is either unable or unwilling to establish the true religion, it is perfectly accordant with the duty of a minister of religion, holding the Westminster 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 colonies,) 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 propagation 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 untrammeled; and, consequently, instead of being disappointed, as a churchman, at finding so much in favour of the Voluntary System in that country, I rather rejoiced, in the anticipation of the benefits which, I foresaw, it was likely to confer on my adopted country, 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 confidence in the sufficiency of the Voluntary System, as a means of providing for the regular dispensation of

the ordinances of religion in Christian countries, as well as of sending the gospel to the unconverted heathen. Nay, the only minister of the Church of Scotland 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 voluntary; not, indeed, in the ultra sense of maintaining that any connexion between church and state is unwarranted 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 throughout 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, Virginia, 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

such a visit; secondly, because, from my long residence in the Australian colonies, I was already sufficiently acquainted with the processes usually resorted to by civilized men, in first penetrating into the great wilderness of nature-the operation of settling, as it is technically called, being much the same in all new countries; 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 following work, to adhere pretty closely to the subject announced at the head of each chapter, I did not consider myself precluded from introducing occasional narratives, 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; especially when such deviations from the due course tended to throw additional light upon the moral 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 ascribing 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 political 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 profound remark :—" The growth of nations presents something 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.

bequeathed to their descendants those customs, manners, and opinions, which contribute most to the success of a republican form of government. When I reflect upon the consequences of this primary circumstance, 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 condition and character as a nation. With this view, I shall briefly enumerate the principal streams of emigration 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 independence. 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 possessions 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 victims 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 America, page 271.