in the mass, they are much superior to the Irish in point of frugality and sobriety. Many of the Germans have of late years brought with them considerable sums of money, and though a good many are Roman Catholics, yet the majority are Protestants. A large proportion of them now come from the kingdoms of Wurtemberg and Bavaria, and from the Duchy of Baden; whereas, in former times, they came chiefly from the eastern and northern parts of Germany. Now, although, no doubt, the mortality among these emigrants from Europe, caused by exposure, anxiety, fatigue, and diseases incident to a strange climate, is far greater than among native Americans, yet the yearly accession of so many people, ignorant in a degree of the nature of our institutions, about half of them unable to speak English, and nearly half of them, also, Roman Catholics, must impose a heavy responsibility, and a great amount of labour upon the churches in order to provide them with the means of grace. Everything possible must be done for the adults among them, but hope can be entertained chiefly for the young. These grow up speaking the language and breathing the spirit of their adopted country, and thus the process of assimilation goes steadily on. In a thousand ways the emigrants who are, as it were, cast upon our shores, are brought into contact with a better religious influence than that to which many of them have been accustomed in the Old World. Every year some of them are gathered into our churches, while, as I have said, their children grow up Americans in their feelings and habits. All this is especially true of the emigrants who, meaning to make the country their home, strive to identify themselves with it. There are others, however, and particularly those who, having come to make their fortunes as merchants and traders, calculate upon returning to Europe, that never become American in feeling and spirit. From such no aid is to be expected in the benevolent efforts made by Christians to promote good objects among us. emigrants from the British islands, but they are chiefly to be found among the lowest class of them. Thus, as I remarked before, while the emigration from Europe to the United States brings us no inconsiderable number of worthy people, it introduces also a large amount of ignorance, poverty, and vice. Besides this, it is difficult to supply with religious institutions, and it takes long to Americanise, if I may use the expression, in feeling, conduct, and language, those multitudes from the Continent of Europe who cannot understand or speak English. Many of the Germans, in particular, in consequence of the impossibility of finding a sufficient number of fit men to preach in German, were at one time sadly destitute of the means of grace in their dispersion over the country. But within the last fifteen years a brighter prospect has opened upon that part of our population, as I shall have to show in its place. I have not charged upon the ordinary emigration to the shores of America the great amount of crime in the United States, which may be traced to the escape thither of criminals from Europe; for these cannot, with propriety, be regarded as constituting a part of that emigration. Nevertheless, it is the case that much of the crime committed in America, from that of the honourable merchant who scruples not to defraud the custom-house, if he can, down to the outrages of the man who disturbs the streets with his riots, is the work of foreigners. It may be said, I am sure, with the strictest truth, that in no country is a foreigner who deserves well treated with more respect and kindness than in America; in no country will he find less difference between the native and the adopted citizen; in no country do men become more readily assimilated in principle and feeling to the great body of the people, or more fully realize the fact that they form a constituent part of the nation. I have now finished the notice which I intended to take of some of the obstacles which the voluntary system has had to enI have been struck with the fact that, counter in the United States. I might mengenerally speaking, our religious societies tion others were it necessary; but I have receive their most steady support from our said enough to show that it is a mistake to Anglo-American citizens. The emigrants suppose that it has had an open field and from the British realm, English, Welsh, an easy course there. I am far from sayScotch, and Irish, rank next in the interesting that if the experiment were to be made they take in our benevolent enterprises, in an old country, where the population is and in readiness to contribute to their sup- established and almost stationary-where port. The Germans rank next, the Swiss it is homogeneous and indigenous-there next, and the French last. There is most would not be other obstacles to encounter, infidelity among the French, yet it prevails greater, perhaps, than those to be found also, to a considerable degree, among the among us, and in some respects peculiar Swiss and Germans, among the better-in- to America. I only wish these difficulformed classes of whom it is, alas! too oft-ties not to be lost sight of as we advance en to be found. There is no want of infi- in this work, and that they should be apdelity and indifference to religion among preciated at their just value when we come to speak of subjects upon which they bear. Such are some of the topics which I thought it of consequence to treat beforehand, that the reader might be prepared for a better comprehension of the grand subject of this work. Upon the direct consideration of that subject we are now ready to enter. CHAPTER I. BOOK II. THE COLONIAL ERA. tion of the art of printing by an obscure German, two years later, gave immense RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE EARLY COLO-facilities for the diffusion of knowledge NISTS.-FOUNDERS OF NEW-ENGLAND. I HAVE already remarked, that if we would understand the civil and political institutions of the United States of America, we must trace them from their earliest origin in Anglo-Saxon times, through their various developments in succeeding ages, until they reached their present condition in our own days. In like manner, if we would thoroughly understand the religious condition and economy of the United States, we must begin with an attentive survey of the character of the early colonists, and of the causes which brought them to America. Besides, as has been well observed,* a striking analogy may be traced between natural bodies and bodies politic. Both retain in manhood and old age more or less of the characteristic traits of their infancy and youth. All nations bear some marks of their origin, the circumstances amid which they were born, and which favoured their early development, and left an impression that stamps their whole future existence. We begin our inquiry, therefore, into the religious history and condition of the United States, by portraying, as briefly as possible, the religious character of the first colonists, who may be regarded as the founders of that commonwealth. In doing this, we shall follow neither the chronological nor the geographical order, but shall first speak of the colonists of New-England; next, of those of the South; and, finally, of those of the Middle States. This gives us the advantage at once of grouping and of contrast. How wonderful are the events that sometimes flow from causes apparently the most inadequate, and even insignificant! The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1453, seemed to be only one of the ordinary events of war, and yet it led to the revival of letters among the higher classes of society throughout Europe. The inven * See M. de Tocqueville, " Démocratie en Amérique," Première Partie, tome i., chap. i. Also Lang's "Religion and Education in America," chap. 1.. page 11. among all classes of people. The discovery of America by a Genoese adventurer, towards the close of the same century (A.D. 1492), produced a revolution in the commerce of the world. A poor monk in Germany, preaching (A.D. 1517) against indulgences, emancipated whole nations from the domination of Rome. And the fortuitous arrival of a young French lawyer who had embraced the Faith of the Reformation at an inconsiderable city in Switzerland, situated on the banks of the Rhone, followed by his settling there, and organizing its ecclesiastical and civil institutions, was connected, in the mysterious providence of Him who knows the end from the beginning, and who employs all events to advance His mighty purposes, with the establishment of free institutions in England, their diffusion in America, and their triumph in other lands. The way had long been preparing for the Reformation in England by the opinions avowed by Wicliffe and his followers, and by the resistance of the government to the claims and encroachments of the ecclesiastical authorities. The light, too, which had begun to appear in Germany, cast its rays across the North Sea, and men were ere long to be found in Britain secretly cherishing the doctrines maintained by Luther. At length an energetic, but corrupt and tyrannical prince, after having been rewarded for writing against Luther, by receiving from the pope the title of "Defender of the Faith," thought fit to revenge the refusal of a divorce from his first wife by abolishing the papal supremacy in his kingdom, and transferring the headship of the Church, as well as of the State, to himself. But Henry VIII. desired to have no reformation either in the doctrines or the worship of the Church; and in his last years he revoked the general permission which he had granted for the reading of the Scriptures, being all that he had ever done in favour of the Reformation among the nobles and merchants. A tyrant at once people, and confined that privilege to the in spiritual and temporal matters, he punished every deviation from the ancient usages of the Church, and every act of the Word of God-of human over divine non-compliance with his own arbitrary authority; and though then but a small miordinances. nority, even thus early there was evidently a growing attachment to their doctrines in the popular mind.* The reign of Edward VI. (1547-1553) forms a most important era in the history of England. Partly through the influence of the writings of Calvin, which had been circulated to a considerable extent in that country; partly through that of his public instructions, which had been frequented at Geneva by many young English students of divinity; but still more by the lectures of those two eminent Continental divines, Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer, who had been invited to England, and made professors of theology at Oxford and Cambridge, many persons had been prepared for that reformation in the Church which then actually took place under the auspices of Cranmer, and was carried to the length, in all essential points, at which it is now established by law. Hooper, and many other excellent men, were appointed to the most influential offices in the Church, and much progress was made in resuscitating true piety among both the clergy and the people. During the bloody reign of Edward VI.'s successor, Mary, that is, from 1553 to 1558, both parties of Protestants were exposed to danger, but especially the Puritans. Thousands fled to the Continent, and found refuge chiefly in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Emden, Wesel, Basel, Marburg, Strasburg, and Geneva. At Frankfort the dispute between the two parties was renewed with great keenness; even Calvin in vain attempted to allay it. In the end, most of the Puritans left that city and retired to Geneva, where they found the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the Church to accord with their sentiments. While residing there, they adopted for their own use a liturgy upon the plan suggested by the great Genevese reformer, and there also they translated the Bible into English.t Persecution, meanwhile, prevailed in England. Cranmer, to whom the queen in her early years had owed her life, Hooper, Rogers, and other distinguished servants of Christ, suffered death. Many of the clergy again submitted to the Roman See. But On the death of Queen Mary, many of the exiled Puritans returned, with their hatred to the ceremonies and vestments inflamed by associating them with the cruelties freshly committed at home, and by what they had seen of the simple worship of the Reformed Churches abroad. they struggled in vain to effect any substantial change. Elizabeth, who succeeded her sister Mary in 1558, would hear of no modifications of any importance in doctrine, discipline, or worship, so that in all points the Church was almost identically the same as it had been under Edward VI. While Elizabeth desired to conciliate the Romanists, the Puritans denounced all concessions to them, even in things indifferent. But the Protestants of England soon became divided into two parties. One, headed by Cranmer, then Archbishop of Canterbury, consisted of such as were opposed to great changes in the discipline and government of the Church, and wished to retain, to a certain degree, the ancient forms and ceremonies, hoping thereby to conciliate the people to the Protestant faith. To all the forms of the Romish Church the other party bore an implacable hatred, and insisted upon the rejection of even a ceremony or a vestment that was not clearly enjoined by the Word of God. Wishing to see the Church purified from every human invention, they were therefore called Puritans, a name given in reproach, but by which, in course of time, they were not averse to being distinguished. With them the Bible was the sole standard, alike for doctrines and for ceremonies, and with it The Puritans have been often and severely they would allow no decision of the hierar- blamed for what some have been pleased to call their chy, or ordinance of the king, or law of Par- obstinacy in regard to things comparatively indifferliament, to interfere. On that great found-ent. But it has been well remarked by President Quincy, in his Centennial Address at Boston, that ation they planted their feet, and were en"the wisdom of zeal for any object is not to be couraged in so doing by Bucer, Peter Mar- measured by the particular nature of that object, but tyr, and Calvin himself.* The Church-by the nature of the principle, which the circumstanmen, as their opponents were called, de-ces of the times, or of society, have identified with such object." sired, on the other hand, to differ as little as possible from the ancient forms, and readily adopted things indifferent; but the Puritans could never sever themselves too widely from every usage of the Romish Church. For them the surplice and the square cap were things of importance, for they were the livery of superstition, and tokens of the triumph of prescription over Strype's Memorials, vol. ii., chap. xxviii. Hallam's Constitutional History of England, vol. i., p. 140. This version was first published in 1560. So highly was it esteemed, particularly on account of its notes, that it passed through thirty editions. To both the translation and notes King James had a special dislike, alleging that the latter were full of "traitorous conceits." In the conference at Hampton Court, "he professed that he could never yet see a Bible well translated in English, but worst of all his majesty thought the Geneva to be." This version New-England, for that of King James, published in was the one chiefly used by the first emigrants to 1611, had not then passed into general use.Strype's Annals. Barlow's Sum and Substance of the Conference at Hampton Court. Though by profession a Protestant, she was much attached to many of the distinguishing doctrines and practices of the papacy, and she bore a special hatred to the Puritans, not only because of their differing so much from her in their religious views, but also because of the sentiments they hesitated not to avow on the subject of civil liberty. The oppression of the government was driving them, in fact, to scrutinize the nature and limits of civil and ecclesiastical authority, and to question the right of carrying it to the extent to which the queen and the bishops were determined to push it. The popular voice was becoming decidedly opposed to a rigorous exaction of conformity with the royal ordinances respecting the ceremonies. Parliament itself became imbued with the same spirit, and showed an evident disposition to befriend the Puritans, whose cause began to be associated with that of civil and religious liberty. The bishops, however, and most of the other dignified clergy, supported the views of the queen. Whitgift, in particular, who was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583, vigorously enforced conformity. The Court of High Commission compelled many of the best ministers of the Established Church to relinquish their benefices, and to hold private meetings for worship as they best could, very inferior and worthless men being generally put into their places. Still, the suppression of the Puritans was found a vain attempt. During Elizabeth's long reign their numbers steadily increased. The services they rendered to the country may be estimated by the verdict of an historian who has been justly charged with lying in wait, through the whole course of his history, for an opportunity of throwing discredit upon the cause of both religion and liberty, and who bore to the Puritans a special dislike. Mr. Hume says, "The precious spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved by the Puritans alone."* As a body, the Puritans studiously avoided separation from the Established Church. What they desired was reform, not schism. But towards the middle of Elizabeth's reign, a party arose among them that went to an extreme in their opposition to the "Churchmen," and refused to hold communion with a Church whose ceremonies and government they condemned. These were the Independents, or Brownists, as they were long improperly called, from the name of one who was a leading person among them for a time, but who afterward left them and ended his days in the Established Church. The congregation which Brown had gathered, after sharing his exile, was broken up and utterly dispersed. * Hunie's History of England, vol. iii., p. 76. But the principles which, for a time, he had boldly advocated, were destined to survive his abandonment of them in England, as well as to flourish in a far-distant region, at that time almost unknown. From that time forward the Puritans became permanently divided into two bodies the Nonconformists, constituting a large majority of the body, and the Separatists. The former saw evils in the Established Church, and refused to comply with them, but, at the same time, acknowledged its merits, and desired its reform; the latter denounced it as an idolatrous institution, false to Truth and to Christianity, and, as such, fit only to be destroyed. Eventually the two parties became bitterly opposed to each other; the former reproached the latter with precipitancy; the latter retorted the charge of a base want of courage. The accession of King James gave new hopes to the Puritans, but these were soon completely disappointed. That monarch, though brought up in Presbyterian principles in Scotland, no sooner crossed the border than he became an admirer of the prelacy, and, although a professed Calvinist, allowed himself to become the easy tool of the latitudinarian sycophants who surrounded him. Having deceived the Puritans, he soon learned to hate both them and their doctrines. His pedantry having sought a conference with their leaders at Hampton Court, scenes took place there which were as amusing for their display of the dialectics of the monarch as they were unsatisfactory to the Puritans in their results. "I will have none of that liberty as to ceremonies; I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion in substance and in ceremony. Never speak more on that point, how far you are bound to obey." And verily it was a point on which such a monarch as James I. did not wish to hear anything said. The conference lasted three days. The king would bear no contradiction. He spoke much, and was greatly applauded by his flatterers. The aged Whitgift said, "Your majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's Spirit." And Bishop Bancroft exclaimed, on his knees, that his heart melted for joy "because God had given England such a king as, since Christ's time, has not been."† The Parliament was becoming more and more favourable to the doctrines of the Puritans; but the hierarchy maintained its own views, and was subservient to the of the Puritans with little ceremony. "I will make In the second day's conference his majesty spoke them conform, or I will harry them out of the land, or else worse." "Only burn them, that's all."— Barlow's Sum and Substance of the Conference at Hampton Court, p. 71, 83. + Barlow's Sum and Substance of the Conference at Hampton Court, p. 93, 94. Lingard, ix., p. 32. Neal's History of the Puritans, iii., p. 45. 1 wishes of the monarch. Conformity was rigidly enforced by Whitgift's successor, CHAPTER II. NEW-ENGLAND.-PLYMOUTH COLONY. Bancroft. In 1604, three hundred Puritan RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE FOUNDERS OF ministers are said to have been silenced, imprisoned, or exiled. But nothing could check the growth of their principles. The Puritan clergy and the people became arrayed against the Established Church and the King. The latter triumphed during that reign, but very different was to be the issue in the following. So hateful to the court were the people called Brownists, Separatists, or Independents, that efforts were made, with great success, to root them out of the country. Some remains of them, however, outlived for years the persecutions by which they were assault ed. In the latter years of Elizabeth, a scattered flock of these Separatists began to be formed in some towns and villages of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and the adjacent borders of Yorkshire, under the pastoral care of John Robinson, a man who has left behind him a name admitted, even by his bitterest enemies, to be without reproach. This little church was watched and beset day and night by the agents of the court, and could with difficulty find opportunities of meeting in safety. They met here or there, as they best could, on the Sabbath, and thus strove to keep alive the spirit of piety which united them. They had become "enlightened in the Word of God," and were led to see, not only that "the beggarly ceremonies were monuments of idolatry," but also "that the lordly power of the prelates ought not to be submitted to." Such being their sentiments, no efforts, of course, would be spared to make their lives miserable, and, if possible, to extirpate them. At last, seeing no prospect of peace in their native land, they resolved to pass over to Holland, a country which, after having successfully struggled for its own independence and for the maintenance of the Protestant faith, now presented an asylum for persons of all nations when persecuted on account of their religion. After many difficulties and delays, a painfully interesting account of which may be found in their annals, they reached Amsterdam in 1608. There they found many of their brethren who had left England for the same cause with themselves. The oldest part of these exiled Independents was the church under the pastoral care of Francis Johnson. It had emigrated from London about the year 1592. There was also a fresh accession composed of a Mr. Smith's people. Risk of collision with these induced Mr. Robinson and his flock to retire to Leyden, and there they established themselves. THE arrival of Mr. Robinson's flock in Holland was destined to be the beginning only of their wanderings. "They knew that they were PILGRIMS, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to heaven their dearest country, and quieted their spirits."* "They saw many goodly and fortified cities, strongly walled and guarded with troops and armed men. Also, they heard a strange and uncouth language, and beheld the different manners and customs of the people, with strange fashions and attires; all so far differing from that of their plain country villages, wherein they were bred and born, and had so long lived, as it seemed they were come into a new world. But those were not the things they much looked on, or that long took up their thoughts; for they had other work in hand,” and “saw before long poverty coming on them like an armed man, with whom they must buckle and encounter, and from whom they could not fly. But they were armed with faith and patience against him and all his encounters; though they were sometimes foiled, yet by God's assistance they prevailed and got the victory." On their removal to Leyden, as they had no opportunity of pursuing the agricultural life they had led in England, they were compelled to learn such trades as they could best earn a livelihood by for themselves and their families. Brewster, a man of some distinction, who had been chosen their ruling elder, became a printer. Bradford, afterward their governor in America, and their historian, acquired the art of dying silk. All had to learn some handicraft or other. But, notwithstanding these difficulties, after two or three years of embarrassment and toil, they "at length came to raise a competent and comfortable living, and continued many years in a comfortable condition, enjoying much sweet and delightful society, and spiritual comfort together in the ways of God, under the able ministry and prudent government of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. William Brewster, who was an assistant unto him in the place of an elder, unto which he was now called and chosen by the church; so that they grew in knowledge, and other gifts and graces of the Spirit of God; and lived together in peace, and love, and holiness. And many came unto them from divers parts of England, so as they grew a great congregation." As for * See Governor Bradford's History of Plymouth Colony. + Governor Bradford's History of New-England. It has been calculated from data to be found in other histories of that colony, that so much had Mr. |