hope are cast aside, the usual forms of worship forsaken, and fanaticism is allowed to rule, then weak and excitable minds become perplexed and even insane. The effort to grasp something ineffable and inconceivable exceeds the power of the human faculties, and shatters and destroys them. This is not religion, but her opposite; it spoils the offering she brings instead of improving it, and lowers instead of elevating the moral and religious standard of a country. True religion must exhibit itself in the life, the whole life, and not in feverish excitements, the sallies of a sickly fancy, zeal without knowledge, and words without deeds."

Opinions of such weight and experiences of so bitter a kind have not remained without effect. After these misguided persons have rushed heedlessly onward to the utmost verge of error, they bethink themselves of returning; and it is to be hoped they will not again be led to imagine, that religion can be improved and ennobled by fanaticism.

If we reflect on all that has been said, it is plain that there is no lack of religion in America, but that there is danger of falling into erroneous practices through excessive zeal for religion. The tolerance exhibited by the laws of the land, and the equal manner in which they look upon all denominations, have indeed weakened and concealed the radical elements of bigotry and fanaticism, but have by no means rooted them out. Thus, one is shocked that a merchant should post his books on a Sunday; and another, that a clergyman should on that day speak of the affairs of his congregation.* A third takes offence at organs and church music; a fourth calls it a remnant of Popish trumpery, if the words Laus Deo are placed on the organ, or an I. H. S. on the pulpit. It is remarkable, but by no means uncommon, that the Americans themselves place side by side the highest commendations and the severest censures respecting their religious condition. For example, while one maintains that so much virtue, faith, and morality, never before existed in the world as is now to be found in New England; a second is shocked at the Unitarians and Universalists; and a third describes the earlier condition of the country as worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrha. Thus he says: "Neglect and contempt of the Gospel and its ministers, a prevailing and abounding spirit of error, disorder, unpeaceableness, pride, bitterness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, disobedience, calumniating and reviling authority, divisions, contentions, separations and confusions in churches, injustice, idleness, evil speaking, lasciviousness, and all other vices and impieties abounded."t

* Duncan, i. 223, 242.

† Quincy's History of Harvard University, ii. 47.

He who proves too much, proves nothing. All really sensible Americans are as far removed from vain self-admiration as from cowardly or misanthropic despair. True culture is the best remedy against fanatical extravagance, narrow sectarianism, and the dark spirit of persecution. But reading, writing and arithmetic do not constitute the sum of true knowledge, or bear evidence of its possession; any more than the mere reception of certain dogmas infuses the life-bestowing essence of religion.

To genuine knowledge and genuine faith much more belongs than is taught and practised in the school-room and in revivals. Without self-control, disinterestedness, self-denial, reverence for the laws, and genuine philanthropy, all the wisdom of schools and churches is only sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

It has been repeated a thousand times over, that in the human heart all is good,-or, all is bad; and yet our immediate consciousness tells us that each of these dogmas is false. A scientific and religious education which is founded on either of them, will never fully accomplish its task.

When we see in America three or four clergymen, excluded from their former communion, in connection with half a dozen laymen, set up a new church of their own, and at the same time maintain that they alone possess the truth; and when they put forth the assertion, that this church of their forming must be universal and include in it all believers;* it is scarcely possible to restrain our scorn and contempt for such arrogance and vanity. And yet this may be viewed in another light. The multiplicity of sects which springs from the exercise of free judgment, shows a due sense of the nature and value of the rational liberty that belongs to every man; for the real indestructible Christian nature undergoes innumerable transformations in the human soul without injury to the objective truth that lies at its foundaion. The image which the eye of a man beholds in the kaleidoscope, and whereby his imagination is excited, has subjective truth springing from the object; and no one has a right to assert that it is not there and cannot be there. Equally absurd is it to declare, that this individual conception is shared by all mankind alike.

Jefferson's Declaration raises men from outward compulsion to outward freedom; but for the higher cognition of an inner natural tendency towards and necessity for an infinitely diversified development, next to nothing has hitherto been effected; still less is any thing done or likely to be done for discerning unity in multiplicity, or for preparing the way to a reconciliation and a

Six clergymen form "God's church," and "it is the bounden duty of all God's people to belong to her, and none else."-" Universality is likewise a prominent attribute in the church of the first born." Rupp, Pasa ecclesia, pp. 175, 178.

more exalted peace. As long as one sect merely tolerates another, so long of course will it strive after its subjugation. The impossibility of accomplishing its desires will alone prevent this, and not good sense and charity. Although the application of the fire and the faggot would now, thank God, meet with insuperable difficulties, still the orthodoxy that politely shrugs its shoulders at the thought of heretics is not yet wholly extinct. The Catholics hold fast either secretly or openly to the doctrine, that to them alone it is given to impart salvation; while the smallest Protestant sect calls itself Catholic, and declares that the whole Catholic world is out of the pale of Christianity! All establish some test of orthodoxy, and condemn every thing that does not fit this Procrustes' bed. Contrary to the spirit and letter of the Constitution, Clay, Polk, Frelinghuysen, and Dallas were arraigned for their religious convictions, and subjected to a catechetical examination; while a sort of creed or test-oath was demanded of them, although every one well knew beforehand that all the zealots would never be satisfied with it.

The hope that the Bible and biblical Christianity would re-unite those who had prematurely separated is unfortunately not yet fulfilled, and the book of peace is but too often made a magazine of war. Thus says an American paper: "The mournful events which we all lament may be traced with mathematical certainty to their real source, namely, to the conduct of the clergy, who for the last fifteen or twenty years have excited and inflamed the religious bigotry of their followers."-In another report it is stated: "The Bible does not yet exert its healing influence even in the bosom of the church. What violent, bitter, and obstinate controversies take place even among members of the same denomination! There is a spirit of fault-finding, of censoriousness, and slander among brethren, which lays more stress upon some one small and scarcely visible point of difference than upon a hundred things of importance in which they agree.† There must be some remedy for this moral disease, and that remedy is the Bible. Let the Bible, with its triumphant, softening, purifying, and elevating power, exert its proper influence upon the human heart; and these contentions will cease, and Christian mildness, love, and good will take their place!"

It is fortunate that no church party can prop itself up by the aid of a political one, and become blended therewith: still I consider that the United States have far more to fear from the fanati

*Report of Young Men's Bible Society, Cincinnati, 1837, p. 28.

"They will argue as if their soul depended upon the decision of the north or northwest side of a hair in polemics." Olive Branch, p. 22. It was a dread of such views and influence that caused Jefferson and Girard to exclude clergymen from their institutions at Charlottesville and Philadelphia.

cism that glows under a flimsy covering, than from the impetuous spirit of democracy which is constantly unburthening itself; nay, it is in this very ardor for political liberty that the best remedy against ecclesiastical tyranny is to be found. All the sects which at certain periods were predominant, have fallen into disputes among themselves (for example, the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Methodists); and this has lessened the danger, and enlivened the activity of the separate parties. Still a truly Christian understanding, an exchange and mutual correction of thoughts and feelings (a most praiseworthy example of which I met with at Charleston),* would operate more beneficially than all the never ending still beginning controversies professedly undertaken for the honor of God.

Unfortunately in several countries of Europe, and even in Germany, where a commendable interest is taken in religious and ecclesiastical affairs,† the elements of a manifold tyranny have been set in motion, and the flames of fanaticism kindled anew; and all this under the pretext of honoring God, advancing the pure and only truth, improving the life of ecclesiastics, and the like. An arrogant, domineering dogmatism forgets country and nationality, Christian morals and Christian love, and puts arms into the hands of hatred and persecution. Thus we are in the fairest or rather the worst way to fall into the scandal, the audacity, the destructiveness, and the brutality of another thirty years' civil and religious war.

* See my Letters.

† It has been anxiously or perhaps maliciously asked, What is the government to do in reference to the recent movements of the German Catholic Reformers and other Protestants? It should undoubtedly give free scope to development, and neither restrain nor promote it by positive laws, nor suffer it to be done by the clergy through secular means. Every other mode will fail of the end, and produce more evil than good.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE STATE OF OHIO.

Settlement, Origin-Natural Condition-Constitution-Administration of JusticePopulation-Productions-Canals—Taxation and Finances-Banks-Prisonsthe Deaf and Dumb, the Blind, the Insane-Paupers-Churches-SchoolsCINCINNATI-Population-Swine-breeding-City Ordinances, Taxes-Churches -Schools-Lane Seminary-Woodward College-Mechanics' Libraries-Ger. mans-Prospects.

THE knowledge necessary to delineate the twenty-six states of the great American confederacy is possessed by but few Americans, and certainly by no foreigner. Should I notwithstanding attempt it in this place, by making use of many aids at my command, the constant sameness of the general descriptions would only fatigue the reader, and the enumeration of slight differences would take up far too much room. But as I have arranged my previous communications according to their subjects, and have brought under one head what related to each of them in the several states, it cannot well be inappropriate, if I sketch, by way of counterpart to the foregoing, the figure of one state as an individual whole. I choose for this purpose none of the better known Eastern states, but the queen and wonder of the West, the republic of Ohio.

Sixty years ago, the whole country consisted, partly of a primeval forest, scarcely accessible even to wild beasts; and partly of a level prairie, where bears, panthers, wolves, and foxes bore sway, rather than the few and scattered Indians. Single travellers had ventured down the Ohio, or landed on the shores of Lake Erie; but nothing was yet said of permanent settlements. On the 16th of April, 1781, was born the first white child within the present limits of the state of Ohio. In April, 1788, about forty persons settled on the Ohio, and called their settlement Marietta, after the unfortunate queen, Marie Antoinette. It was not till the year 1794, the period of the worthy General Wayne's victory over the Indians, that the immigrants enjoyed the requisite repose and security; and in the year 1802, with the beginning of the nineteenth century, they adopted a constitution and formed a

state.

And even then how small were their beginnings, how toil