ness." From this it arises that an ecclesiastical profession still exists; not for the study of theological science, (which is quite reasonable,) but for the dispensing of goodness. From this it arises that ecclesiastical goodness is practically separated from active personal and social goodness. From this it arises that the yeomanry of America, those who are ever in the presence of God's high priest, Nature, and out of the worldly competitions of a society sophisticated with superstition, are perpetually in advance of the rest of the community on the great moral questions of the time, while the clergy are in the rear.

What must be done? The machinery of administration must be changed. The people have been brought up to suppose that they saw Christianity in their ministers. The first consequence of this mistake was, that Christianity was extensively misunderstood; as it still is. The trying moral conflicts of the time are acting as a test. The people are rapidly discovering that the supposed faithful mirror is a grossly refracting medium; and the blessed consequence will be, that they will look at the object for themselves, declining any medium at all. The clerical profession is too hard and too perilous a one, too little justifiable on the ground of principle, too much opposed to the spirit of the gospel, to outlive long the individual research into religion, to which the faults of the clergy are daily impelling the people.

To what then must we meantime trust for religion? To the administration of God, and the heart of man. Has not God his own ways, unlike our ways, of teaching when man misteaches? It is worth travelling in the wild west, away from churches and priests, to see how religion springs up in the pleasant woods, and is nourished by the winds and the star-light. The child on the grass is not

alone in listening for God's tramp on the floor of his creation. We are all children, ever so listening. Impulses of religion arise wherever there is life and society; whenever hope is rebuked, and fear relieved; wherever there is love to be cherished, and age and childhood to be guarded. If it be true, as my friend and I speculated, that religious sensibility is best awakened by the spectacle of the beauty of holiness, religion is everywhere safe; for this beauty is as prevalent, more or less perceptibly, as the light of human eyes. It is safe as long as the gospel history is extant. The beauty of holiness is there so resplendent, that, to those who look upon it with their own eyes, it seems inconceivable that, if it were once brought unveiled before the minds of men, every one would not adopt it into his reason and his affections from that hour. It has been reorganising and vivifying society from the day of its advent. It is carrying on this very work now in the New World. The institutions of America are, as I have said, planted down deep into Christianity. Its spirit must make an effectual pilgrimage through a society, of which it may be called a native; and no mistrust of its influences can for ever intercept that spirit in its mission of denouncing anomalies, exposing hypocrisy, rebuking faithlessness, raising and communing with the outcast, and driving out sordidness from the circuit of this, the most glorious temple of society that has ever yet been reared. The community will be christian as sure as democracy is christian.

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CONCLUSION.

My book must come to an end; but I offer no conclusion of my subject. I do not pretend to have formed any theory about American society or prospects to which a finishing hand can be put in the last page. American society itself constitutes but the first pages of a great book of events, into whose progress we can see but a little way; and that but dimly. It is too soon yet to theorise; much too soon to speak of conclusions even as to the present entire state of this great nation.

Meantime, some prominent facts appear to stand out from their history and condition, which it may be useful to recognise, while refusing to pronounce upon their positive or comparative virtue and happiness.

By a happy coincidence of outward plenty with liberal institutions, there is in America a smaller amount of crime, poverty, and mutual injury of every kind, than has ever been known in any society. This is not only a present blessing, but the best preparation for continued fidelity to true democratic principles.

However the Americans may fall short, in practice, of the professed principles of their association, they have realised many things for which the rest of the civilised world is still struggling; and which some portions are only beginning to intend. They are, to all intents and purposes, self-govern

ed. They have risen above all liability to a hereditary aristocracy, a connexion between religion and the State, a vicious or excessive taxation, and the irresponsibility of any class. Whatever evils may remain or may arise, in either the legislative or executive departments, the means of remedy are in the hands of the whole people: and those people are in possession of the glorious certainty that time and exertion will infallibly secure all wisely desired objects.

They have one tremendous anomaly to cast out; a deadly sin against their own principles to abjure. But they are doing this with an earnestness which proves that the national heart is sound. The progress of the Abolition question within three years, throughout the whole of the rural districts of the north, is a far stronger testimony to the virtue of the nation than the noisy clamour of a portion of the slave-holders of the south, and the merchant aristocracy of the north, with the silence of the clergy, are against it. The nation must not be judged of by that portion whose worldly interests are involved in the maintenance of the anomaly; nor yet by the eight hundred flourishing abolition societies of the north, with all the supporters they have in unassociated individuals. The nation must be judged of as to Slavery by neither of these parties; but by the aspect of the conflict between them. If it be found that the five abolitionists who first met in a little chamber five years ago, to measure their moral strength against this national enormity, have become a host beneath whose assaults the vicious institution is rocking to its foundations, it is time that slavery was ceasing to be a national reproach. Europe now owes to America the justice of regarding her as the country of abolitionism, quite as emphatically as the country of slavery,

The civilisation and the morals of the Americans fall far below their own principles. This is enough to say. It is better than contrasting or comparing them with European morals and civilisation: which contrast or comparison can answer no purpose, unless on the supposition, which I do not think a just one, that their morals and civilisation are derived from their political organisation. A host of other influences are at work, which must nullify all conclusions drawn from the politics of the Americans to their morals. Such conclusions will be somewhat less rash two centuries hence. Meantime, it will be the business of the world, as well as of America, to watch the course of republicanism and of national morals; to mark their mutual action, and humbly learn whatever the new experiment may give out. To the whole world, as well as to the Americans, it is important to ascertain whether the extraordinary mutual respect and kindness of the American people generally are attributable to their republicanism: and again, how far their republicanism is answerable for their greatest fault, their deficiency of moral independence.

No peculiarity in them is more remarkable than their national contentment. If this were the result of apathy, it would be despicable: if it did not coexist with an active principle of progress, it would be absurd. As it is, I can regard this national attribute with no other feeling than veneration. Entertaining, as I do, little doubt of the general safety of the American Union, and none of the moral progress of its people, it is clear to me that this national contentment will live down all contempt, and even all wonder; and come at length to be regarded with the same genial and universal emotion with which men recognise in an individual the equanimity of rational self-reverence.