Religion and education in America: with notices of the state and prospects of American Unitarianism, popery, and African colonization

Front matter

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RELIGION AND EDUCATION

Introduction

The main object I had in view in visiting the United States of America was different, perhaps, from that of every other European who had previously crossed the Atlantic. It was to endeavour to interest the American Presbyterian Church, of whose character and zeal I had long entertained a favourable opinion, in the diffusion of Christian knowledge, and the blessings of civilization in the southern hemisphere ; but more especially in those parts of that hemisphere in which a series of British colonies has recently been successfully planted, at the ends of the earth — I mean the continent of New Holland, and the adjacent islands.

On embarking for America with this view, I had no intention to write a book of travels, or, indeed, to publish any thing on the subject of my visit, on my return to Europe. But having incidentally taken up Captain Marryat's " Diary in America," in the course of my voyage out, I was so greatly astounded at certain of his statements, in regard to the influence and effects of the

Voluntary System in the United States, that I determined to make particular inquiry on the subject during my own stay in the country, to ascertain the correctness of these statements on the one hand, or to be enabled to disprove them on the other. In the course of my subsequent inquiries, conducted with this view, I very soon ascertained that the statements I allude to were altogether unfounded, and could only have been made, either in entire ignorance of the subject, on which the frivolous, but entertaining, novel-writer had presumed to issue his dictatorial opinions, or with a wilful intention to mislead. I am quite willing, however, that Captain M. should take the benefit of the former of these suppositions, and shelter his gross mistatements, in regard to the morals and religion of the American people, under the plea of ignorance and presumption.

In the course of my visit to America, and especially in consequence of the inquiries to which I have just alluded, I became apprised of many facts and circumstances, illustrative of the general operation of the peculiar ecclesiastical system that now obtains universally in the United States, which were not generally known in England, and which, it appeared to me, it would be of some importance to the cause of truth for the religious public in Great Britain to know. With this view, I was induced to commit my observations to writing, and to submit them, as I now do, to the public, through the press.

In addition to the main object I had in view in visiting America, I was influenced by various other considerations, one of which I shall mention. In the course of a long residence in the Australian colonies, I had gradually been led to the firm belief and conviction, that the system of a universal establishment of religion, which at present obtains in these colonies, and the principle of which is to grant salaries from the public treasury to the ministers of all religious denominations, in proportion to the number of their respective adherents, was latitudinarian in its character, and calculated rather to retard, than to promote, the advancement of genuine Christianity ; and I was therefore desirous of witnessing for myself the working of a totally different system — I mean the Voluntary System* — in a state of society somewhat similar to that of the British colonies, and in which, moreover, the natural operation of that system was unchecked and unfettered by the contemporaneous existence of any religious establishment. For, as it requires no superior discernment to foresee that, in the natural course of events, the universal establishment system, which now prevails in the Australian colonies, cannot subsist long, and will, in all likelihood, merge very speedily into the Voluntary System, it is amatter of no small importance to all concerned, to ascertain beforehand, by a reference to actual facts in the history of other communities, the state of things in regard to morals and religion which is likely to result from its discontinuance.

In regard to the general working of the politico-ecclesiastical system which now prevails in the Australian colonies, the first of its effects has been to elevate the Romish priesthood, and the whole system of colonial Popery to a degree of pre-eminence and power in these colonies, which they could never otherwise have attained — an effect which will doubtless be regarded by all sincere Protestants, as an unmixed evil. A great effort, it is well known, is now making, in various ways and from various quarters, to form a permanent stronghold and centre of influence for Popery in the southern hemisphere ; and I am confident there is nothing that will tend so strongly to render this effort successful, as the establishment of the politico-ecclesiastical system which now obtains in the Australian colonies.

The establishment of that system has served also, as far at least as present appearances can justify the anticipation, to stereotype the Colonial Episcopal Church, for all time coming, upon the model of the old High Church and Oxford Tract editions. There are many, doubtless, in England who will regard such a result with satisfaction ; but as I address myself particularly to men who hold the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, whether members of that church or not, and have no sympathy with the semi-popish figments of certain of its modern divines, " who say they are apostles, and are not, but are liars," I deem it unnecessary to say any thing further on the subject. It is certain, at all events, that if religion had been left entirely to itself in the Australian colonies, the Episcopal- Church in these colonies would not have taken the anti-protestant form it has already assumed, under the existing system.

Another evil effect of the system has been, in a great measure, to render the Presbyterian Church in the Australian colonies a mere receptacle or asylum for inferior men, who have been rejected by the Christian people, or have proved utterly inefficient at home. For so long as Government salaries are obtainable on easy terms in these colonies, such men — and I am sorry to say they are numerous in Scotland — will be attracted to their territories, as surely as the dead carcase attracts the carrion-crow.

In short, greatly preferable as is the politico- ecclesiastical system now in operation in the Australian colonies to the one which it superseded — under which the Episcopal Church enjoyed something like an exclusive establishment — inasmuch as it has restored peace to the colonies, and put an end to the cry of injustice and oppression ; it cannot be denied that it is altogether latitudinarian in its character, and anti-christian in its tendency ; and I am decidedly of opinion, therefore, that Christianity will never make much progress in these important settlements till it is swept utterly away.*

* There is a moral certainty that the Voluntary System will very

If I were a voluntary myself — receiving no support from the State as a minister of religion, and professing to regard it as unscriptural to receive such support— my opinion on such a subject as this, would, I confess, be liable to suspicion : for men are rarely unbiassed in any case in which their pecuniary interests are concerned ; and in these peaceful times, especially, in which the mere declaration of opinions implies no sacrifice whatever, it cannot be denied that conscience is often called on to give evidence in favour of particular opinions,

soon become the law of the land in New South Wales. The enormous expenditure of a convict colony, which has been unfortunately entailed upon that settlement, already exceeds the whole amount of its ordinary revenue ; and recourse has accordingly been had very recently to the suicidal policy of appropriating, for the common exigencies of the public service, the revenue arising from the sale of Crown land — which, it was universally supposed by the colonists, had been appropriated exclusively for the promotion of the emigration of virtuous and industrious persons from Great Britain and Ireland. To restore this revenue to its proper use, taxation to a large amount must now be resorted to ; and it cannot be doubted, that whenever the colonists come to be taxed, as they certainly will very shortly, to the amount of from £50,000 to jgl 00,000, per annum, for the support of three or four contemporaneous established churches, they will just do what the Americans found it both expedient and necessary to do, in precisely similar circumstances, by refusing the tax, and leaving all these churches to the Christian feelings and affections of their respective adherents. So long as the salaries of the colonial clergy are paid from the Custom-house chest, or the produce of indirect taxation, the colonists are not likely to murmur ; but the case will be prodigiously altered when they come to be paid from a revenue arising from direct taxation. The colonists will then most certainly refuse the rate, and leave the clergy to the operation of the Voluntary System. I do not mean to insinuate, however, that the people of New South Wales will be unwilling to support religion when they come to be taxed directly for upholding its ordinances ; I only mean to assert, that, under the present system, the pressure on the colonial treasury will very soon be so enormous, in proportion to the real service rendered to the community, that that system will certainly be superseded, at no very remote period, by another and better system which, from its efficient working elsewhere, has already been found to supply the Christian people with much more efficient service for far less money.

b2 with which ^he has in reality nothing to do. But as I have voluntarily subscribed the Westminster Confession of Faith, including the chapter on the Civil Magistrate,* as a regularly ordained minister of the Church of Scotland, and have, therefore, no scruples of conscience about the lawfulness of receiving support from the State ; nay, as I have actually received, for the last fifteen years and upwards, the highest salary allowed by the State to any minister in the denomination I belong to, in my adopted country, it will be evident that I have something to lose as an individual in the case in question, and that I ought, therefore, as far as my own pecuniary interests are concerned, to be an advocate of things as they are, rather than of things as they should he. In so far, then, as my evidence in the following pages may go to recommend the -adoption of the Voluntary System, instead of the one actually in operation in the Australian colonies, it will, at least, have the rare merit of disinterestedness, and not be liable to suspicion.

As to the bearing which evidence in favour of the Voluntary System may be supposed to have on the avowed principles of a minister of the Church of Scotland, I observe, that when the learned and pious men

* The Chapter I refer to is as follows : —

" 1. God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be under him over the people, for his own glory, and the public good ; and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defence and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evil doers."

" 3, The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire ; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship or discipline be prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call Synods, to be present at them, and to provide that -whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind c f God."— Chap. 22. Of the Civil Magistrate.

who drew up the Westminster Confession of Faith laid it down as a principle of doctrine, that it was the duty of the civil magistrate to establish and to support religion, they took it for granted that it was the true religion, as described in that Confession, and no other, that he was bound to support. And, accordingly, when the Scottish Parliament passed a resolution, in the year 1705, pending the negotiations for the union with England, to the effect, " That the English Parliament had a right to take what security they thought fit for the maintenance of the system of Prelacy within the realm of England," the Commission of the General Assembly, which was sitting at Edinburgh at the time, remonstrated and protested against the said resolution ; alleging that it would bring guilt upon the Scottish nation, to assert that the civil magistrate had a right to establish Prelacy any where. It cannot be denied, indeed, that this is no longer the doctrine of a large majority of the Scottish clergy ; the prevalent doctrine of that body being simply the Erastian doctrine, that the civil magistrate has the same right to establish Prelacy in one country, as he has to establish Presbytery in another — a doctrine altogether at variance with the Westminster Confession.*

It follows, as a necessary consequence from the principle I have stated, that when the civil magistrate

* Of course, I would not object to a conscientious Episcopalian, who held the divine right of Episcopacy, maintaining, in accordance with his own principles, that it was wrong for the civil magistrate to establish Presbytery. I wish every man to carry out his religious principles to their full extent ; and my object, in these remarks, is simply to anticipate the accusation that I have betrayed mine, in pleading for the establishment of the Voluntary System in Australia. This charge, I know, will be brought against me, with the utmost eagerness, by men who have never made any sacrifice themselves for the principles they profess to hold, and who, I have reason to believe, never would, if they were put to the test. But Christianity is a religion of self-denial, and a man's real principles can never be known, without knowing what he is willing to sacrifice for them.

is either unable or unwilling to establish the true religion, it is perfectly accordant with the duty of a minister of religion, holding the Westminster Confession, to recommend that he should leave religion entirely alone. A Christian man, holding the principle of a religious establishment, may, in perfect consistency with that principle, adopt such a course in any given case, (as, for instance, in that of the Australian colonies,) where an exclusive establishment, in favour of any one denomination, is confessedly impracticable, and where the acknowledged effect of the universal establishment system is the encouragement and propagation of Popery ; but it is impossible for a Christian man to maintain the principle, that the civil magistrate may rightfully establish any form of religion, whether truth or error.

Entertaining these sentiments, I confess I went forth into the field of observation in America altogether untrammeled ; and, consequently, instead of being disappointed, as a churchman, at finding so much in favour of the Voluntary System in that country, I rather rejoiced, in the anticipation of the benefits which, I foresaw, it was likely to confer on my adopted country, when the evil and anti-christian system of a universal establishment, under which it now labours, should have passed away and been forgotten.

I was not a little strengthened in this feeling by the sentiments I found prevailing among the few ministers and licentiates of the Church of Scotland whom I happened to meet with in the United States. One of these, a fellow-student of my own at the university of Glasgow, and a licentiate of the Presbytery of that city, whom I found as the minister of a Presbyterian church in the synod of Albany, in the state of New York, expressed, in the strongest terms, his entire confidence in the sufficiency of the Voluntary System, as a means of providing for the regular dispensation of the ordinances of religion in Christian countries, as well as of sending the gospel to the unconverted heathen. Nay, the only minister of the Church of Scotland in the United States, who stands unconnected with the American Presbyterian Church, and still maintains a species of connexion with the Church of Scotland, — I mean the Rev. Mr. Forrest, of Charleston, South Carolina, — I found a thorough and decided voluntary ; not, indeed, in the ultra sense of maintaining that any connexion between church and state is unwarranted by the word of God, and positively sinful, but in that of maintaining the entire sufficiency of the voluntary system for the maintenance of religion throughout the Christian world, and especially throughout the United States of America. A declaration of such sentiments, on the part of Mr. Forrest, was the more unexpected on my part, as, up to the period of his leaving Scotland, about six or eight years ago, he had regarded as his magnus Apollo the late Principal Baird of Edinburgh, and was strongly attached to the principles and views of the moderate party — the party in the Church of Scotland who regard the Church as the mere creature of the State. But mere theory, however strongly inculcated in one's youth, cannot be expected to stand against the evidence of personal experience and ocular demonstration in the period of vigorous manhood.

The portion of the United States I visited, and partly traversed, during my stay in America, was the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, in New England ; New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, commonly called the Middle States; and the slave-holding States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I also spent a few days in the district of Columbia. I did not visit any of the Western States in the great valley of the Mississippi ; first, because I had no leisure for such a visit ; secondly, because, from my long residence in the Australian colonies, I was already sufficiently acquainted with the processes usually resorted to by civilized men, in first penetrating into the great wilderness of nature — the operation of settling, as it is technically called, being much the same in all new countries ; and thirdly, because, as I conceived, I was fully warranted in regarding the Western States of America as standing in precisely the same relation to the Eastern as the British colonies do to the mother country, they were of lesser importance in regard to the particular subject of inquiry to which my attention was principally directed during my visit.

Although I determined, in the course of the following work, to adhere pretty closely to the subject announced at the head of each chapter, I did not consider myself precluded from introducing occasional narratives, episodes, and digressions of various kinds, to relieve the tedium of a dry detail of facts, or of a mere argumentative deduction from these facts ; especially when such deviations from the due course tended to throw additional light upon the moral and religious aspects of American society.

Chapter I. Origin Of The Inhabitants Of The Atlantic States Of America

Most of the English writers on America have erred egregiously in endeavouring to account for the singular moral phenomena which that country presents, by ascribing them to the influence of its civil government, or political institutions. The fact is, that the character of the American people was formed and developed long before they had a government of their own ; and it was rather that character that impressed itself on the political institutions of their country, than the government that formed and modelled the character of the people.

M. de Tocqueville, in his admirable work entitled " Democracy in America," points to the true mode of solving the problem in question, in the following profound remark : — " The growth of nations presents something analogous to the growth of a human being, from infancy to manhood — they all bear some marks of their origin ; and the circumstances which accompanied their birth, and contributed to their rise, affect the whole term of their being,"* And again : — " Their forefathers imported that equality of conditions into the country from whence the democratic republic has very naturally taken its rise. Nor was this all they did ; for, besides this republican condition of society, the early settlers

* Democracy in America. By M. de Tocqueville. Page 10. Second American edition, New York, 1838.

bequeathed to their descendants those customs, manners, and opinions, which contribute most to the success of a republican form of government. When I reflect upon the consequences of this primary circumstance, methinks I see the destiny of America embodied in the first puritan who landed on those shores, just as the human race was represented by the first man."* It is necessary, therefore, to ascertain the origin of the great mass of the American people, in order to arrive at a philosophical conclusion in regard to their present condition and character as a nation. With this view, I shall briefly enumerate the principal streams of emigration that continued to flow from the European continent to the American colonies, from their first settlement, in the reign of James the First, till the war of independence. Of these, the first in importance, if not in time, is the Puritan emigration to New England.

That portion of the United States of America which is commonly called New England, comprising the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and bounded by the State of New York on the south, and the British possessions on the north, was originally colonized from England, during the tyranny of the Stuarts. The origin and character of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England are well known, and the names of these venerable men are well worthy of everlasting remembrance. The victims of a cruel oppression in their native land, they went forth, in search of civil and religious liberty, to an inhospitable wilderness, — M not knowing whither they went," nor what should befal them ; but He, whom alone they feared, mercifully guided their steps, and at length crowned their enterprise with immortal honour. For, after suffering innumerable hardships, they were enabled, in the far distant land of their exile, not only

* Democracy in America, page 271.

to plant the tree of civil and religious liberty in a congenial soil, but to lay the broad foundations of as fair a structure of national greatness as the world has ever yet beheld *

During the first twenty years of the existence of the New England colonies, not fewer than twenty-one thousand emigrants arrived in their territory, who were virtually expelled from their native land by the cruel intolerance of Charles the First, and his worthy agent, 'Archbishop Laud. The great majority of the English Puritans were then Presbyterians ; but, as the first colonists of New England, and several of the most distinguished of the New England clergy, were Brownists, or Independents, an ecclesiastical system, embodying the main features of both of these denominations, was at length devised and agreed on by a mutual compromise, and has subsisted, with eminent benefit to the country, to the present day. Of that system, I shall give a more particular account in a subsequent chapter.

During the civil wars and the usurpation of Cromwell, emigration to New England appears to have ceased, and many even of the original emigrants actually returned to their native land. The Act of Uniformity, however, and the other oppressive measures of the reign of Charles the Second, caused the stream of emigration again to flow ; but, on the accession of William and Mary, it was diverted in a great measure to the southern colonies ; and from that period to the war of independence, the gradual increase of the popu-

* " The God of heaven," says the Rev. Cotton Mather, in the outset of his great work, Magnolia Christi Americana, " served, as it were, a summons upon the spirits of his people in the English nation, stirring up the spirits of thousands which never saw the faces of each other, with a most unanimous inclination to leave all the pleasant accommodations of their native country, and go over a terrible ocean, into a more terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment of all his ordinances. 11

C lation of New England was but little owing to immigration. In later times, that section of the American Union, whose inhabitants have thus been a comparatively unmixed people, almost exclusively of Puritan origin, has held pretty much the same place in America as that of Scotland in the British Empire — sending forth numerous adventurers every year to the Southern States, as mercantile agents, store-keepers, mechanics, merchants, clerks, teachers of youth, and ministers of religion ; and throwing off annually large swarms of agricultural emigrants, who generally move off simultaneously in great numbers, with all their effects, to the Western States. This tendency to emigration arises, in great measure, from the comparative sterility of the soil, and the unpropitiousness of the climate of New England ; in consequence of which, a large proportion of the population is virtually forced, either into maritime pursuits and manufactures, or emigration. The regular stream of emigration began to set toward the west, and from the more populous States of New England — Connecticut, and Massachusetts — about the year 1790 ; and it gradually increased its volume, till, at one time, it had reached the enormous amount of 300,000 emigrants in a single year. This mighty stream spread itself, in the first instance, over the western portions of the State of New York, where it deposited about half a million of people of New England origin : it then successively overflowed the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and it is still flowing, although at a less rapid rate, towards the new State of Michigan, and the territories of Wisconsin and Iowa. The reader may judge, therefore, for himself, what probability there is that the great valley of the Mississippi is likely to become, at no distant period, a Roman Catholic province, as Captain Marryat sagely and lugubriously predicts. The whole Roman Catholic emigration to that valley, from all Europe, is but as a drop in the bucket, compared with the thoroughly Protestant emigration from New England ; and as the New Englanders universally enjoy the blessings of religion and education in their native land, they are not likely to suffer their offspring to grow up without these advantages in the land of their adoption. In short, the very circumstance that by far the largest and best portion of the great stream of emigration that is flowing from the eastward to the valley of the Mississippi, has its source in New England — the land of the Pilgrim Fathers, the land which is unquestionably the best situated in America for the enjoyment of the blessings of religion and education, and the inculcation and practice of pure morality — is of itself sufficient to prove that the designs of Divine Providence, in regard to that great valley, are such as to cheer the spirits, and to animate the hopes of Protestants, rather than to excite apprehension or alarm.

But the Puritans of New England were only a portion of the original European inhabitants of the Atlantic States of America ; and there is reason to believe that, as they never made much impression on the middle and southern States, they were much less concerned in forming the character of the great mass of the American people, than is generally supposed. Various other streams of population, of a kindred origin, doubtless, in regard to religion, but still of a different national origin, went to form the present comparatively homogeneous community to the southward of New England.

Of these, the first consisted of the Dutch colonists of Manhattan, or New York. ""'That colony was planted by the Hollanders in the year 1613, and was taken by the English in 1664 ; its population amounting at that time to 10,000, while that of all New England amounted only to 20,000. The Dutch were all strict Presbyterians, and their colonial church was modelled in entire conformity to the articles and order of the synod of Dort. The Dutch language was used exclusively in Divine service in the churches of that communion, even in the city of New York, till the year 1764, exactly a hundred years from the conquest of the colony. In that year the Rev. Dr. Laidlie, a Presbyterian clergyman from Scotland, was settled as one of the pastors of the Dutch church, and conducted divine service, thenceforward, in the English language. Dr. Laidlie's labours were eminently blessed, and a revival of religion speedily took place in the Dutch church, under his ministry. At the close of a social meeting for prayer, shortly after his arrival, one of his elders thus addressed him : — " Ah Dominie ! " (the usual designation of the Dutch clergy, when addressed by their people), " we offered many an earnest prayer in Dutch for your coming among us ; and, truly, the Lord has heard us in English, and sent you out to us."* Many of the descendants of the earlier Dutch colonists were soon mingled, by intermarriages, with the neighbouring colonists of New England ; of whom many had, at a comparatively early period, settled within the limits of the province of New York. Many others have been dispersed, either individually or in families, over the middle and southern States, and have fallen into the communion of the American Presbyterian church. But the great majority still retain their separate organization ; and although proverbially slow in their movements, and strongly opposed to innovation of every description, they have uniformly been a highly virtuous and religious people.f At the close of the revolutionary