In the various departments of lighter reading an unequalled supply is offered. The works of many of the most popular authors of other countries are reprinted at a price so low as to bring them within the reach even of the poorest; while the domestic writers, whose name is legion, are incessantly producing, in one form or another, new contributions to the stores of cheap literature.

It may be true that much of the knowledge acquired in America is more superficial than solid or satisfying. Let it be allowed that what in some instances affects to be science and learning is conceited ignorance, still there is so large an amount of genuine information diffused throughout the country as to exercise a most potent influence on the social and national interests and character.

CHAPTER XVIII.

RELIGION.-Religion recognised and protected, but not supported by the State. Ecclesiastical establishments repudiated by the framers of the Constitution. Religion, notwithstanding, the basis of the laws. Opinions of the founders of the Commonwealth on the subject. Great progress of religion under these circumstances. Perfect religious freedom and equality. Recognition of this principle by Congress in the choice of chaplains. Operation of the voluntary principle. Number of places of worship. Ministers and congregations in the Union. General statistics from last census. Great aversion to a Church and State alliance amongst ministers and people of all religious denominations. All religious institutions supported by voluntary effort. None by individual States or the Federal Government. Great efficiency of the voluntary principle demonstrated by its success. Embarrassment of the episcopal church when first thrown on her own resources. Beneficial results of her self-reliance.

With literature has come knowledge, and with knowledge truth.

In no part of the world does religion flourish in the same degree as in America, as it is here free from the trammels of State influence, and left alone to its own spontaneous, unobstructed operation.

No sooner had the first settlers in New England set their feet upon its shores, than they began to accomplish the object of their religious mission. Thus also did good men of different denominations in other parts of the coast at subsequent periods. Previously, or at the same time, or in succession after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on Plymouth Rock,* came the noble and generous Oglethorpe to Georgia; the Baptists, Moravians, and Lutherans to the Carolinas and New York; and the Huguenots of France both to New York and to the shores of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes. All these appointed pious and zealous ministers for themselves, and established seminaries for the instruction of the natives, whence scholars were selected to preach the gospel among their savage countrymen.

Religion is considered by the legislatures of the different States of this great republic as absolutely necessary to their

* Virginia was settled some years before Plymouth Rock.

existence and prosperity as a nation; and it is, therefore,-contrary to the opinions generally entertained in Europe,-distinctly recognised and protected by the laws. In America, as in England, religion is the basis of the common law. The Congress distinctly acknowledges the sanctity of the Sabbath, and provides for the maintenance of religious worship in its army and navy; while it is equally regarded by the great majority of the State Governinents and the civil authorities.

President Tyler, in his message to the Senate and House of Representatives in 1844, commenced with a declaration, that "If any people ever had cause to render up thanks to the Supreme Being for the parental care and protection extended to them in all the trials and difficulties to which they have been from time to time exposed, the Americans are that people. From the settlement of our forefathers on this continent," he continued, "through the dangers attendant upon the occupation of a savage wilderness,-through a long period of colonial dependance, -through the war of the revolution,-in the wisdom which led to the adoption of the existing republican form of Government, -in the hazards incident to a war subsequently waged with one of the most powerful nations of the earth,-in the increase of our population,-in the spread of the arts and sciences,— and in the strength and durability conferred on political institutions, emanating from the people and sustained by their will,the superintendence of an over-ruling Providence has been plainly visible;" and he justly and piously added, that “preparatory to entering upon the high duties of legislation, it becomes us humbly to acknowledge dependance upon Him as our guide and protector, and to implore a continuance of His parental watchfulness over our beloved country.'

Apart from the subordinate influences which the mere statesman recognises true religion to possess, our American brethren consider that it is advantageous to the State,-that it protects liberty, diminishes the necessity of public restraints, and, to a considerable degree, supersedes the use of force in the administration of the law, from the consideration that religious men are a law to themselves. They regard religion as the soul of freedom,-the safeguard of the national prosperity and

• During the administration of the Government of the country by President Polk, commencing in 1845, it is understood that he discontinued balls at the Government House from religious scruples, and regularly maintained domestic or family worship in the great Republican Palace.

honour, they believe that it unites and concentrates public opinion against injustice and oppression, and spreads a spirit of equity and goodwill throughout the community. They consider, indeed, that pure and unadulterated Christianity is not merely friendly to the civil and sacred liberties of mankind, but that it is the only system on earth by which the sweets of rational liberty, and the full enjoyment of natural rights, can be secured; a fact incontrovertibly established; as, wherever religion comes in power so as to obtain all the influence that it demands over the character, it strikes at the very root of every passion that is depraved and selfish, and necessarily restrains a man from tyrannising over others. Thus President Washington, in his farewell address to the people of the United States on his resigning the executive government,-which address has justly been regarded as admirably fitted to crown the services of that eminent statesman, and deserving to be held in veneration as a legacy of wisdom,-strongly affirms the necessity of religion to the wellbeing of a nation. "Of all the dispositions and habits," says he, "which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of men and citizens." The great Washington thus at a glance discerned the essential importance of the religious element in the State, and the impossibility of there being a true State without it. "He thus recognised the inseparable connection between all true government on earth and the invisible government of God;-an idea indispensable to all true nationality, involving as it does the sacredness of an oath,—the true doctrine of a national conscience, and of a solemn national accountability. He saw that there must be in every State a predominant religion or a predominant irreligion, Christianity or atheism, and that a State could not permanently exist or prosper unless Christianity was made the recognised foundation of the law of the land. At the same time, the forecasting mind of the framers of the Constitution solved the problem of the age, how far the purest toleration of action and opinion was consistent with that predominance both of religion and of race, which in some most liberal and catholic form would seem to be an essential element in all true nationality."*

* Harper's Magazine.

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Washington, Roger Sherman, Franklin, and Jefferson, but especially the latter, with some of his illustrious colleagues,seem to have understood, better than the political economists of Europe, the nature and proper functions of Government in regard to religion.

"The finest problem in legislation," says Mr. Burke, “is what a State ought to take upon itself to direct, by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual discretion:" and this problem the framers of the Constitution solved, by abstaining from all legislation on the subject of religion, at the same time that they recognised the necessity of its existence. In a word, they saw and acted upon the conviction, that though religion was necessary to the State, State influence was not necessary to religion.

A State-religion, indeed, as already said, is not only here unknown, but it is most palpably seen everywhere to be unnecessary. Churches and chapels are found rising up one after another in every city, town, and village of the Union, and generally with crowded congregations.*

"The Tribune," in gleaning from in gleaning from a recent report. to Congress by Mr. Kennedy, superintendent of the census, makes the following statement:-The churches or edifices for divine worship in the United States number 36,011; of which the Methodists own one-third, or 12,467; the Baptists nearly one-fourth, or 8,791; the Presbyterians the next number, or 4,584; and if we count the Dutch Reformed, Congregational, Lutheran, and German Reformed with the Presbyterian (and the differences between these seem slight and unessential), the total is 8,112. But the estimated capacity of the Presbyterian and allied churches is greater in the average than that of the Baptist and Methodist churches; so that while all the Methodist churches will accommodate but 3,209,333 worshippers, and all the Baptist but 3,130,878, the Presbyterians, and related churches aforesaid, have room for 3,705,211 worshippers. The Catholics have but 1,112 churches, accommodating 620,950 worshippers. The Episcopalians have 1422 churches, accom

"The churches of the different denominations," says the Earl of Carlisle, are extremely well filled."-Lecture on America.

+ The Romanist progress in this country is not such as greatly to encourage its friends or alarm its enemies, as we gather by the following statistics from the Catbolic almanac :-There are in all forty-one dioceses, of which number thirty

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