Diary in America Volume I Part 31

_Elder_. My covetousness.

_Preacher_. Your anger.

_Elder_. Yes--my anger.

_Preacher_. Sinner, then; how awful is your condition!

_Elder_. How awful!

_Preacher_. What reason for all to examine themselves.

_Elder_. Lord, help us to search our hearts!

_Preacher_. Could you have more motives? I have done.

_Elder_. Thank G.o.d.--Thank G.o.d for his holy word. Amen.]

"It can hardly be denied, I think, that the prevalence of this spirit has greatly increased within a few years, and become a great and alarming evil. This increase is owing, no doubt, to the influence and new practices introduced into the religious world by a certain cla.s.s of ministers, who have lately risen and taken upon themselves to rebuke, and set down as unfaithful, all other ministers who do not conform to their new ways, or sustain them in their extravagant career."

The interference, I may say the tyranny, of the laity over the ministers of these democratic churches is, however, of still more serious consequences to those who accept such arduous and repulsive duty. It is a well-known fact, that there is a species of _bronchitis_, or affection of the lungs, peculiar to the ministers in the United States, arising from their excessive labours in their vocation. I have already observed, that the zeal of the minister is even unto death: the observations of Mr Colton fully bear me out in my a.s.sertion:--

"There is another serious evil in the Presbyterian and Congregational denominations, which has attained to the consequence of an active and highly influential element in these communities. I refer to the excessive amount of labour that is demanded of the clergy, which is undermining their health, and sending scores to their graves every year, long before they ought to go there. It is a new state of things, it must be acknowledged, and might seem hopeful of good, that great labours and high devotion to the duties of the Christian ministry in our country will not only be tolerated, but are actually demanded and imperatively exacted. At first glance, it is a most grateful feature. But, when the particulars come to be inquired into, it will be found that the mind and health-destroying exactions now so extensively made on the energies of the American clergy, particularly on these two cla.s.ses I am now considering, are attributable, almost entirely, to an appet.i.te for certain novelties, which have been introduced within a few years, adding greatly to the amount of ministerial labour, without augmenting its efficiency, but rather detracting from it. Sermons and meetings without end, and in almost endless variety, are expected and demanded; and a proportionate demand is made on the intellect, resources, and physical energies of the preacher. He must be as much more interesting in his exercises, and exhibitions as the increased multiplicity of public religious occasions tend to pall on the appet.i.te of hearers. Protracted meetings from day to day, and often from week to week, are making demands upon ministers, which no human power can sustain and, where these are dispensed with, it is often necessary to introduce something tantamount, in other forms, to satisfy the suggestions and wishes of persons so influential as to render it imprudent not to attempt to gratify them. In the soberest congregations, throughout nearly all parts of the land, these importunate, and, without unkindness, I am disposed to add, morbid minds are to be found, often in considerable numbers. Almost everywhere, in order to maintain their ground and satisfy the taste of the times, labours are demanded of ministers in these two denominations enough to kill any man in a short period. It is as if Satan had come into the world in the form of an angel of light, seeming to be urging on a good work, but pus.h.i.+ng it so hard as to destroy the labourers by over exaction.

"The wasting energies--the enfeebled, ruined health--the frequent premature deaths--the failing of ministers in the Presbyterian and Congregational connexions from these causes all over the country, almost as soon as they have begun to work--all which is too manifest not to be seen, which everybody feels that takes any interest in this subject, are princ.i.p.ally, and with few exceptions, owing to the unnecessary exorbitant demands on their intellectual powers, their moral and physical energies. And the worst of it is, we not only have no indemnification for this amazing, immense sacrifice, by a real improvement of the state of religion, but the public mind is vitiated: an unnatural appet.i.te for spurious excitements, all tending to fanaticism, and not a little of it the essence of fanaticism, is created and nourished. The interests of religion in the land are actually thrown backward. It is a fever, a disease which nothing but time, pains, and a change of system can cure. A great body of the most talented, best educated, most zealous, most pious, and purest Christian ministers in the country--not to disparage any others--a body which in all respects will bear an advantageous comparison with any of their cla.s.s in the world, is threatened to be enervated, to become sickly, to have their minds wasted, and their lives sacrificed out of season, and with real loss to the public, by the very means which prostrates them, even though we should leave out of the reckoning the premature end to which they are brought. This spectacle, at this moment before the eyes of the wide community, is enough to fill the mind of an enlightened Christian with dismay. I have myself been thrown ten years out of the stated use of the ministry by this very course, and may, therefore, be ent.i.tled to feel and to speak on the subject. And when I see my brethren fallen and falling around me, like the slain in battle, the plains of our land literally covered with these unfortunate victims, I am constrained to express a most earnest desire, that some adequate remedy may be applied."

It is no matter of surprise, then, that I heard the ministers at the camp meeting complain of the excess of their labours, and the difficulty of obtaining young men to enter the church; [The Rev Mr Reid observes, speaking of the Congregationalists, "When I rose to support his resolution, as requested, all were generously attentive. At the close I alluded emphatically to one fact in the report, which was, That out of 4,500 churches there were 2,000 not only void of educated pastors, but void of pastors, and I insisted that, literally, they ought not to sleep on such a state of things."--_Reid and Matheson's Tour_]

who, indeed, unless actuated by a holy zeal, would submit to such a life of degradation? what man of intellect and education could submit to be schooled by shoemakers and mechanics, to live poor, and at the mercy of tyrants, and drop down dead like the jaded and over laden beast from excess of fatigue and exertion? Let me again quote the same author:

"It is these excessive, mult.i.tudinous, and often long _protracted_ religious occasions, together with the spirit that is in them, which have been for some years breaking up and breaking down the clergy of this land? It has been breaking them _up_. It is commonly observed, that a new era has lately come over the Christian congregations of our country in regard to the permanence of the pastoral relation. Times was, in the memory of those now living, when the settlement of a minister was considered of course a settlement for life. But now, as every body knows, this state of things is entirely broken up; and it is, perhaps, true that, on an average, the clergy of this country do not remain more than five years in the same place." ["I was sorry to find that, in this part of the State, the ministers are so frequently changing the scene of their pastoral labours. The fault may sometimes be in themselves: but from conversations I have heard on the subject, I am inclined to believe that the _people_ are fond of a change."--_Rev Mr Reid_] And it is impossible they should, in the present state of things. They could not stand it. So numerous are their engagements; so full of anxiety is their condition in a fevered state of the public mind acting upon them from all directions; so consuming are their labours in the study and in public, pressed and urged upon them by the demands of the time; and, withal, so fickle has the popular mind become under a system that is forever demanding some new and still more exciting measure--some new society--some new monthly or weekly meeting, which perhaps soon grows into a religious holiday--some special effort running through many days, sometimes lasting for weeks, calling for public labours of ministers, of the most exciting kind throughout each day, from the earliest hour of the morning to a late hour of night; for reasons and facts of this kind, so abundant, and now so obvious to the public, that they need only to be referred to, to be seen and appreciated, it is impossible that ministers should remain long in the same place. Their mental and physical energies become exhausted, and they are compelled to change; first, because it is not in the power of man to satisfy the appet.i.te for novelties which is continually and from all quarters making its insatiate demands upon them; and next; that, if possible, they may purchase a breathing time and a transient relief from the overwhelming pressure of their cares and labours.

"But, alas! there is no relief: they are not only broken up, but they find themselves fast breaking down. Wherever they go, there is the same demand for the same scene to be acted over. There is--there can be--no stability in the pastoral relation, in such a state of the public mind: and, what is still more melancholy and affecting, the pastors themselves cannot endure it--they cannot live. They are not only constantly fluctuating--literally afloat on the wide surface of the community--but their health is undermined--their spirits are sinking--and they are fast treading upon each others' heels to the grave, their only land of rest.

"Never since the days of the apostles, was a country blessed with so enlightened, pious, orthodox, faithful, willing clergy, as the United States of America at this moment; and never did a ministry, so worthy of trust, have so little independence to act according to their conscience and best discretion. They are literally the victims of a spiritual tyranny that has started up and burst upon the world in a new form--at least, with an extent of sway that has never been known. It is an influence which comes up from the lowest conditions of life, which is vested in the most ignorant minds, and, therefore, the more unbending and uncontrollable. It is an influence which has been fostered and blown into a wide-spread flame by a cla.s.s of itinerating ministers, who have suddenly started up and overrun the land, decrying and denouncing all that have not yielded at once to their sway; by direct and open efforts shaking and destroying public confidence in the settled and more permanent ministry, leaving old paths and striking out new ones, demolis.h.i.+ng old systems and subst.i.tuting others, and disturbing and deranging the whole order of society as it had existed before. And it is to this new state of things, so hara.s.sing, so destructive to health and life, that the regular ministry of this country (the best qualified, most pious, most faithful, and in all respects the most worthy Christian ministry that the church has ever enjoyed in any age) are made the victims. They cannot resist it, they are overwhelmed by it."

The fact is, that there is little or no healthy religion in their most numerous and influential churches; it is all excitement. Twenty or thirty years back, the Methodists were considered as extravagantly frantic, but the Congregationalists and Presbyterians in the United States have gone far ahead of them; and the Methodist church in America has become to a degree Episcopal, and softened down into, perhaps, the most pure, most mild, and most simple of all the creeds professed.

I have said that in these two churches the religious feeling was that of excitement: I believe it to be more or less the case in _all_ religion in America; for the Americans are a people who are p.r.o.ne to excitement, not only from their climate, but const.i.tutionally, and it is the _caviare_ of their existence. If it were not so, why is it necessary that revivals should be so continually called forth--a species of stimulus, common, I believe, to almost every sect and creed, promoted and practised in all their colleges, and considered as most important and salutary in their results. Let it not be supposed that I am deprecating that which is to be understood by a revival, in the true sense of the word; not those revivals which were formerly held the benefit of all, and for the salvation of many: I am raising my voice against the modern system, which has been so universally subst.i.tuted for the reality; such as has been so fully exposed by Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, and, by Mr Colton, who says--

"Religious excitements, called revivals of religion, have been a prominent feature in the history of this country from its earliest periods, more particularly within a hundred years and the agency of man has always had more or less to do in their management, or in their origination, or in both. Formerly, in theory, (for man is naturally a philosopher, and will always have his theory for every event, and every fact,) they were regarded as Pentecostal seasons--as showers from heaven; with which this world below had nothing to do but to receive, and be refreshed by them as they came. A whole community, or the great majority of them, absorbed in serious thoughts about eternal things, inquiring the way to heaven, and seeming intent on the attainment of that high and glorious condition, presents a spectacle as solemn as it is interesting to contemplate. Such, doubtless, has been the condition of many communities in the early and later history of American revivals; and it is no less true that the fruits have been the turning of many to G.o.d and his ways.

"The revivals of the present day are of a very different nature." [The American clergymen are supported in their opinion on the present revivals and their consequences by Doctors Reid and Matheson, who, otherwise favourable to them, observe, "These revival preachers have denounced pastors with whom they could not compare, as dumb dogs, hypocrites, and formalists, leading their people to h.e.l.l. The consequences have been most disastrous. Churches have become the sport of derision, distraction, and disorder. Pastors have been made unhappy in their dearest connexions. So extensive has been this evil, that, in one presbytery of nineteen churches, there were only three who had settled pastors; and in one synod, in 1832, of a hundred and three churches, only fifty-two had pastors."] "There are but two ways by which the mind of man can be brought to a proper sense of religion--one is by love, and the other by fear; and it is by the latter only that modern revivals become at all effective. Bishop Hopkins says, very truly--'Have we any example in the preaching of Christ and his apostles, of the use of strong individual denunciation? Is there one sentence in the word of inspiration to justify the attempt to excite the feelings of a public a.s.sembly, until every restraint of order is forgotten, and confusion becomes identified with the word of G.o.d." ["The Primitive Church Compared," etcetera, by the Bishop of Vermont.] Yet such are the revivals of the present day, as practised in America. Mr Colton calls them--"Those startling and astounding shocks which are constantly invented, artfully and habitually applied, under all the power of sympathy, and of a studied and enthusiastic elocution, by a large cla.s.s of preachers among us. To startle and to shock is their great secret-- their power."

The same author then proceeds:

"Religion is a dread and awful theme in itself. That is, as all must concede, there are revealed truths belonging to the category. To invest these truths with terrors that do not belong to them, by bringing them out in distorted shapes and unnatural forms; to surprise a tender and unfortified mind by one of awful import, without exhibiting the corresponding relief which Christianity has provided; to frighten, shock, and paralyse the mind with alternations and scenes of horror, carefully concealing the ground of encouragement and hope, till reason is shaken and hurled from its throne, for the sake of gaining a convert, and in making a convert to make a maniac (as doubtless sometimes occurs under this mode of preaching, for we have the proof of it,) involves a fearful responsibility. I have just heard of an interesting girl thus driven to distraction, in the city of New York, at the tender age of fourteen, by being approached by the preacher after a sermon of this kind, with a secretary by his side with a book and pen in his hand, to take down the names and answers of those who, by invitation, remained to be conversed with. Having taken her name, the preacher asked, 'Are you for G.o.d or the devil?' Being overcome, her head depressed, and in tears, she made no reply. 'Put her down, then, in the devil's book,'

said the preacher to his secretary. From that time the poor girl became insane; and, in her simplicity and innocence, has been accustomed to tell the story of her misfortunes."

And yet these revivals are looked up to and supported as the strong arm of religion. It is not only the ignorant or the foolish, but the enlightened and the educated also, who support and encourage them, either from a consideration of their utility, or from that fear, so universal in the United States, of expressing an opinion contrary to the majority. How otherwise could they be introduced once or twice a year into all the colleges, the professors of which are surely most of them men of education and strong mind? Yet such is the fact. It is announced that some minister, peculiarly gifted to work in revivals, is to come on a certain day. Books are thrown on one side, study is abandoned, and ten days perhaps are spent in religious exercises of the most violent and exciting character. It is a scene of strange confusion, some praying, some pretending to pray, some scoffing. Day after day it is carried on, until the excitement is at its height, as the exhortations and the denunciations of the preacher are poured into their ears. A young American who was at one of the colleges, and gave me a full detail of what had occurred, told me that on one occasion a poor lad, frightened out of his senses, and anxious to pray, as the vengeance and wrath of the Almighty was poured out by the minister, sunk down upon his knees and commenced his prayer with "Almighty and _diabolical_ G.o.d!" No misnomer, if what the preacher had thundered out was the _truth_.

As an example of the interference of the laity, and of the description of people who may be so authorised, the same gentleman told me that at one revival a deacon said to him previous to the meeting, "Now, Mr --, if you don't take advantage of this here revival and lay up a little salvation for your soul, all I can say is, that you ought to have your (something) confoundedly well kicked."

What I have already said on this subject will, I think, establish two points, first, that the voluntary system does not work well for society; and secondly, that the ministers of the churches are treated with such tyranny and contumely, as to warrant the a.s.sertion, that in a country, like the United States, where a man may, in any other profession, become independent in a few years, the number of those who enter into the ministry must decrease at the very time that the population and demand for them will increase.

We have now another question to be examined, and a very important one, which is:--Are those who wors.h.i.+p under the voluntary system supplied at a cheaper rate than those of the established churches in this kingdom?

I say this is an important question, as there is no doubt that one of the princ.i.p.al causes of dissenting has been the taxes upon religion in this country, and the wish, if it were attainable, of wors.h.i.+pping at free cost. In entering into this question, there is no occasion to refer to any particular sect, as the system is much the same with them all, and is nearly as follows:

Some pious and well disposed people of a certain persuasion, we will say, imagine that another church might, if it were built, be well filled with those of their own sect: and that, if it is not built, the consequences will be that many of their own persuasion will, from the habit of attending other churches, depart from those tenets which they are anxious should not only be retained by those who have embraced them, but as much as possible promulgated, so as to gather strength and make converts--for it should be borne in mind that the sectarian spirit is one great cause of the rapid church-building in America. [Churches are also built upon speculation, as they sometimes are in England.] One is of Paul, another of Apollos. They meet, and become the future deacons and elders, in all probability, to whom the minister has to bow; they agree to build a church at their own risque: they are not speculators, but religious people, who have not the least wish to make money, but who are prepared, if necessary, to lose it.

Say then that a handsome church (I am referring to the cities) of brick or stone, is raised in a certain quarter of the city, and that it costs 75,000 dollars. When the interior is complete, and the pews are all built, they divide the whole cost of the church upon the pews, more or less value being put upon them according to their situations. Allowing that there are two hundred pews, the one hundred most eligible being valued at five hundred dollars each; and the other one hundred inferior at two hundred and fifty dollars; these prices would pay the 75,000 dollars, the whole expense of the church building.

The pews are then put up to auction; some of the most eligible will fetch higher prices than the valuation, while some are sold below the valuation. If all are not sold, the residue remains upon the hands of the parties who built the church, and who may for a time be out of pocket. They have, however, to aid them, the extra price paid for the best pews, and the sale of the vaults for burial in the church-yard.

Most of the pews being sold, the church is partly paid for. The next point is to select a minister, and, after due trial, one is chosen. If he be a man of eloquence and talent, and his doctrines acceptable to the many, the church fills, the remainder of the pews are sold, and so far the expenses of building the church are defrayed; but they have still to pay the salary of the minister, the heating and lighting of the church, the organist, and the vocalists: this is done by an a.s.sessment upon the pews, each pew being a.s.sessed according to the sum which it fetched when sold by auction.

I will now give the exact expenses of an American gentleman in Boston, who has his pew in one of the largest churches.

He purchased his pew at auction for seven hundred and fifty dollars, it being one of the best in the church. The salaries of the most popular ministers vary from fifteen hundred to three or four thousand dollars.

The organist receives about five hundred; the vocalists from two to three hundred dollars each. To meet his share of these and the other expenses, the a.s.sessment of this gentleman is sixty-three dollars per annum. Now, the interest of seven hundred and fifty dollars in America is forty-five dollars, and the a.s.sessment being sixty-three--one hundred and eight dollars per annum, or twenty-two pounds ten s.h.i.+llings sterling for his yearly expenses under the voluntary system. This, of course, does not include the offerings of the plate, charity sermons, etcetera, all of which are to be added, and which will swell the sum, according to my friend's statement, to about thirty pounds per annum. ["A great evil of our American churches is, their great respectability or exclusiveness. Here, being of a large size and paid by Government, the church is open to all the citizens, with an equal right and equal chance of accommodation. In ours, the dearness of pew-rent, especially in Episcopal and Presbyterian, turns poverty out of doors. Poor people have a sense of shame, and I know many a one, who, because he cannot go to Heaven decently, will not go at all."--_Sketches of Paris by an American Gentleman_.]

It does not appear by the above calculations that the voluntary system has cheapness to recommend it, when people wors.h.i.+p in a respectable manner, as you might hire a house and farm of fifty acres in that State for the same rent which this gentleman pays for going to church; but it must also be recollected that it is quite optional and that those who do not go to church need not pay at all.

It was not, however, until late years that such was the case. In Ma.s.sachusetts, and in most of the Eastern States, the system was not voluntary, and it is to this cause that may be ascribed the superior morality and reverence for religion still existing, although decaying, in these States. By former enactments in Ma.s.sachusetts, landowners in the country were compelled to contribute to the support of the church.

Pews in cities or towns are mentioned in all deeds and wills as _personal_ property; but in the country, before the late Act, they were considered as _real_ estate.

A pew was allotted each farm, and whether the proprietor occupied it or not, he was obliged to pay for it; but by an Act of the Ma.s.sachusetts State legislature, pa.s.sed within these few years, it was decided that no man should be compelled to pay for religion. The consequence has been, that the farmers now refuse to pay for their pews, the churches are empty, and a portion of the clergy have been reduced to the greatest distress. An itinerant ranter, who will preach in the open air, and send his hat round for cents, suits the farmers much better as it is much cheaper. Certainly this does not argue much for the progressive advancement of religion, even in the moral State of Ma.s.sachusetts.

In other points the cause of morality has, till lately, been upheld in these Eastern States. It was but the other day that a man was discharged from prison, who had been confined for disseminating atheistical doctrines. It was, however, said at the time, that that was the last attempt that would ever be made by the authorities to imprison a man for liberty of conscience; and I believe that such will be the case.

The _Boston Advocate_ says--"Abner Kneeland came out of prison yesterday, where he has been for sixty days, under the barbarous and bigoted law of Ma.s.sachusetts, which imprisons men for freedom of opinions. As was to have been expected, Kneeland's liberation was made a sort of triumph. About three hundred persons a.s.sembled, and were addressed by him at the jail, and he was conveyed home in a barouche.

During his persecution in prison, liberal sums of money have been sent to him. How much has Christianity gained by this foul blot on the escutcheon of Ma.s.sachusetts?"

It is however worthy of remark, that those States that have _enforced_ religion and morality, and have punished infidelity, [Miss Martineau complains of this as contrary to the unalienable rights of man:--"Instead of this we find laws framed against speculative atheists; opprobrium directed against such as embrace natural religion otherwise than through Christianity, and a yet more bitter oppression exercised by those who view Christianity in one way over those who regard it in another."] are now the most virtuous, the most refined, and the most intellectual, and are quoted as such by American authors, like Mr Carey, who by the help of Ma.s.sachusetts alone can bring out his statistics to anything near the mark requisite to support his theories.

It is my opinion that the voluntary system will never work well under any form of government, and still less so under a democracy.

Those who live under a democracy have but one pursuit, but one object to gain, which is wealth. No one can serve G.o.d and Mammon. To suppose that a man who has been in such ardent pursuit of wealth, as is the American for six days in the week, can recall his attention and thoughts to serious points on the seventh, is absurd; you might as well expect him to forget his tobacco on Sunday.

Under a democracy, therefore, you must look for religion among the women, not among the men, and such is found to be the case in the United States. As Sam Slick very truly says, "It's only women who attend meeting: the men folks have their politics and trade to talk over and havn't _time_." Even an established church would not make people as religious under a democratic form of government as it would under any other. [Mrs Trollope observes, "A stranger taking up his residence in any city in America, must think the natives the most religious people upon earth." This is very true; the _outward_ observances are very strict; why so will be better comprehended when the reader has finished my remarks upon the country. The author of Mammon very truly observes, that the only vice which we can practise without being arraigned for it in this world, and at the same time go through the _forms_ of religion, is _covetousness_.]

I have yet to point out how slander and defamation flourish under a democracy. Now, this voluntary system, from the interference of the laity, who judge not only the minister, but the congregation, gives what appears to be a legitimate sanction to this tyrannical surveillance over the conduct and behaviour of others. I really believe that the majority of men who go to church in America do so, not from zeal towards G.o.d, but from fear of their neighbours; and this very tyranny in the more established persuasions, is the cause of thousands turning away to other sects which are not subjected to scrutiny. The Unitarian is in this point the most convenient, and is therefore fast gaining ground. Mr Colton observes, "Nothing can be more clear, than that scripture authority against meddling, tattling, slander, scandal, or in any way interfering with the private concerns, conduct, and character of our neighbours, except as civil or ecclesiastical authority has clothed us with legitimate powers, is specific, abundant, decided, emphatic. It is founded in human nature; it is essential to the peace of society a departure from it would be ruinous to social comfort. If therefore it is proper to introduce any rule on this point into a mutual church covenant, it seems to me that the converse of that which is usually found in that place ought to be subst.i.tuted. Even the apostles, as we have seen, found it necessary to rebuke the disposition prevalent in their time to meddle with the affairs, and to make inquisition into the conduct of others. But it should be recollected, that the condition of Christians and the state of society then were widely different from the same things with us. Christianity was a new religion, and its disciples were generally obnoxious. They were compelled by their circ.u.mstances to a.s.sociate most intimately; they were bound together by those sympathies and ties, which a persecuted and suffering cla.s.s always feel, independent of Christian affection. Hence in part we account for the holy and exemplary candour [?an dour] of their attachments to their religion and to each other. But even in these circ.u.mstances, and under these especial intimacies, or rather, perhaps, on account of them, the apostles found it necessary to admonish them against the abuse of that confidence so generally felt and reciprocated by those who confessed Christ in those unhappy times; an abuse so naturally developed in the form of meddling and private inquisition."

I quote the above pa.s.sage, as, in the United States, the variety of sects, the continual splitting and breaking up of those sects, and their occasional violent altercations, have all proved most injurious to society, and to the cause of religion itself. Indeed religion in the States may be said to have been a source of continual discord and the unhinging of society, instead of that peace and good-will inculcated by our divine Legislator. It is the division of the Protestant church which has occasioned its weakness in this country, and will probably eventually occasion, if not its total subversion, at all events its subversion in the western hemisphere of America.

The subjugation of the ministry to the tyranny of their congregations is another most serious evil; for either they must surrender up their consciences or their bread. In too many instances it is the same here in religion as in politics: before the people will permit any one to serve them in any office, he must first prove his unfitness, by submitting to what no man of honesty or conscientious rect.i.tude would subscribe to. This must of course, in both cases, be taken with exceptions, but it is but too often the fact. And hence has arisen another evil, which is, that there are hundreds of self-const.i.tuted ministers, who wander over the western country, using the word of G.o.d as a cloak, working upon the feelings of the women to obtain money, and rendering religion a by-word among the men, who will, in all probability, some day rise up and lynch some dozen of them, as a hint for the rest to _clear out_.

It would appear as if Locofoco-ism and infidelity had formed an union, and were fighting under the same banner. They have recently celebrated the birth-day of Tom Paine, in Cincinnati, New York, and Boston. In Cincinnati, Frances Wright Darusmont, better known as f.a.n.n.y Wright, was present, and made a violent politico-atheistical speech on the occasion, in which she denounced banking, and almost every other established inst.i.tution of the country. The nature of the celebration in Boston will be understood from the following toast, given on the occasion:

By George Chapman:--"_Christianity_ and the _banks_, tottering on their last legs: May their _downfall_ be speedy," etcetera, etcetera.