this no less. The same fervour, the same freedom of action, will not be borne in our pulpit, that is welcome in most other countries. Ridicule-" the world's dread laugh "-is scarcely anywhere in the world so much feared as here; and the reason is, that here, the world-every body is judge. The preacher is begirt with a thousand critical eyes: he does not step forth from his lofty stall to his loftier pulpit, to address an ignorant multitude, as he might in Italy or Spain; but he stands up to address those who are to judge him; and not only to judge, but to award him life or death in his profession.

But not to wander from the point I have in view; I declare my conviction, that religion in this country has a peculiar hardness and repulsiveness; that it is not genial and gentle, gracious and tender, in the common administration of it; that it speaks, I do not say to heretics, but to the mass of the people, from the sealed up bosom of a more pitiless exclusion, than it does anywhere else in the world. The Church of Rome is, indeed, severe and exclusive towards heretics; but to its own people it is all graciousness and love, compared with the Puritan and Presbyterian forms of administration. Individual exceptions, of course, are always to be allowed in representations of this general character; but I hold that, in the main, the Protestantism of other countries-the Church of England, for instance, and the Lutheranism of Germany-are more genial; that they speak with a kinder tone to the people than the Protestantism of America. And the consequence is, that multitudes among us, and especially of the young, are more repelled from religion than the people of any other Christian nation. We are a very religious people, it is said, and it is true; so it would appear to the eye of a stranger; and the best foreign writer who has visited us has said, that he never saw a people so religious; and yet I fear, that many among us are very religious who do not heartily love religion. But especially with regard to the young in this country, I am inclined to think that their state is, in this respect, very singular. It is not the want of religious affections and habits only; this, though it is to be regretted in all countries, is not peculiar to the young anywhere. But it is a state of the sentiments here, of which I speak. It is a feeling of strange and almost preternatural superstition about religion; a feeling, in the young, as if religion were shut up from them in seclusion and reserve; a feeling as if they had nothing to do with it. Why is this? Why, but because the clergy, in the first place, constitute a peculiar and reserved class-because they are guarded and sequestered from all the amusements of society, from almost all the scenes of cheerful, social enjoyment; and because, in the next place, professors of religion mostly are shut up in the iron mask of peculiarity, and communicate with the world, in their religious capacity, as it were, only through the bars of an ugly and distorting visor. And these two classes are considered as the representatives of all the religion of the country. How, then, can the young and unreflecting be expected to feel attracted to such a religion? Suppose that all the churches of a country were built in lonely places, like the shrine of Dodona; were set far apart from all human habitation, and were to be approached only by taking a painful pilgrimage, away from all the cheerful haunts of life: this would be only a visible, though, as I admit, a strong representation of the isolated * De Toqueville.

and reserved character which religion has assumed among us. Suppose that all the clergy should put on sackcloth, and wear long, sad weeds, hanging from the head, the hands, the arms, and every part of their person, and should walk forth among the people with slow and melancholy steps, and an abstracted air; this, I say again, would be only a visible representation of the ideas with which a people may clothe the ministers of religion. And how far does the fact differ from the representation, when the sight of a clergyman at places of amusement, where everybody else may go with perfect propriety, would be accounted a kind of sacrilege, a desecration of his office! You may clothe a man with an intellectual costume, as repulsive as any visible costume. You may thus as truly make him a spectre and a bugbear to the young, as if you made him wear weeds and sackcloth. And if this man, the official representative of religion, is thus invested with a peculiarity, and forced into a solemn reserve, unknown in other countries-a reserve, especially, from most of the cheerful resorts and recreations of society; if he is seldom seen where men are gay and happy; and if, when he is seen, his presence lays an irksome restraint upon the company he visits, how is it surprising that our youth should feel that peculiar strangeness and alienation towards religion, of which I am speaking? Suppose that a father were to treat his children in this way; could they love him? I allow that in all these things, a gradual improvement is showing itself. But he cannot have looked deeply into the spirit of society around him, who does not yet see much to lament. And how saddening is the reflection, that at the very time when religion is wanted to mould, to soften, to control and satisfy the bursting affections of the heart-when youth is beginning to feel its nature's great want-when it is swayed by alternate enthusiasm and disappointment, and has not yet stepped deep into vice and worldliness; how lamentable that it should stand before the altar of religion, listening as to a cold stern oracle from a heathen shrine, instead of hearing the words, Abba, Father; instead of feeling that God is its father, and the Saviour its friend, and every Christian minister its brother!

II. But I must proceed to speak briefly of another trait of the social character, to which the state of political equality exposes us; and that is discontent. To this I may add, the danger of imprudent and extravagant expenditures.

But to speak distinctly of the feeling of discontent, in the first place; it may be observed that there is scarcely a limit among us to any man's aspirings: and yet, it is no more possible that all should be first in this country, than in any other. And the very circumstance that these aspirings are universal and importunate, creates among us, as I have said, a peculiar reaction. This demand on the one hand, and this resistance on the other, are likely, it is obvious, to give birth to an unusual and prevalent feeling of discontent.

Doubtless, the feeling prevails sufficiently in other countries: and it may be thought, since one class only, and that a small one, is elevated by birth and rank above the rest, that the feeling may have as full scope among their inferior circles, as it has among ourselves. But the truth is, that the existence of this class in those countries, gives a tone to the whole body of society. The distinction of classes is not an offence with them, as it would be with us. People there more willingly consent

to permanent inferiority. Men expect to live and die, in the condition of life in which they were born, and in the calling to which they have been brought up. The case with us is widely different; and the exposure to discontent is proportionably increased.

To exhibit the various forms which this trait assumes, would require the liberty of dramatic or fictitious writing. In the necessarily sober and didactic discussions of the pulpit, I can scarcely do more than refer you, for its existence, to your own consciousness or observation. I say, your observation; and yet, this is a feeling that so sedulously shrinks from notice, that you can hardly gain from that source any just idea of its prevalence and depth. Could I get an honest confession written out from the hearts of many around us, I have no doubt, that it would reveal an extent and poignancy of suffering from this cause, of which you may be little aware. For this conviction, I need only to be acquainted with the principles of human nature; I only need to know, that all men are made to desire the approbation and attention of one another; and then to know, that here are circumstances unusually fitted to afford expansion at once, and disappointment to this desire, in order to feel myself justified in making a very strong representation. Indeed, the indirect proofs of it, under the circumstances, are, perhaps, the clearest. As an author, by showing an apparent indifference to the success of his writings, commonly betrays, by that very manner, the keenest interest about it; so do I think that the coldness and hauteur of many persons towards their neighbours, leads to the same inference. They never speak of them, perhaps, for the very reason that they are always thinking about them; or they speak with guarded indifference, because they have something within them to guard. But not to rest on indirect disclosures, you must know that many of the dissensions, shall I say quarrels, of families, and many of the manifest jealousies and heart-burnings of society, arise from mortified pride. A man feels that he is not known to society as he ought to be, that he has not the acquaintances to which he is entitled; the fashionable reject him; or if he has gained that first-rate object, as it is usually considered, then there is a literary circle to which he does not belong; some exclusive circle there is, of some kind, to which he is not admitted; and he broods over it; he feels it; he thinks of it with ill-suppressed anger and vexation. He has got property or talent, perhaps, but he cannot get that for which, as one inducement, he sought property or distinction. In some minds, this is an honourable feeling, a just and reasonable desire for the acquaintance of congenial minds; but it is too apt to sink into the baser feeling of chagrin and spite.

It is not to be forgotten, in this connexion, that society does great wrong to many, and great injury to itself, by the neglect of merit. By a superficial estimate of the claims to notice, by bestowing its chief attention upon wealth, beauty, and the eclat of talent, rather than upon talent itself, and by setting up a standard of expense in its entertainments, which makes a considerable property a necessary passport to its advantages, society cuts off a great deal of worth, intelligence, and refinement, with which it can very ill afford to part. The simple entertainments, the intellectual soirees of the cultivated cities of Europe, open a door to merit that is nearly closed among us. It is the true policy of society to collect and concentrate, as much as possible, the

But if, instead of this, it goes

scattered rays of mental illumination. about, virtually putting an extinguisher upon all the lights that are burning in silence and obscurity, instead of bringing them into notice, the loss is its own; and it is an irreparable loss. Mind is the only thing which it cannot afford to lose. Let the fashion of the country look to it, that it does not become degraded before the eyes of all the world, by this illiberal exclusion. Show me a society where wealth, dress, and equipage, are the chief titles to advancement; from which the great body of the educated, reading, and thinking men of the country are excluded, or choose to exclude themselves; and I shall not hesitate to say, that you show me a frivolous and vulgar society. Depend upon it, the conversation will become mean and insipid; and the manners will want the last graces of manner, ease, and simplicity. Intellect, cultivated and spiritualized intellect, is the only true refiner.

But I spoke, also, as connected with the worldly pride and discontent of society, of the temptations to imprudent and extravagant expense. In a state of society like ours, does not every one see, that these temptations are carried to the utmost length; that no condition of things on earth can, in this respect, more endanger the prudence and virtue of men? In regard to their expenses, men are apt to govern themselves by the consideration of what is proper to their condition, rank, or class in society. It is often a decisive argument for the purchase of a certain article of furniture or apparel, or for offering entertainments in a certain style, that others are doing the same thing. But what others? This question unfolds the peculiar temptation that besets us. Families, in this country, scarcely have any fixed and ascertained condition or rank. They are separated from each other, not by visible lines, but by imperceptible shades of distinction. In following others, they do not readily see where to stop. All, at the same time, are aspiring to a higher condition. And in the absence of hereditary distinctions, the style of living is too apt to be considered as the grand, visible index of that condition. The coat of arms is nothing; and it is the coat that a man wears that must mark him out. The hatchment has passed away from our house-fronts; those houses themselves, then, must set forth our respectability. In houses, therefore, in apparel, and in every species of expense, we are liable to go too far; to cross, one after another, the shadowy intervals that separate us from those who are above us in their means, and to be urged on to inconvenient and ruinous expenditures.

I think I have properly connected this topic, extravagance, with what I have said of the discontent of society. An irritated sense of inferiority, a diseased ambition, at once blinds and goads a man into the snares of rash expense and ruinous debt. It is often a word of discontent, pronounced in a domestic consultation, that decides the question; and carries a man to do what he feels to be unnecessary, and knows to be imprudent. He knows that it is rather beyond his means; but he hopes that his business will be prosperous, that his speculations will be fortunate; and he has, at least, the satisfaction of gratifying those who are dearest to him. His daughter shall have such and such decorations, his wife a certain equipage; others have them, and " they must.' those others were anybody in particular, and if anybody had a limti, the case would be better; but those others are everybody in their

If

sphere, that is a little beyond them. Thus a man enters upon the hazardous "experiment of living beyond the means"-of living upon resources that are not yet realized. For a while, the business of the country may be so prosperous as to bear him through all: but the times are likely to change; and the speculations that were to relieve, may become obligations that bind and fetter him: or, if not, yet the.domestic ambition which, restrained by no definite rule, is for ever saying, "give, give," is likely to bring about the same result. The man is in debt; he is obliged to look in the face people, and perhaps poor people, whom he cannot pay. It is a situation infinitely irritating and mortifying. We are a people, I know, to a proverb, reckless of debt; reckless, at least, about plunging into it; but no man can be in it, and find the situation an easy one. No man can, without passing, I had almost said, through worse than purgatorial torments, become callous to the demand for payment. It turns the whole of life into a scene of misery and mortification; makes its whole business and action a series of sacrifices, and shifts, and subterfuges. Home itself the last refuge of virtue and peace; the very home that has lost its independence in its splendour; that is not protected from the intrusive step and contemptuous tone of the unsatisfied creditor-has lost its charm. It is no longer a sanctuary; and is but too likely to be forsaken for other resorts. Many a man, not only in the city but in the country, has gone down in character and self-respect, in virtue and hope, under the accumulated weight of these overwhelming embarrassments.

Now I maintain, that in such a country as this, special guards are to be set up against discontent and extravagance. With regard to the last, let every man be resolute; let him firmly set his limit, and resolve to live far within the means. It is the only way to be happy in his condition, and, in fact, it is the only way to be honest. With regard to the first of these exposures, it is less easy to lay down any definite rule. We all desire the esteem of society; and its notice is the only visible mark of its esteem. Yet, let a man beware how he barters away for it the peace of his mind. Let him live at home, in his own bosom, and not abroad, in the thoughts of others. His mind must thus travel abroad sometimes no doubt; but let it live at home. Let it find content in self-culture, in the few fast and strong friendships, and, above all, in the resources of religion. Never, and nowhere perhaps, has the strong sentiment of religion been so necessary, in any age and in any country, as it is in this age and in this country.

III. But I must hasten to notice, in the last place, another exposure of the national character, and that is, to pusillanimity.

You will think, perhaps, as I offer this further consideration, and in such undisguised language, that I am the accuser of my country, rather than its defender. My answer is, as before, that I have such a calm and strong conviction of its merits and advantages, that I can afford to speak plainly of its dangers and faults. The irritable sensitiveness to blame amongst us, I hold, is not the true self-respect. And more than this; the errors to which we are exposed, must be fairly canvassed, frankly admitted, and fully corrected, that we may be justly entitled to our own respect, or that of other nations.

And now, I desire you to look at the exposure in question, and see if it is not peculiar; and so powerful, too, that a complete and immediate