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a work must, with God's blessing, accom- | blessed results. According to municipal plish? regulations, the city, which now has above I ought to add, that not only is care taken 320,000 inhabitants, is divided into wards; that both books and tracts shall be printed and to each of these, when practicable, with good type, and on excellent paper, there is appointed what is called a superbut that the books are substantially bound, intendent, generally a minister of the Gosand the tracts covered, for the most part, pel, a young man who devotes himself with handsome paper coverings. In these wholly to the work. The superintendents respects they form a marked contrast with divide their wards into districts, find a disthe publications of some societies of the tributer of either sex for each, hold fresame kind on the Continent of Europe. It quent meetings with their distributers, prois rightly thought to be a false economy vide them with tracts for distribution, rewhich, for the sake of saving a few hun-ceive their reports, draw up a general one dred dollars, would fail to render attractive in appearance, as well as readable and durable, publications which are intended to interest, instruct, and save men, many of whom are wholly indifferent to religion, and might be repelled from reading them were they to appear in a mean and shabby dress.

for the monthly meeting of the City Tract Society, under whose auspices the work proceeds, and read their reports at those meetings. Withal, they hold prayer meetings in their respective wards almost every night in the week, and engage competent persons to hold others which they cannot themselves attend. The distributers laBesides its publications in English, the bour gratuitously. The superintendents Society has sent out a considerable num- receive usually 600 dollars each as his sal→ ber of tracts in French, German, Spanish, ary. A few years ago these sixteen suand other languages, for the various emi-perintendents were supported by the same grants that arrive in the United States.

The other measure referred to is the systematic periodical distribution of tracts in cities, towns, villages, and even rural districts, though this cannot be done directly by the Society, so much as by the numerous auxiliaries which it endeavours heartily to engage in carrying it through. The object is to place a tract, at least once in the month, in every family willing to receive one, and, where practicable, to accompany it with religious conversation, especially where ignorance of the Gospel or family affliction renders it peculiarly called for. In pursuing this design, the city, town, or village is divided into small geographical districts, each containing a certain number of families, and assigning to each a sufficiency of zealous, intelligent, and prudent Christians to make monthly visits to every family, and leave the tract selected for the month. Some will require more than one visit, particularly the sick and the destitute; but houses where the inmates persist in refusing tracts, in spite of every effort to overcome their reluctance, are passed by.

This plan, wherever justice has been done to it in practice, has been found eminently beneficial. Cases of poverty and disease are discovered and made known to associations and individuals likely to attend to them. Many persons, living in the constant neglect of public worship, are induced to attend the preaching of the Gospel. The churches in the neighbourhood are pointed out to them, and they are exhorted to go to such as they may prefer.

Such is the procedure in many places throughout the United States. In the city of New-York it has been in operation for five or six years, and with abundance of

number of liberal Christian merchants and mechanics in that city, who rejoiced to be instrumental in maintaining this good work. I shall conclude by giving the summary of what was accomplished in New-York during the year ending on the 1st of December 1843, as presented at the regular annual public meeting, held in one of the churches of that city.

1,050 average number of visiters (or distributers). 732,155 tracts distributed, containing 3,425,781 pages. 936 Bibles and 558 Testaments received from the NewYork Bible Society, and supplied to the destitute. 4,496 volumes lent from the ward libraries. 2,200 children gathered into Sabbath-schools. 315 children gathered into public schools. 131 persons gathered into Bible-classes. 904 persons induced to attend church. 705 temperance pledges obtained. 1,433 district prayer-meetings held. 43 backsliders reclaimed.

396 persons hopefully converted.

342 converts united with evangelical churches.

Such is the tabular view presented by one year's labour in the field of Tract distribution in one city.

Besides the American Tract Society, which may be regarded as a vast reservoir of common truth-of doctrines about which all evangelical Protestants are agreedthere are other societies that publish religious tracts and books; and among these I may mention, as distinguished for the energy of its management and the extent of its operations, the "Book Concern" of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This institution is situated in New-York, under the control of the General Conference, which, every four years, appoints a committee to direct its operations. Two able agents are intrusted with the management, and are required to make full returns to the Bishops and to the General Conference. It must not be thought that all its numerous publications are stamped with the peculiarities of the

Methodist doctrines; not a few of them are the same in character with those published by the American Tract Societysuch, for instance, as the "Saints' Rest." The sales are not confined to the main depository at New-York, and the branches established at some other great centres of trade; its publications are retailed by all the travelling ministers of that extensive body, and thus find their way into the most remote log-cabins of the West. And who can calculate the good that may result from reading the biographical and didactic volumes thus put into circulation? Who can tell what triumphs over sin, what penitential tears, what hopes made to spring up in despairing hearts, what holy resolutions, owe their existence, under God, to these books? The amount of the sales of this institution and its branches was, last year, fully 125,000 dollars.

The Old School Presbyterians have also a Board of Publication, which has put forth not only a considerable number of doctrinal tracts in which the distinctive views of that body are ably maintained, but many books also of solid worth, which are gaining an extensive circulation among its own members, and the professors of the Calvinistic system generally. The receipts of this Board were, last year, 18,160 dollars, and its expenditures 18,409 dollars.

The regular Baptists, too, have their Tract and Book Society earnestly engaged in the good work of supplying their people with publications addressed both to the converted and the unconverted. The receipts of that Board were last year 9906 dollars, and its expenditures 9869. The Episcopalians, Free-Will Baptists, the Quakers or Friends, the Lutherans, and the Protestant Methodists, have all their own Tract Societies; the last two have their "Publication Committees" and their Book Establishments. Other denominations, also, may possibly have theirs. The amount of evangelical tracts and books put into circulation by all these " societies," "

cussion as to the value and extent of the general literature of the United States, it is not out of place to say something respecting that part of it which falls under the head of Religion.

And first, let me advert to that which, without reference to its origin, includes all the literature of a religious kind now circulating through the country. In this sense, our religious literature is by far the most extensive in the world, with the single exception of that of Great Britain. We have a population of 18,500,000; and, even including the African race among us, and regarding the country as a whole, we have a larger proportion of readers than can be found in most other nations. Indeed, I am not aware of any whole kingdom or nation that has more. Deducting the coloured population, we have 15,500,000 of people who, whatever may have been their origin, are Anglo-American in character, and to a great extent speak and read the English language. Not only so, but of these a very large proportion are religious in their characters and habits, as we shall show in another place; and, among the rest, there is a widely prevalent respect for Christianity, and a disposition to make themselves acquainted with it.

To meet the demand created by so large a body of religious and serious readers, we have a vast number of publications in every department of Christian theology, and these are derived from various sources. Some have been translated from German and French; some from the Latin of more or less ancient times; some from the Greek; while many of our learned men, and particularly of our divines, read some or all these languages, and would think their libraries very deficient in the literature with which they ought to be familiar, did they not contain a good stock of such books imported from distant Europe.

Again, we have either republished or imported a great many of the best English 'boards," and "com-religious works, both of the present times mittees," put together, cannot be exactly and of two or three centuries back. Such ascertained. Their value in money, I mean as seem adapted for popular use, and as for what they are sold, can hardly be less many of a more learned cast as seem likely than 300,000 dollars. They all help to to justify their republication, are reprinted; swell the great stream of Truth, as it rolls while not a few copies of many more are its health-giving waters through the land. ordered from Europe through the bookMay God grant that these efforts may go sellers. on continually increasing from year to year, until every family shall be blessed with a well-stored library of sound religious books.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF THE UNITED STATES.

WHILE it would be very foreign to the object of this work to enter upon any dis

Some American reprints of English religious books, particularly of works of a practical character, have had an immense circulation. The commentaries of Scott, Henry, Doddridge, Adam Clarke, and Gill, have been extensively sold, and some booksellers owe a large part of their fortunes to the success of the American editions. All the sterling English writers on religious subjects, of the seventeenth cen tury, as well as of later times, are familiar to our Christian readers; and the smaller

practical treatises of Flavel, Baxter, Boston, Doddridge, and others, have been very widely disseminated. Bates, Charnock, Flavel, Howe, the Henrys, &c., are well known among us, as are also Jeremy Taylor, Barrow, Bishops Hall and Wilson (of Sodor and Man), and many more whom I need not name. As for more modern times, the names of Thomas Scott and Adam Clarke are household words, and Chalmers is known to hundreds of thousands who will never see his face in this world. There are many others in England and Scotland with whose names we have been familiar from our youth. In English systematic theology no names are more known or esteemed than the late Andrew Fuller and Thomas Watson. And although it cannot be said that every good religious work that appears in Great Britain is republished in the United States, a large proportion of the best certainly are, especially such as are of a catholic nature, and many of them, I am assured, have a wider circulation in the United States than in England itself.

But our literature, it is said, is not known beyond the country itself; and this is to some extent true. But that few, comparatively, even of the distinguished authors of any country, are known beyond its limits, might easily be shown in the case of France, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Italy. With the exception of the corps of literary men, even the well informed among the English are little acquainted with the literature of those countries, and but for what they learn through the medium of the Reviews, would hardly know so much as the names of some of their most distinguished authors. No doubt the literature of every civilized nation greatly influences that of all others; not, however, by its having a general circulation in those countries, but because of the master minds who first familiarize themselves with it, and then transfer all of it that is most valuable into their own, just as Milton appropriated the beauties of Homer, Virgil, and Tasso.

*

something else than the want of real merit on their part; and if, upon the whole, they present only what appears to foreigners nothing beyond a respectable mediocrity,

The United States have unquestionably produced a considerable number of authors in every branch of literature, who, to say The United States have sometimes been the least, are respectable in point of emireproached by foreigners as a country nence. Their being unknown to those without any literature of native growth. who make use of the fact as a reproach to M. de Tocqueville, arguing from general the country, may possibly be owing to principles, and, as he supposes, philosophically, seems to think that, from the nature of things, the country, because a republic, never can have much literature of its own. He forgets that even the purest democrat- * It would not be difficult to make out a tolerably ical government that the world has ever long list of authors who must be pronounced, by seen, that of Athens, produced in its day those who know anything of them, to be such as more distinguished poets, orators, histori- would be a disgrace to no country; and many of them are not unknown in Europe. Among living ans, philosophers, as well as painters and writers on law in its various branches, we have Kent, sculptors, than any other city or country Story, Webster, Wheaton; in medicine, Mott, Warof the same population in the world. He ren, Beck, Ray, Jackson, and many others; in theolfull well knows, however, that the govern-ogy and Biblical science, Stuart, Miller, Woods, the ment of the United States is not an unmixed democracy, and that in everything that bears upon the higher branches of learning, our institutions are as much above the control of a democracy as those of any other country. The grand disadvantage, according to M. de Tocqueville, under which our literature labours is, that authors are not encouraged by pensions from the government. But are these so absolutely indispensable? Have such encouragements accomplished all that has been expected from them? Are they not often shamefully abused, and merely made to gratify the personal predilections of ministers of state? Besides, it is notorious that in England at least, where the government professes, I understand, to patronise literature, the most distinguished authors, in all its various departments, owe nothing to that source. As for the patronage of associations and wealthy individuals, it may exist just as well in the United States as anywhere else, and, in fact, is not unknown there.

Alexanders, Hodge, Wayland, Robinson, Conant, Barnes, Stowe, Beecher, Schmucker, Hawks, the Abbots, &c.; in belles-lettres and history, Irving, Prescott, Anthon, Bancroft, Walsh, Cooper, Paulding; in science, Silliman, Hitchcock, Henry, Davies; and political economy, Carey, Vethake, Biddle, Raymond. to their being known to some extent, at any rate, in These are but a few, selected chiefly with reference Europe. Among the distinguished dead, we have Marshall, Livingston, Madison, Jefferson, Jay; Rush, Dorsey, Wistar, Dewees, Godman; the Edwardses, Davies, Dwight, Smith, Mason, Emmons, Channing, Griffin, Ríce; Wirt, Noah Webster, Ramsay; Franklin, Ewing, and Hamilton. In the fine arts, we have had a West, an Alston, and have now a Greenough, a Powers, a Crawford; while in the useful arts, as they are called, we have not been without men of some renown, as the names of Fulton, Whitney, and oth

ers attest.

Nor are American books unknown in Great Britain, the only country in Europe in which they could be extensively read. In "Bent's London Catalogue" we find the names of 68 American works on theology, 66 in fiction, 56 of juvenile literature, 52 of travels, 41 on education, 26 on biography, 22 on history, 12 on poetry, 11 on metaphysics, 10 on philosophy, 9 on science, and 9 on law-in all, 382, which have been republished in England within the last ten years. Besides these, a good many books published in America are imported every year into Great Britain.

this may readily be accounted for by other | pers. The New-York Observer has 16,000 causes besides any hopeless peculiarity al- subscribers, and several of the rest have a leged to exist in the people or their government.

The political paperst in the United States, though often extremely violent in party politics, are in many instances auxiliary to the cause of religion. While the editors of some, happily not many, are op

circulation of from 5000 to 10,000 each. They comprise a vast amount of religious The country is still comparatively new. intelligence, as well as valuable selections Much has yet to be done in felling the for- from pamphlets and books; and though it est and clearing it for the habitations of may be the case that religious newspapers civilized man. But a small part of our sometimes prevent more substantial readterritory bears evidence of having been ing, yet it must be confessed, I think, that long settled. Our people have passed they are doing great good, and are perused through exciting scenes that left but little by many who would otherwise read little leisure for writing. Few families possess or nothing at all of a religious character: much wealth. The greater number of our Besides these newspapers, there is a large institutions of learning are of recent origin. number of religious monthly and semiNone of them have such ancient founda- monthly magazines, and several quarterly tions as are to be found in many European reviews, in which valuable essays on subuniversities; our colleges have no fellow-jects of importance may be found from ships; our professors have their time much time to time.* occupied in giving instruction; our pastors, Jawyers, and physicians find but little leisure, amid their professional labours, for the cultivation of literature. We have no sinecures no pensions-for learned men. There is too much public life and excite-posed to everything that savours of reli ment to allow the rich to find pleasure in gion, and even allow it to be outraged in Sybaritic enjoyments; and they have other their columns, an overwhelming majority sources of happiness than the extensive often give excellent articles, and publish a possession of paintings and statues, though large amount of religious intelligence. In even for these the taste is gaining ground. this respect there has evidently been a But to return to our proper subject, the remarkable improvement within the last religious literature of the United States: twenty years. Many of the political jourthe number of our authors in this depart-nals have rendered immense service in ment is by no means small. Many valuable works, the productions of native minds, issue year after year from the press, a very large proportion of which are of a practical kind, and unquestionably exert a most salutary influence. They meet with an extensive sale, for the taste for such reading is widely diffused, fostered as it is by the establishment of Sunday-schools and the libraries attached to them.*

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the auspices of the Presbyterians of the Old and New *Two of these quarterlies are published under Schools; the "Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review," at Princeton, New-Jersey, which is the organ of the former, and the "American Biblical Repository," at New-York. The "Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review," and the "Christian Review," conducted by the Baptists, are both valuable periodicals; and all four contain able reviews and essays. The "Christian Register" is published monthly; it is the organ of the Unitarians, and is conducted with much ability.

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To the religious literature of books must be added that of periodical works-news-nished by the Postmaster-general, the number of In the year 1839, according to the statistics furpapers, magazines, reviews-and nowhere "newspapers and other periodical journals in the else, perhaps, is this literature so extensive United States" was 1555, of which 116 were pubor so efficient. More than sixty evangeli-lished daily (the Sabbath excepted), fourteen three cal religious newspapers are published once times a week, thirty-nine twice a week, and 991 once a week. The Methodists publish eight, in- week. The remainder, which were issued twice a month, monthly, or quarterly, were principally cluding one in the German tongue, and all magazines and reviews. Of the newspapers, thirtyunder the direction of their Conferences. eight were in the German language, four in French, The Episcopalians have twelve; the Bap- one in Spanish, and the rest in English. Several of tists twenty; the Presbyterians of all and English. The circulation of these newspapers the New-Orleans papers are published both in French classes, including the Congregationalists, and other periodicals is immense. Of the newspaDutch and German Reformed, Lutherans, pers alone the subscriptions are at least 1,000,000. &c., about twenty more. This estimate in- And though the number is too great by one half or cludes evangelical Protestant papers only. three fourths, and though many are conducted by In all, they cannot have fewer than 250,000 and difficult task of an editor, yet there is no deny. men who are but poorly qualified for the responsible subscribers. The Christian Advocate (Meth- ing that even the poorest of them carry a vast amount odist), published at New-York, has about of information to readers in the most secluded and 26,000; a few years ago it had 30,000, but distant settlements, as well as to the inhabitants of the number diminished in consequence of editors in the mass, it must be acknowledged that the most populous districts. And if we take the the establishment of other Methodist pa- they are very ready to lend their columns to the publication of religious articles, of a suitable character and length, when requested by good men. did Christians feel as they ought on this subject, and do what they might, the "press" would be far Imore useful to the cause of religion that it is.

* I need not repeat here what has been said of the immense circulation of books by the Sunday-school and the Tract and Book societies, including the "Book Concern" of the Methodists.

And

the Temperance cause, as well as in every | society are, with few exceptions, stationed other involving the alleviation of human suffering.

Some of the literary and political Reviews of native origin are very respectable works of the kind; the North American Review, in particular, which has now existed more than a quarter of a century. There are also several valuable monthly Reviews. Besides these, the leading Reviews published in Britain, such as the Edinburgh, the London Quarterly, Westminster, Foreign Quarterly, Dublin, &c., are all republished among us.

CHAPTER XXII.

EFFORTS TO PROMOTE THE RELIGIOUS AND TEMPORAL INTERESTS OF SEAMEN.

We have spoken of the endeavours made to send the Gospel to the destitute settlements of the United States, both in the West and in the East, but we must not forget that the population of that country includes 100,000 men whose home is on the deep, and "who do business in the great waters," a number which must be almost doubled if we include those who navigate the rivers and lakes in steamboats, sailing vessels, and other craft.

The first systematic efforts made on a large scale, in the United States, for the salvation of seamen, commenced in 1812, at Boston. Since then much interest in the subject has been awakened at almost every port along the seaboard; and within the last few years a great deal has been done for boatmen and sailors on the rivers and lakes.

The American Seaman's Friend Society was instituted at New-York in 1827, and is now the chief association engaged in this benevolent enterprise. It serves, in some sense, as a central point to local societies formed in the other leading seaports, as well as those on the Western rivers, though they are not, in general, con

at foreign ports, such as Havre, in France, Canton, in China, Sydney, in New South Wales, Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands, and Cronstadt, in Russia. It had chaplains at one time, also, at Rio Janeiro, Marseilles, and some other places.

Besides promoting the establishment of public worship under chaplains at seaports, the society has strongly and successfully recommended the opening of good boarding-houses and reading-rooms for seamen when on shore, and the promotion of their temporal comfort in every way possible.

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The efforts of the different associations for seamen have been greatly blessed. Last year, in particular, was marked by special mercies. In no fewer than ten or twelve ports there were manifest outpourings of the Holy Spirit on the meetings for religious instruction. A hundred and fifty sailors were reported by one of the chaplains at Philadelphia as having been converted under his ministry, and among these was an old man, ninety-nine years of age, who had been, from time to time,. a drunkard for more than seventy years.

There are supposed to be 600 pious captains in the United States' mercantile navy. There are also several decidedly religious officers in the national marine, who exercise a happy influence on the service. The pious seamen belonging to the United States are now reckoned at about 6000; a most gratifying contrast to the state of things twenty-five years ago, when a pious seaman, of any class, was rarely to be met with.

The income of the society for the last year was $12,992, without including the receipts of the local associations, which must have been considerable. Its expenditures were $13,785.

CHAPTER XXIII.

nected with it nominally.*. By a monthly OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRIN

publication, called the Sailor's Magazine, it communicates to pious seamen much interesting information regarding the progress of truth among that class of men, with details of its own proceedings, and those of other associations of the same kind.

CIPLE IN REFORMING EXISTING EVILS.-TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.

WE have contemplated the Voluntary Principle as the main support of religion and its institutions in the United States. We have now to consider its powers of Chapels have now been opened for sea- correcting, or rather overcoming, some of men, and public worship maintained on the evils that prevail in society. And first, their account in almost all the principal let us see how it has contended with Inseaports from the northeast to the south-temperance, one of the greatest evils that west, chaplains being engaged for the pur-have ever afflicted the human race. pose, and supported chiefly by local socie- It is not easy to depict in a few words ties. Those in the service of the central

There are no fewer than fifty of these local associations for the promotion of the spiritual and temporal welfare of seamen and rivermen in the United States.

the ravages of drunkenness in the United States. The early wars of the Colonial age, the long war of the Revolution, and, finally, that of 1812-13 with England, all contributed to promote this tremendous

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