UNITED STATES CALMNESS IN RELIGION. 405 gence, which explored the powers and recesses of nature, to abridge the labours and embellish the productions of art; rendering knowledge tributary to the wants, the comforts, and the enjoyments, not only of their own offspring, but also of the whole human race. M. Talleyrand observes, that he was particularly struck with the calmness, in relation to religion, evidenced in the United States, so contrary to the zeal and enthusiasm displayed in England; and he attributes it to a variety of causes, some of which it may be well to mention. He supposes that the first and most important consideration in a new country is to increase its riches that the proof of such a disposition manifests itself every where in America; and that we find evidence of it in every part of their conduct; and that the customs, with regard to religion itself, are strongly tinctured with this prevailing disposition. In England religion has always exercised a powerful influence over the national mind and character of the people; in that country the greatest philosophers and profoundest sages have cast the sanctity of religion over their most intense and various intellectual pursuits. Since the age in which Luther first peered above the horizon, as the morning star of the Reformation, numerous sects and denominations of Christianity have either sprung up in England, or found their way thither from other countries. And, although in general the great national establishment of the church; together with nearly a full toleration of other persuasions, has maintained a general current of tranquillity and peace within the bosom of the British isles; yet, occasionally, the temporary ascendency and fierce fanaticism of some of the other denominations have wrought sudden and great political changes in that nation. All these various Christian denominations have been transplanted into America; and several of the separate states actually owe their political origin to the exclusive emigrations of some of these sects. It was, therefore; to be expected that these religious emigrants would, after their transmigration, continue to maintain their original state and character, and frequently convulse and agitate the American body politic. But, although for a time religion appeared to give a cast of national character to the original pilgrims, and their immediate descendants, yet those distinguishing features gradually disappeared, and religion in the United States has gradually settled down into the level of a mere personal, portable secret, instead of continuing to be what it yet remains in England - a kindred fire, flaming with electrical diffusion, from heart to heart, and lighting up the glow of general enthusiasm among the people. In the United States all the various religious sects seem to co-exist in a calm, unruffled atmosphere. It is not very uncommon for the father, mother, and children of the same family, each to follow, without opposition, their respective modes of worship; a spectacle that seldom occurs in Europe, where religion, when it operates at all, actuates not only individuals, but masses of men, in their joint views and combined exertions. This Hence, no leader of any religious persuasion in the United States, however ardent may be his own zeal, and however vigorous and incessant his own efforts, can induce his followers to labour to aggrandize that sect, with as much effectual exertion as he could, under the same circumstances, induce a similar body in Europe to co-operate with him. On the days of public worship, in this country, the individuals of the same family set out together; each goes to hear the minister of his own sect, and they afterward return home to employ themselves, in common, in their domestic concerns. diversity of religious opinion does not seem to produce any contradiction or discordance in their sentiments as to other things. Whence, if there happens to arrive here, from Europe, an ambitious sectary, eager to afford a triumph to his own particular tenets, by inflaming the passions of men, so far from finding, as in other countries, multitudes disposed to enlist under his banners, and ready to second his violence, his very existence is scarcely perceived by his nearest neighbours; his individual enthusiasm is neither attractive, nor interesting, nor contagious; he inspires neither love, nor hatred, nor curiosity; but is suffered to die away into nothing, beneath the frozen pole of universal indifference. This was peculiarly exemplified in Dr. Priestley, This heresiarch, and veteran trumpeter of sedition, had openly menaced the hierarchy of England and the British constitution with speedy destruction. His partisans followed him, eagerly and blindly, throughout all the numberless changes of his ever-shifting religious and political creeds; they poured out at his feet their time, their property, their obedience, their acclamation; they enabled him to publish, and circulate widely, his pestilent heresies, and malignant invectives against the church and government of England. He sate, like a demi-god, snuffing up the incense of adulation from the Socinian democrats of Great Britain. But how reversed the picture, when he exchanged an English for an American home! A meagre deputation of obscure clergymen in our city of New-York welcomed him to the United States with an absurd speech; full of jacobin bombast and fustian. He afterward repaired to, Phi-, ladelphia, where he preached a few frigorific sermons to thin and drowsy audiences; he then retired to Northumberland, in Pennsylvania, where he passed the remainder of his life in making small experiments. amidst his alembics, crucibles, and retorts, for the result of which no one expressed the least interest; and he also occasionally ushered from the press religious, and political pamphlets, which no one ever read. His death excited little, if any more sensation among the Pennsylvanian patriots than they are wont to exhibit at the dissolution of a German farmer, or a German farmer's horse. - In the United States every one follows, pretty much -according to his own inclination, his religious opinions, and pursues with undivided eagerness his temporal concerns. This apparent apathy perhaps arises partly. from the universal equality of all religious denominations. In America no form of worship is prescribed, no religious ordinances are established by law; whence, every individual is left at liberty to follow his own will; to neglect or cultivate religion as he sees fit. Almost all the ardour of the moment that is passing is employed in devising the means of acquiring wealth, and promoting the success of the political party, in which the active individuals are enrolled. Hence result a general calmness and composure in the American community, with regard to the personal feelings and universal diffusion of religion; and it sometimes happens that Jehovah himself is shouldered from the altar peculiarly dedicated to his solemn services, by the devotedness of the whole heart to the shrine of mammon, or to the pursuits and calculations of political intrigue. In the United States there is no national church established, no lay-patronage, no system of tithes. The people call and support their minister; few churches having sufficient funds to dispense with the necessity of contribution by the congregation. The law enforces the contract between the pastor and his flock, and requires the people to pay the stipulated salary so long as the clergyman preaches and performs his parochial duty, according to the agreement between him and his parishioners. In Massachusetts, Vermont, New-Hampshire, and Connecticut, the law requires each town to provide, by taxation, for the support of religious worship; but leaves it optional with every individual to choose his own sect. The general government has no power to interfere with or regulate the religion of the Union, and the states, generally, have not legislated farther than to incorporate, with certain restrictions, such religious bodies as have applied for charters. In consequence of this entire indifference on the part of the state governments, full one-third of our whole population are destitute of all religious ordinances, and a much greater proportion in our southern and western districts. It is quite just and proper that no one sect should have any preference, either religious or political, over the others; but the state-governments ought, at least, to interfere so far as New-England has done, and RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 409 enforce by law the maintenance of religious worship in every town, leaving the choice of his denomination to. each individual. The not interfering at all is a culpable extreme one way, as the English system of an exclusive national church, shutting out the other sects from equal political privileges, is a mischievous extreme the other. In the United Netherlands, in Prussia, in Russia, and even in France, all the religious denominations stand on equal political ground; and cannot Britain learn to augment her intellectual and moral power, by repealing her test and corporation acts, and permitting all her people to serve her to the full extent of their capacity, in her civil and military functions? During the time when Russia broke down the military strength of revolutionary France, the commander-in-chief of all her armies belonged to the Greek Church, her minister of finance was a Protestant, and her premier was a Papist. Her affairs were not the worse conducted because she disfranchises none of her sects of their political rights, on account of their religious opinions. The prominent evils of the English Church system are the ministerial and lay patronage, and the tithes. Suppose, for example (as was actually the fact when Lord Bolingbroke served Queen Anne,) the British prime minister is an avowed infidel, what kind of clergy would he be apt to place in the crown livings? Evangelical men, or careless irreligious clerks? The lay patrons, also, whether noble or gentle, put into the livings, in their gift, pastors, in whose call the people have no voice, but are, nevertheless, required to sit under their ministration. Now, if the lay patron be not religious, the probability is that his clergyman shall not be too well acquainted with the stupendous scheme of revelation. And, perhaps, few things are better calculated to foster the growth of infidelity in a country than putting into any church men who dole out only a little thin, diluted Sabbatical morality once in seven days, instead of expounding the great statute book of Christianity, and inculcating the characteristic, distinguishing doctrines of the Bible. |
