As might be expected, the subject of public instruction in America has attracted much of Mr. Lyell's attention. At the outset of his remarks on this subject, he contends for the beneficial effects of public lectures in improving the taste and intellectual condition of the people; a result which he considers as eminently desirable in a State where the public mind is apt to be exclusively absorbed in politics and money-making; and in a country where the free competition of rival sects has a tendency to produce, not indifferentism, as some at home may be disposed to think, but too much excitement in religious matters." And he mentions a noble instance of patriotism exhibited by Mr. John Lowell, an opulent citizen of Massachusets, who, in 1835, probably under the influence of similar views, left half his noble fortune for the foundation of a literary institute in his native city. (Vol. i. p. 109. 115.) Whether the thirst for knowledge is likely ever to abate, in any material degree, the passion for dollars, or the general propensity to watch over the constitution, may perhaps be reasonably doubted. Something however may possibly be effected by it, to correct, if not wholly to pacify, that morbid appetite for high religious emotion, which, in the absence of any one dominant sect, is found to prevail almost throughout the Union. It is, indeed, satisfactory to learn, that the wild license of opinion on religious subjects has not yet had the effect of wearing out the public mind and heart, by its incessant distractions, and of driving men, women, and children, to seek for rest in the epicurean regions of indifference and apathy. But we must contend that the appropriate corrective of these irregular and tumultuous impulses, would be, not a vast system of Literary Theatres, but the influence of a National Church, reposing, in serene consciousness of strength, on the foundation of primitive antiquity. Whether the true episcopal communion in America will ever so strengthen and expand itself, as to command the respectful good offices, if not the positive alliance, of the State, time only can show. It is far from improbable, however, that, unless shaken to pieces by some revolutionary convulsion, she may, some generations hence, have quietly established a claim to the allegiance of the people, which multitudes shall neither be able or willing to resist. And if so, she will offer to many a weary spirit, vexed and tempest-tossed by religious agitation, an asylum, such as the public lecture-room never can afford. Science and poetry and rhetoric, may satisfy the cravings of a famished understanding; but they never yet could speak comfort to a mind hungering and thirsting after righteousness and peace. And even if the diffusion of useful and entertaining knowledge should ever be general enough to quiet the fever of religious

dissension, there may be reason to apprehend lest the opiate should produce a dreamy state of repose, and prepare the patient to turn" the sleepy eye of scorn" upon all forms and varieties of religious faith, without exception or discrimination.

One striking indication of the state of religious feeling among Americans is adverted to by Mr. Lyell. A few years since, an American professor, after a short visit to London, was asked whether he was pleased with his reception. He replied that he had received many invitations to dinner, but no invitations to church! Not a soul had ever offered him a seat in the family pew. This feeling of disappointment, it must be confessed, was more creditable to the traveller, than the occasion of it was to our scheme of hospitality in England. Mr. Lyell had no similar cause of complaint. Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia, he had pressing invitations to private pews in no less than six different episcopal churches. He accepted them all, and availed himself of them on as many successive Sundays. He was struck with the handsome style of the buildings, and the attention to comfort with which they were fitted up. He also pronounces the preaching to have been good; not only at the Episcopalian, but also at the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Unitarian Churches. In short, what he saw and heard seems to have put him into great good humour with the voluntary principle; the main advantages of which, in his judgment, are two: first, that it preserves the ministers (and, we hope, their congregations also) from all danger of going to sleep; secondly, that it keeps the ministers out of mischief from entanglement in politics, which is more than, he seems to think, can be said of our English system of endowment and patronage. He is, however, by no means prepared to aver that there may not be a balance of evil in the voluntary system, sufficient to outweigh the gain alluded to. One vast item on the debtor side of the account, is the tendency of voluntaryism to provide entertainment for ears which are perpetually on the itch! It keeps alive the unhealthy and almost rabid craving for excitement. Mr. Lyell mentions an instance of this, which for the time frighted even the sober Episcopalians from their propriety. While he was at Philadelphia, the city was thrown into commotion by the arrival of a popular New England preacher, of what denomination we are not informed. The crowds attracted by this Boanerges were amazing. The ladies were so transported, that at length all the sittings in his church were monopolized by the fair sex; American gallantry, as already remarked, forbidding that a woman should remain standing, while the gentlemen are comfortably seated. The gentlemen, however, did not at all see why their gallantry should

place them under a total interdict. Immediate notice was accordingly given, that there would be extra services for their exclusive convenience. The announcement of these special trains produced an epidemic of curiosity. Passengers from every quarter of the religious world rushed in to occupy the seats. The laudum immensa cupido seized upon the functionaries of all rival sects. Even the Episcopalians, in spite of their habitual sedateness, were unable to resist the spirit of contagious emulation. They did not, indeed, above half like the movement; but nevertheless, they augmented the number of their services. So that, as Mr. Lyell was assured, it would not have been impossible for the same individual between the hours of seven o'clock in the morning and nine in the evening, to go seven times. to church in one day! And now mark the result:

"Every day added new recruits to a host of ascetic devotees. Places of public amusement were nearly deserted. At last, even the innocent indulgence of social intercourse was not deemed blameless. The men, who had generally escaped the contagion, in the midst of their professional avocations, found a gloom cast over their domestic circle. The young ladies, in particular, having abundance of leisure, were filled with a lively sense of their own exceeding wickedness, and of the sins of their parents and guardians.”—vol. i. p. 205, 206.

All this, strange and startling as it may appear to us, is comparatively but a moderate exhibition of that paroxysmal spirit of revivalism, which, from time to time, convulses whole districts, and which some have not scrupled to exalt into almost pentecostal sanctity. We would gladly hope, that, like other diluvial irruptions, it does not subside without leaving some fertilizing deposit upon the soil.

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It may possibly surprise our readers to learn that many of the most respectable quaker families in Philadelphia have recently joined the Episcopal Church and we are sure that it will gratify them to be informed that the Episcopal Church is vigorously enlarging herself throughout the United States; "having quadrupled its numbers in a period during which the population of the union has only doubled." This rapid progress of the Anglican communion, in a republican country, appears so remarkable to Mr. Lyell, that he feels himself bound to offer some explanation of the phenomenon. He ascribes it partly to her possession of large endowments, especially in the state of New York, and to her consequent independence of voluntary contributions; and partly, to the immigration of respectable churchmen from the old country. Among secondary causes, these, for any thing we know to the contrary, may not be without their influence. We

humbly trust, however, that the true sources of the vitality of the Church lie much deeper than mere superficial appearances may seem to indicate. We can scarcely doubt that her interior life will continue to manifest itself with power, so long as her ministers and rulers shall remain, as they now are, faithful to their sacred trust.

It is impossible to notice without admiration, the universal solicitude of our brethren in America for the education of the people. The munificence of the Bostonians in this cause is something quite astonishing. They submit to pay annually, for public instruction in their city alone, the sum of 30,000l. sterling; which is about equal to the parliamentary grant of 1841, for the whole of England! The sum raised by taxation in the same year, for the support of free schools in the state, exceeded 100,000l. sterling. Every district containing fifty families is compelled by law to maintain one school; for the support of which the inhabitants are allowed to tax themselves. The reading of the Bible is permitted in all the schools; but the use of books "calculated to favour the tenets of any particular sect of Christians" is prohibited by law. Parents and guardians are expected to instruct their own children, or to get them instructed, in what they believe to be religious truth; and for this purpose there are Sunday schools. Now, -if the principle of the States' neutrality towards the various denominations be once conceded,it cannot be denied that there is something very noble in all this. It makes one almost ashamed to look at home. "There is no other region in Anglo-Saxondom," says Mr. Lyell, “containing 750,000 souls, where national education is carried so far." This prodigious liberality is ascribed by him mainly to three causes: First, the absence of extreme poverty, the facility of emigration to the west, the check to improvident marriage from the high standard of living, even among the lowest classes; a standard which education is constantly raising. Secondly, the thoughtful men of all parties have perpetually before their eyes the menacing apparition of universal suffrage; and they hold that nothing but an improvement of the moral and intellectual condition of the masses can possibly divest this portent of its terrors. But what would the masses say, if they were to hear Mr. Lyell's meditation hereupon? The fears entertained by the rich of the dangers of ignorance, he tells us, is the only good result which he could discover, to counterbalance the enormous preponderance of evil, arising in the United States, from the present formidable extension of the electoral franchise! These words, we suspect, would have a very treasonable sound in the ears of the Sovereign people of the west. They would, surely, bring up a dark and

withering frown on the countenance of that awful magistrate, whose name is Lynch! They are, however, the only dangerous words which we recollect to have met with in these volumes. But to proceed; a third source of this flood of bounty he opines to be, the political and social equality of all religious sects; an equality which tends to remove the greatest stumbling-block in the way of National Instruction in Great Britain and this last surmise brings us to the edge of a crater, full of somewhat explosive materials of discussion; into which, at this present, we have no mind to enter. But we cannot quit the subject without noticing, which we do with much regret, the fears expressed by Mr. Lyell, that the religious toleration of the different sects in Massachusets is accompanied by little Christian charity. Families, he tells us, are often divided, and the best relations of private life disturbed, by the bitterness of sectarian dogmatism and jealousy. On one point, however, it seems that all sects are agreed, for one purpose all are prepared to enter into strenuous coalition; they are united in their aversion for the ascendency of any one denomination, and they are ready, at any time, to combine their forces in opposition to it.

In ch. ix. Mr. Lyell has recorded the impressions left upon his mind by the spectacle of slavery: a well-worn subject it is true, but one which must always retain its interest, even in the thousandth repetition. Like other travellers, he was struck with the cheerfulness and light-heartedness of the negroes. He found them as talkative as children: nay, he discovered that their vanity could find nutriment even in the circumstances of their degradation. They appeared proud of their master's wealth. The profits derived by him from their services, furnished them with a gratifying estimate of their own merit. At an inn in Virginia, a female slave asked him to guess for how many dollars a year she was let out by her master? A small sum being named in reply, she exultingly and, doubtless, with a superb toss of the head, gave him to understand, that he was very much below the mark; for, the landlord paid fifty dollars, or ten guineas, a year for her hire. A good-humoured butler, at another inn, took care to inform him that his master got 307. a-year for him. The coloured stewardess of a steamer was at great pains to put him in possession of her high desert, and to describe how it was that she got the name of Queen Victoria. But now for the other side of the picture! At Charleston, in South Carolina, a strong guard is kept constantly in arms. Every citizen is obliged to serve in person, or to find a substitute. There are strict laws against importing books relating to emancipation. There is even a prohibition against bringing back those slaves who have ever been taken by their masters into VOL. IV. NO. VII.-OCT. 1845.

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