The Englishwoman in America - Isabella Lucy Bird (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

is very large; and the foreign missions, and other religious societies, are supported on a scale of remarkable liberality.

There is no established church or dominant religious persuasion in the States. There are no national endowments; all are on the same footing, and live or die as they obtain the suffrages of the people. While the State does not recognise any one form of religion, it might be expected that she would assist the ministers of all. Such is not the case; and, though Government has wisely thought it necessary to provide for the education of the people, it has not thought it advisable to make any provision for the maintenance of religion. Every one worships after his own fashion; the sects are numerous and subdivided; and all enjoy the blessings of a complete religious toleration.

Strange sects have arisen, the very names of which are scarcely known in England, and each has numerous adherents. It may be expected that fanaticism would run to a great height in the States. Among the 100 different denominations which are returned in the census tables, the following designations occur: Mormonites, Antiburgers, Believers in God, Children of Peace, Disunionists; Danian, Democratic Gospel, and Ebenezer Socialists; Free Inquirers, Inspired Church, Millerites, Menonites, New Lights, Perfectionists, Pathonites, Pantheists, Tunkards, Restorationists, Superalists, Cosmopolites, and hosts of others.

The clergy depend for their salaries upon the congregations for whom they officiate, and upon private endowments. The total value of church property in the United States is estimated at 86,416,639 dollars, of which one-half is owned in the States of Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. The number of churches, exclusive of those in the newly-organised territories, is about 38,000. There is one church for every 646 of the population. The voluntary system is acted upon by each denomination, though it is slightly modified in the Episcopalian church. In it, however, the bishops are elected, the clergy are chosen by the people, and its affairs are regulated by a convention. It is the oldest of the denominations, and is therefore entitled to the first notice.

It has 38 bishops, 1714 ministers, and 105,350 communicants. It has 1422 churches, and its church property is estimated at 11,261,970 dollars. A large number of the educated and wealthy are members of this body. Its formularies, with the exception of some omissions and alterations, are the same as those of the Church of England. Some of its bishops are men of very high attainments. Dr. McIlvaine, the Bishop of Ohio, is a man of great learning and piety, and is well known in England by his theological writings.

The Methodists are the largest religious body in America. As at home, they have their strong sectional differences, but they are very useful, and are particularly acceptable to the lower orders of society, and among the coloured population. They possess 12,467 churches, 8389 ministers, and 1,672,519 communicants, and the value of their church property exceeds 14,000,000 dollars.

The Presbyterians are perhaps the most important of the religious bodies, as regards influence, education, and wealth. Their stronghold is in New England. They have 7752 congregations, 5807 ministers, and 680,021 communicants. Their church property is of the value of 14,000,000 dollars.

The Baptists are very numerous. They have 8181 churches, 8525 ministers, 1,058,754 communicants, and church property to the amount of 10,931,382 dollars.

The Congregationalists possess 1674 churches, 1848 ministers, and 207,609 communicants. Their property is of the value of 7,973,962 dollars.

The Roman Catholics possessed at the date of the last census 1112 churches, and church property to the amount of 9,000,000 dollars.

There is church accommodation for about 14,000,000 persons, or considerably more than half the population. There are 35,000 Sabbath schools, with 250,000 teachers, and 2,500,000 scholars. Besides the large number of churches, religious services are held in many schools and courthouses, and even in forests and fields. The dissemination of the Bible is on the increase. In last year the Bible Society distributed upwards of 11,000,000 copies. The Society for Religious Publications employed 1300 colporteurs, and effected sales during the year to the amount of 526,000 dollars. The principal of the religious societies are for the observance of the sabbath, for temperance, anti-slavery objects, home missions, foreign missions, &c. The last general receipts of all these societies were 3,053,535 dollars.

In the State of Massachusetts the Unitarians are a very influential body, numbering many of the most intellectual and highly educated of the population. These, however, are divided upon the amount of divinity with which they shall invest our Lord.

The hostile spirit which animates some of the religious journals has been already noticed. There is frequently a good deal of rivalry between the members of the different sects; but the way in which the ministers of the orthodox denominations act harmoniously together for the general good is one of the most pleasing features in America. The charitable religious associations are on a gigantic scale, and are conducted with a liberality to which we in England are strangers. The foreign missions are on a peculiarly excellent system, and the self-denying labours and zeal of their missionaries are fully recognised by all who have come in contact with them. No difficulty is experienced in obtaining money for these objects; it is only necessary to state that a certain sum is required, and, without setting any begging machinery to work, donations exceeding the amount flow in from all quarters.

Altogether it would appear from the _data_ which are given that the religious state of America is far more satisfactory than could be expected from so heterogeneous a population. The New England States possess to a great extent the externals of religion, and inherit in a modified degree the principles of their Puritan ancestors; and the New Englanders have emigrated westward in large numbers, carrying with them to the newly settled States the leaven of religion and morality. The churches of every denomination are crowded, and within my observation by as many gentlemen as ladies; but that class of aspiring spirits, known under the name of "_Young America_," boasts a perfect freedom from religious observances of every kind.

There is a creed known by the name of Universalism, which is a compound of Antinomianism with several other forms of error, and embraces tens of thousands within its pale. It often verges upon the most complete Pantheism, and is very popular with large numbers of the youth of America.

There is a considerable amount of excitement kept up by the religious bodies in the shape of public re-unions, congregational _soirees_, and the like, producing a species of religious dissipation, very unfavourable, I should suppose, to the growth of true piety. This system, besides aiding the natural restlessness of the American character, gives rise to a good deal of spurious religion, and shortens the lives and impairs the usefulness of the ministers by straining and exhausting their physical energies.

To the honour of the clergy of the United States it must be observed that they keep remarkably clear from party-politics, contrasting in this respect very favourably with the priests of the Church of Rome, who throw the weight of their influence into the scale of extreme democracy and fanatical excesses. The unity of action which their ecclesiastical system ensures to them makes their progressive increase much to be deprecated.

It is owing in great measure to the efforts of the ministers of religion that the unbending principles of truth and right have any hold upon the masses; they are ever to be found on the side of rational and constitutional liberty in its extreme form, as opposed to licence and anarchy; and they give the form of practical action to the better feelings of the human mind. Amid the great difficulties with which they are surrounded, owing to the want of any fixed principles of right among the masses, they are ever seeking to impress upon the public mind that the undeviating laws of morality and truth cannot be violated with impunity any more by millions than by individuals, and that to nations, as to individuals, the day of reckoning must sooner or later arrive.

The voluntary system in religion, as it exists in its unmodified form in America, has one serious attendant evil. Where a minister depends for his income, not upon the contributions to a common fund, as is the case in the Free Church of Scotland, but upon the congregation unto which he ministers, his conscience is to a dangerous extent under the power of his hearers. In many instances his uncertain pecuniary relations with them must lead him to slur over popular sins, and keep the unpalatable doctrines of the Bible in the background, practically neglecting to convey to fallen and wicked man his Creator's message, "Repent, and believe the Gospel." It has been found impossible in the States to find a just medium between state-support, and the apathy which in the opinion of many it has a tendency to engender, and an unmodified voluntary system, with the subservience and "high-pressure" which are incidental to it.

Be this as it may, the clergy of the United States deserve the highest honour for their high standard of morality, the fervour of their ministrations, the zeal of their practice, and their abstinence from politics.



CHAPTER XIX.

General remarks continued--The common schools--Their defect--Difficulties --Management of the schools--The free academy--Railways--Telegraphs-- Poverty--Literature--Advantages for emigrants--Difficulties of emigrants-- Peace or war--Concluding observations.

At a time when the deficiencies of our own educational system are so strongly felt, it may be well to give an outline of that pursued in the States. The following statistics, taken from the last census, show that our Transatlantic brethren have made great progress in moral and intellectual interests.

At the period when the enumeration was made there were 80,958 public schools, with 91,966 teachers, and 2,890,507 scholars; 119 colleges, with 11,903 students; 44 schools of theology; 36 schools of medicine; and 16 schools of law. Fifty millions of dollars were annually spent for education, and the proportion of scholars to the community was as 1 to 5.

But it is to the common-school system that the attention should be particularly directed. I may premise that it has one unavoidable defect, namely, the absence of religious instruction. It would be neither possible nor right to educate the children in any denominational creed, or to instruct them in any particular doctrinal system, but would it not, to take the lowest ground, be both prudent and politic to give them a knowledge of the Bible, as the only undeviating rule and standard of truth and right? May not the obliquity of moral vision, which is allowed to exist among a large class of Americans, be in some degree chargeable to those who have the care of their education--who do not place before them, as a part of their instruction, those principles of truth and morality, which, as revealed in Holy Scripture, lay the whole universe under obligations to obedience? History and observation alike show the little influence practically possessed by principles destitute of superior authority, how small the restraint exercised by conscience is, and how far those may wander into error who once desert "Life's polar star, the fear of God." In regretting the exclusion of religious instruction from the common-school system, the difficulties which beset the subject must not be forgotten, the multiplicity of the sects, and the very large number of Roman Catholics. In schools supported by a rate levied indiscriminately on all, to form a course of instruction which could bear the name of a religious one, and yet meet the views of all, and clash with the consciences and prejudices of none, was manifestly impossible. The religious public in the United States has felt that there was no tenable ground between thorough religious instruction and the broadest