duties of self-government, and of eventually erecting a series of independent and flourishing States on the African coast, on the basis of the free institutions of America. " I may be permitted to remark, in passing, that it appears almost incredible to me that men, professing philanthropy, and a sincere desire for the welfare and advancement of Africa, should yet allow themselves to be so warped by their peculiar theories on the subject of Abolition, as to use their influence to prevent valu- able men of the coloured race — which I understand has been done in many instances — from embarking in this great enterprise, an enterprise so peculiarly worthy of the man of noble daring. Is it possible that the cause of Abolition should suff'er in America by sending forth even thousands of the most intelligent and pious of the coloured race in this country to plant a Christian State on the shores of Africa, and to labour for the moral regeneration of that benighted and unhappy land ? On the contrary, is there any thing that tends so strongly to elevate either a country or a nation as the thought that that country or nation has given birth to eminent men ? It is of no consequence on what field, for example, the patriot has either fought or fallen. It is the simple fact, apart from all the accidents of time and place, that honours his country, and ennobles his peo- ple. What is it that embalms the memory of the Puritans, and throws a halo of glory around their names ? Is it not the simple fact that they came forth from the land of their fathers, to plant Christ's gospel among the heathen in this once benighted land, and to rear that fair ."jtructure of civil and religious liberty, of AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 403 which they bequeathed the custody and the blessings to their latest posterity ? And is there no room, I would ask, for a few coloured Puritans in Africa ? Is there no need for such philanthropists there ? " To return to our proper subject — It is long since Great Britain first attempted to colonize Africa — purely from motives of benevolence ; and the history of her efforts in that benevolent undertaking abundantly con- firms what I have already stated. The expenditure of human life, as well as of British money in the colony of Sierra Leone, has been prodigious. The practice of employing white men exclusively in offices of trust in that colony, has kept the African colonists in a state of pupilage, if not of degradation, and exposed them in many instances to the evil example of most unprincipled men. And, in regard to the means of providing for the spiritual welfare of such colonies at the disposal of Great Britain, — or, rather, of the- Christian public there — I may mention the fact, that when a Scotch Presby- terian clergyman, on his way to the Cape of Good Hope, was accidentally driven, a few years ago, into the island of Fernando Po, the Kroomen of the British settlement on that island, who had never had a minis- ter of any denomination among them, oflfered to raise a liberal salary for his support to induce him to remain among them. The clergyman I refer to, however, had been specially designated to a different field ; and, I am sorry to add, that, so far as I know, the Kroomen have been left without a minister of any denomination to the present day. " Compared with this state of things how diff'erent is the picture wiiicli your colony of Libeiia presents] The whole cost of the establishment of that colony has been a mere trifle, when expressed in British money. The loss of life also has been comparatively small, as but few white men have gone to Liberia in any capacity. Public offices of all kinds arc there held by Africans 464 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, who have thus been intrusted from the first with the exercise of self-government ; and so well have the or- dinances of religion been supplied to the little com- munity, that there are now, I am informed, upwards of forty missionaries labouring in that most important and promising field. " I repeat it, therefore, America has the very thing that Great Britain wants for the colonization of Africa, and without which Africa can never be colonized. She has the men who are fitted in every way for the accomplish- ment of this great object. It is evident, therefore, that God has fitted this nation in a peculiar manner for this important work, and that his providence is calling you to engage in it, in a language which it is impossible to mistake. Yes, Divine Providence is calling you to give back civilization and religion to Africa, as a com- pensation for the wrongs she has hitherto experienced at your hands. *' And believe me, the w'ork of colonizing Africa, to which this nation is thus so evidently called, is not a work of duty merely ; it is a work of real national glory. What is it that constitutes the peculiar honour of Great Britain among the nations of the earth ? Is it her vast commerce ? Is it her unbounded wealth ? Is it her vic- tories either by sea or by land ? Is it the extent of her conquests ? No : it is simply the fact of her being the planter of flourishing colonies, the mother of a whole family of nations. It is the fact — a fact which pos- terity can never forget, although Britain herself should pass away from the field of existence, and leave not a wreck behind — it is the fact that she has caused her energetic people, her noble language, her equitable laws, and her Protestant religion, to be naturalized in every climate, and under every sky. What, for instance, are the triumphs of Trafalgar or Waterloo, to the honour and glory of having been the mother country of such a nation as this ? AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION, 465 *' And Great Britain, let me remind you, is still fulfilling her peculiar vocation in this important respect, and se- curing for herself in some future day, additional honour and glory in those far distant lands, in which the good providence of God has appointed my own lot. At this moment she is raising up a second Am.erica in the Southern Hemisphere, to tread, I trust, the same path of glory as this great nation has trodden in the North. " Let every American, then, bear in mind, that in this peculiar field of national honour and glory — not the honour and glory of fools, that consists merely in the pomp and circumstance of war, and the garment rolled in blood, but real honour and true glory — let every American bear in mind that in this peculiar field, there is still a higher prize to be gained than Great Britain herself has ever won. For what honour shall be deemed due by our children's children to the nation that shall renovate and regenerate Africa? Surely, in the estima- tion of an enlightened posterity, a diadem of glory will encircle the brow of that nation, till the stream of time shall have ceased to flow. *' Let me entreat you, therefore, as a disinterested foreigner, who will never see your faces again, to be true to yourselves and to your country, and this splendid prize, this immortal honour, this unfading glory, will be yours. Tliere is no nation upon earth that can take it from you. There is no other nation upon earth tiiat has such means at its command as you possess for the rege- neration of Africa ! Go, therefore, where glory waits you, and may God speed your w.iy !" POSTSCRIPT. As the preceding chapter was in type before I had an opportunity of reading the recent work of that eminent philanthropist, Sir T. F. Buxton, entitled " The African Slave Trade and its Remedy," I subjoin, by way of Postscript, the following additional remarks that have occurred to me after the perusal of that able and spirit- stirring production. I entirely agree with Sir Thomas Buxton in regard- ing the coast of Africa, and not that of America, as the proper place for the employment of a naval squad- ron to put down the Slave Trade. On this point the following extract of a Despatch, addressed by Governor Buchanan, of Liberia, to the Directors of the Ameri- can Colonization Society, of date " Government House, Monrovia, 6th Nov. 1839," is most opportune. " The Slave Trade is still prosecuted with vigour at different points along the coast, though, in our imme- diate neighbourhood we have pretty effectually brought it to an end. I have heard, however, since commenc- ing this, that a Frenchman has come into Little Bassa, and commenced landing goods for the prosecution of this business, at the same place where we had the bat- tle last July. I can scarcely credit the report, but, if true, we shall send him off. They say he has come POSTSCRIPT. 467 with an abundant armament, and prepared to sustain bis position ; but, if so, I hope to give you a good ac- count of him by my next despatch. " Enclosed you will find a complete list of the Ame- rican vessels which have been during the summer and now are engaged in the slave trade on this coast, all of which have been forwarded to Mr. Paulding. When at Sierra Leone, I visited a small schooner of one hun- dred and twenty tons, which was just brought in with four hundred and twenty-seven slaves on board. Of all the scenes of misery I ever saw, this was the most painful. My cheek tinged with shame and indignation when I was told that this same vessel (the Mary Gush- ing) had come on to the coast and was sailed for some time, until her cargo was ready, under American co- lours. When taken, her American captain was on board. He had not arrived when I left Sierra Leone, but the Governor, at my instance, promised to send him down here and deliver him up to me, to be sent to the United States. Is there any hope that our Go- vernment will hang him ? " Since my collision with the slavers in July, New Casters has been in a state of continual alarm and ex- citement, in expectation daily of an attack from here. Unfortunately, we have not been in a position to move against tiiem, or we might easily, at any moment, have broken up that nest of iniquity. We have a right, (by treaty made some years since,) to proclaim jurisdiction over that place, and pronounce the slave trade there piracy. But I would do nothing in a matter involving such serious consequences without consulting the Com- mittee. Please instruct me. " There are about two thousand slaves now at New Cesters and GalHnas. The whole country, for five hun- dred miles to the right and left of us, has been devas- tated with wars, caused entirely by tlie slave trade, throughout the whole summer ; God only knows where 468 POSTSCRIPT. it is to end. But it does appear disgraceful to Chris- tian nations to allow such wide-spread butchery of the human species at the hands of a handful of miscreants. With one hundred men and an armed schooner at my command for six months, I would pledge myself to break up this horrid traffic along seven hundred miles of coast y^ and give peace and comparative happiness to the miserable inhabitaids of a hundred iribes."'\ It is, therefore, by breaking up the slave factories on shore, rather than by endeavouring to catch the slavers at sea, that Governor Buchanan proposes to accom- plish his object ; and for such a purpose, as well as for any direct efforts for the civilization of the native Afri- cans, the acquisition of the rights of sovereignty over an extensive territory in each of the principal slave- trading districts in Africa, would be a matter of indis- pensable necessity. Such territory, however, as has been shown by Sir T. F. Buxton, and proved by actual experience in Liberia, could be obtained with the ut- most facility, and at a comparatively trifling expense ; the Afrioan chiefs being quite willing to dispose of the sovereignty of their respective territories in the districts in question, and to place themselves, and their people, either under British or Liberian protection. The interests of humanity, therefore, require that Great Britain and America, or rather Liberia, should respec- tively extend their jurisdiction in this way as much as possible, and proclaiming the slave-trade in their re- spective territories, and in all the rivers or waters thereto belonging, as piracy, should hang up as a pirate every slave-trader, of whatever nation, that should be proved, before a duly constituted Colonial court, to have been carrying on his infamous traffic within the forbidden * By destroying the factories on shore — (this the British do not attempt.) f The African Repository and Colo nal Journal. Washington, March, 1840. Pages 74, 75. POSTSCRIPT. 469 limits. To give such enemies of the human race the benefit of a trial before a Mixed Commission Court, either in Cuba or the Brazils, is notoriously absurd. In the establishment of colonies in Africa, which Sir Thomas Buxton so strongly recommends, he has un- questionably pointed out the only effectual means of at once extinguishing the slave-trade, and elevating the entire African race. The establishment of colonies, conducted on right principles, at all the more important localities, both on the coast and in the interior, would undoubtedly lead to both of these most desirable results. And it cannot be doubted that through such Colonies the three great staple articles of slave produce — sugar, cotton, and coffee, for all of which the soil and climate of Africa are highly favourable — might very soon be raised by means of free labour in the equatorial regions of that continent, to such an extent as eventually to re- duce the value of slave labour to an amount that would render it no longer profitable in any country in the world. I am sorry, however, to observe that Sir T. Buxton has not adverted to a point of the utmost im- portance in the formation of such Colonies, and on which, I conceive, their success and prosperity will in great measure, if not entirely, depend. If the proposed Colonies should be formed on the Sierra Leone principle — that of having all offices of trust and emolument held by Europeans, by whom the Africans will naturally be regarded as an inferior and subject race — the undertaking will most certainly prove a failure, like that of the colony of Sierra Leone, on Sir T. Buxton's own showing. To ensure their success, the proposed colonies must be established on the American or Liberian principle — that of constituting a commu- nity purely African, in which tue coloured man alone will be eligible to office, or admissible to the rights of citizenship.* * FjieuL-Gcncial Biigcuud, of tlic I'lcuih iiimy of Algiers, one 470 POSTSCRIPT. Now, I confess I almost despair of the British Go- vernment, or of any Society in this country, ever form- ing an African colony on such principles. The British principle of colonization — whether in Canada, in Aus- tralia, or in South Africa — is, that man is incapable of self-government, that he is, by no means to be con- stituted " Lord of himself — that heritage of woe," but that he must be governed, forsooth, or rather made perfectly miserable and reduced to a mere cipher in his adopted country, by the misgovernment of people at home, who either know nothing of his case and circum- stances, or know them only through the information of individuals whose interest it is to misrepresent them. The American principle of colonization, on the con- trary, is, that man — although only yesterday a slave or recaptured African — is capable of self-government, and that it is of the utmost importance both for his temporal of the Presidents of the African Institute of France, observes in a letter to M, le Chevalier Hippolyte de Saint-Anthoine, Secretary- General of the African Institute, " Je conseille a I'lnstitut de pro- pager I'id^e, que sans la colonisation Europei^nne^ il n'y a rien de solide a fonder en Afrique." Concurring entirely in this idea as to Northern Africa, I must nevertheless be permitted to observe, that it by no means applies to the case of the intertropical regions of that continent. There^ the colonization must be purely African — either from the British West Indies or from the United States ; as no European colonists could stand the climate, on the one hand, and as the influence of such colonists, in creating a caste of blood, on the other, would be decidedly prejudicial to the gi'eat object in view, thegi'adual elevation of the entire African race. But civilized and Christian men of that race, introduced into intertropical xVfrica from the United States, or the British West Indies, are in reality all that is implied in Geneial Bugeaud's colonisaiio7i Europecnne for North- ern Africa ; as that idea merely implies an im])ortation into Africa ut the civilization and the Christianity of Europe, in the persons of civilized and CLristian men. In Algiers these men must be Euro- peans ; but in Liberia, and on the banks of the Niger, they must be A fricans. POSTSCRIPT. 471 and spiritual welfare that he should be taught to exer- cise himself in the art from the very first. The result of the former of these principles, as in Sierra Leone, is prodigious expense and ultimate failure ; that of the latter, as in Liberia, is a mere trifle of expense, and astonishing success. I confess however I have not much hope that either the British Government, on the one hand, or the men who form philanthropic societies in London, on the other, will take either the warning or the example in these cases. Not only the Governor, but all the subordinate heads of departments in the proposed colonies, will, in all likelihood, be Europeans, and will, therefore, from the first, constitute a separate caste in society, and look down upon the native Afri- cans, as the latter have hitherto been uniformly looked down upon, not only in America, but wherever they have come in contact with white men. In short, the mea- sure that constitutes the main secret of the remarkable success of the American colony of Liberia is the very last that either the British Government or a British Society will be likely to adopt. It is unreasonable to visit the Americans, as is gene- rally done in this country, with exclusive condemna- tion for their proscription of the African race. The inicpiity is of universal prevalence, wherever the white man has come in contact with the negro beyond seas ; for, although public opinion in this country — where, it must be borne in mind, the instances of such contact are extremely rare — may be strong enough to neutralize the anti-christian and inhuman feeling, there arc none readier than natives of Great Britain and Ireland to make common cause with the aristocracy of colour even in our own colonies. In the Isle of France, and at the Cape of Good Hope— not to speak of tiie West Indies at all — the proscription of tlie coloured race is as com- plete and entire as it is any where in America, and, as if Frencinnen and Dutchmen ought to be our model in 472 POSTSCRIPT. this particular, attempts have recently been made to extend the iniquity even to the Australian colonies, and to dignify it with the sanctions of religion. A highly respectable and comparatively wealthy family, of Port Louis, in the Isle of France, having a very slight infu- sion of African blood in their veins, and suffering under the usual consequences of that insurmountable misfor- tune in the Mauritius, resolved to emigrate to New South Wales, in the hope of being admitted to an equality with the rest of mankind, in a colony of ex- clusively Bi-itish origin — a hope which was surely rea- sonable enough in these days of liberal opinions in the mother country. Being zealously attached to the Ro- mish communion, they were liberal with their money on all occasions of subscriptions or donations — and these were not unfrequent — for the Roman Catholic Church in Sydney ; and the ladies of the family had even pre- sented to the church some of those frippery lace orna- ments, or Ro7nish rags, as honest Andrew Melville called them, that are used in Roman Catholic countries for the adorning of the altar. But even in New South Wales the caste of blood was remembered against them, and a sentence of proscription, on the part of the Irish Roman Catholic families of the place, was the bitter award they were doomed to experience, even from O'Connellites and Repealers, in a British colony! Nay, the very priests sanctioned the monstrous iniquity, by keeping aloof from their society, except in cases of ne- cessity ! In short, it is in Africa alone that the great battle for the extinction of the slave-trade, for the abo- lition of slavery, and last, but not least of all, for the universal elevation of the African race to a level with the other members of Adam's great family, can ever be successfully fought : and the men to fight this battle must be Africans exclusively. In regard to the agents in the proposed work of civi- lization, Sir T. Buxton expects that many useful men POSTSCRIPT. 473 for such a purpose will be found among the Christian negroes in the West Indies and at Sierra Leone. And if academies and colleges were to be formed in these localities respectively, for the express purpose of train- ing up intelligent and promising Africans of suitable character as schoolmasters, ministers of religion, and missionaries to the heathen in Africa, there is no doubt that a large and regular supply of well qualified labourers would soon be created. But America can at once bring into tiie field ten such labourers for every one that Great Britain can command ; and in this consists the peculiar adaptation of the African colonization enter- prise to the goings forth of American philanthropy.* If the proposed African colonies should be really colo- nies of Africans exclusively, under British protection, numerous agents of the best possible description — teachers, preachers, mechanics, and labourers of all kinds — could doubtless be obtained with facility, and at very moderate salaries, in the United States. But if these colonies are to be established on the Sierra Leone principle, the American Africans ought not to be en- couraged to join in the undertaking in any way. At all events. Great Britain and America are now for the first time to be engaged in a species of honourable rivalry in the noblest undertaking that can possibly en- * Tlic following is M. dt- Tocqueville's opinion of the American Colonization enterprise : — " Two luindrcd years have now elapsed Bince the inliabitnnts of Europe undertook to tear tlie negro from his family and his liome, in order to transport him to the shores of North America; at the present day the Kiiropcan settlers are en- gaged in sending back the descendants of those very negroes, to the continent from which they were originally taken; and the barbarous Africans have been brought into contact with fiviliz:>tion in the midst of bondage, and have become acquainted with free political institutions in slavery. Up to the present time Africa has been closed against the arts and sciences of the whites; but the inven- tions of Europe will perhaps penetrate into those regions now that they are introduced by Africans themselves. The settlement of Liberia is founded upon a lofty and a most fruitful idea." 474 POSTSCRIPT. gage tlie energies of civilized and Christian men — I mean the civilization and regeneration of Africa. Coa- lition in such an undertaking, on the part of the two nations, or their respective Societies, is neither to be expected nor desired. The field is wide enough for both, and mutual co-operation in the pursuit of the com- mon object, which is all that is requisite in the case, will be mutually beneficial. Let the Americans, there- fore, come forward for the support of their colonization enterprise cordially and unanimously. Let them regard it as a national concern, as the civilization of Africa is now regarded in Great Britain. Let the separate State legislatures take it up as a matter alike of interest and of duty, and make the requisite appropriations for carry- ing out its great and important objects. So shall the Americans consult alike their national honour and their national interest. So shall America wipe off the re- proach of her youth, and so shall the blessings she confers on Africa be returned in blessings innumerable upon herself. THE £ND. (1- W. Tyler, Printer, 5, Bolt Court, Fleet Street. By llie same Author, T. AN HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF NEW SOUTH WALES ; Doth as a Penal Sottlcuicnt ami as a British Cdlony. Sccon«l Edition. Two vols. 8vo. London, 1}337. Piicc jt'l- Is. II. TRANSPORTATION AND COLONIZATION; Or, the Causes of the Comparative Failure of the Trans|iorlation System in the Austialian Colonics; with snggistions for onsuring its future efficiency in subserviency to extensive Colonization. One vol. Ovo, LoudoD, 1837. Price Gs. in. VIEW OF THE ORIGIN AND MIGRATIONS OF THE POLYNESIAN NATION ; 1 Kmoustrating their Ancient Discovery and |>rogresBivc Sctllcmcut of tlie Continent of America. One vol. JJvo. Loudon, 1834. Price Ts. Od. IV. AURORA AUSTRALIS; Or, SiKciracns of Sacred Poctr)- for the Colonists of Australia. Sydney, 10-2G. V. THE PRESENT ASPECT AND PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH ; Willi :i Pl.iiu Statement of the Case of the Chnidi of Siolh.nd and the British ('oh)nies : A Sermon, preached in St. Andrew's Church, Kdiubuigh,3id May, UV.',\ s..,,,,.i JMiiiuu. (.Jlasgow, 1831 By the same Author. VI. THE TRUE GLORY OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH; A Sermon, preached at the opening of St. Andrew's, or the Scots Church, Hobart Town, Van Dieman's Land, 15th Novem- ber, 1835. Sydney, 1835. VII. NATIONAL SINS THE CAUSE AND PRE- CURSORS OF NATIONAL JUDGMENTS ; A Sermon, preached in the Scots Church, Sydney, November 2nd, 1838, being the day appointed by His Excellency, Sir George Gipps, as a Day of Fasting and Humiliation, on account of the late Calamitous Drought. Sydney, 1838. VIII. NEW ZEALAND IN 1839; Or, Four Letters to the Right Hon. Earl Durham, Governor of the New Zealand Land Company, &c. &c. &c. on the Colonization of that Island, and on the present Condition and Prospects of its Native Inhabitants. London, 1839. IX. SPECIMENS OF AN IMPROVED METRICAL VERSION OF THE PSALMS OF DAVID ; (Containing New Translations of a Hundred Psalms.) Intended for the use of the Presbyterian Church in Australia and New Zealand ; with a Preliminary Dissertation on Psalmody, and Notes, Critical and Explanatory. Philadelphia, 1 840. 16 5440 ~1 GENERAL LIBRARY U.C. BERKELEY BQ0D3E71t,7