of every one, the allusion to Mr. Gladstone's gospel rule is not the happiest.*

Mr. Godley does not think the educational sys

tem of America more commendable than its religious institutions; though the actual acquirements of the students at the different seminaries and universities which he visited were respectable, and the masters and professors good scholars. The German university system is preferred to, we presume, that of Oxford; and "German scepticism" and " tionalism" are exercising, it is alleged, "a powerful and deleterious influence upon the higher class of minds in New England." In Germany, it is confessed, a greater amount of instruction is commu

simply preposterous-they may talk, but they will certainly not pay.

have had, illustrative of exquisite Transatlantic delicacy, since Captain Marryat's pianoforte with modest frilled trousers to conceal its legs :

Here comes one of the best anecdotes that we

I wrote down my name in the Pennsylvania Picture Gallery, (being the tenth visiter within the last eight days;) and was delighted with the considerate delicacy of an old woman who acted as Cicerone, and who, after ra-pointing, with half-averted head, to a curtained copy of one of Titian's Venuses in a corner, gave me a wand wherewith to remove the veil, and then blushingly retreated behind the door while I did so.

nicated: but in England "the character and mind of the students are formed"- -on the Oxford pattern. There were better symptoms, or an actual revival, among the military students at West Point Academy

Mr. Godley went as far south as Virginia, and Washington, &c., &c. On board the steamer, in had a passing glance of Baltimore, Richmond, going from Philadelphia to Baltimore, he tells— On board the boat I bought Dickens's work on America, (price 6d. ;) the eagerness of anticipation for which it is impossible to describe; every individual one meets All the officers who profess any religious faith, belong is reading it or talking about it. How very funny it to the Anglo-American communion, and the academy at would appear at home to see people looking out in this West Point is one of its strongholds. Although not one- way for the critique of a foreigner upon England! Most twentieth part of the population are churchmen, four-people seem exceedingly angry with Dickens; they fifths of the chaplains in the two services, including the chaplain at West Point, a distinguished theologian, are so; and as these are generally appointed with reference to the demand for their services in the different ships and regiments, the proportion may serve as a pretty fair criterion of the influence of the church in the army and

navy. Several officers were pointed out to me (and to

some of them I was introduced) who are now communicants of the church, and all of these have conformed lately; for it is only within the last few years that so much progress has been made. Most of them were brought up as sectarians, or rather indifferentists, ("Christians," as they call themselves, but without any particular" creed,) and have been baptized, when adults, by ordained clergymen. All those with whom I conversed expressed, great interest in the "Catholic' movement now in progress among ourselves, and spoke

with enthusiasm of the effect which it had had in promoting zeal and earnestness, as well as orthodoxy, in the American church.

dwell particularly on the enthusiasm of friendly feeling and admiration with which he was received, and the unnecessary ill-nature with which, they say, he has returned it.

Mr. Godley does not think that the Roman Catholic religion is spreading so rapidly in the United States as some other writers have represented it. It is confined to Irish emigrants, and their descendants, with the strays picked up in the Far West by the zeal of the priests, who are all Irish. In allying herself with liberal principles of civil government, he justly concludes the Irish Catholic Church and that of Belgium in a false position; one which involves difficulty and compromise, and is unnatural. It is truly

added

It would be, however, a great mistake to suppose that the masses, who act under the influence of their church in such cases, feel any such difficulty. The fact is, that they are not really imbued at all with democratic or levelling principles; they act in a spirit of blind obedience, and would shout as loudly to-morrow, if their priests were to bid them, for an arbitrary monarch, as they do to-day for the sovereign people. The priests themselves, who lead the movements, are, I maintain, inconsistent, and merge religious feelings in secular interests.

Catholicity is thus, we learn, high fashion in the United States-the religion of the aristocracy; and also that there can be no Christianity without a creed. At home we have been led to believe, that the Repeal cause was all but universally supported in America. The sympathy is, however, confined entirely to the Irish Roman Catholic population, though a few trading politicians have made "Political capital" out of the movement. The AmeriThe Irish Catholics are nowhere to be found as cans do not like the Irish; they are said here to agricultural settlers. They form in America, as Look upon the Irish Roman Catholic population with a singular mixture of contempt and jealousy;+ individu- in England and Scotland, the hewers of wood and ally, they seem to be regarded much as they were by drawers of water of the towns; the Pariah caste William Cobbett, who says, 66 The wild Irish have all among the whites. Their politics are ultrathe characteristics of savages, except sobriety and sin- democratic; anomalous, as this may appear, cerity." The idea that any native-born Ame-in Catholics. But it is accounted for above. ricans should invest money so unprofitably as in a "sympathetic" fund for O'Connell, out of an abstract They have a strong sympathy with the O'Connell love for Ireland, or hatred of England, appears to me agitation, and a common object in which, we re

There was one memorable occasion on which Mr. Wilberforce legislated, though not openly, upon Christian motives. In 1815, the people were almost in arms against the Corn Law-ready to fight with their rulers for their own and their children's bread. Mr. Wilberforce, among other members of Parliament, had his house at that time protected from the populace by a party of soldiers. He defended his vote upon the text, He that taketh not care for his own household is worse than an infidel. The property of Mr. Wilberforce was in land, and he, as a Christian, owed to his own family to lay an iniquitous impost on the food of all landless families. We forget whether it is in his Private Journal or Letters in his published Memoirs that this Christian legislator gravely advances this argument for his obnoxious vote.-E. T. M. + Since the passage in the text was written, a remarkable confirmation of it has been exhibited by the establishment of a party in New York, who call themselves "Native Americans." Their professed object is to counteract the growth of Irish influence; and their success has been already so unexpectedly great, that they bid fair to carry the next elections. So says Mr. Godley; and as this sheet passes through the press, news of the explosion has reached England, in the accounts of the lamentable riots in Philadelphia, the beginning of sorrows in the New World; the developement of the narrow Hibernian principle, "America for the Americans."

gret to find, they have in one instance succeeded. | any other city of the Atlantic states. Several This is the exclusive and uncontrolled possession of part of the general school fund of the State of New York. For this, their Bishop, Dr. Hughes, has long been struggling; and as he has a large disposable force to turn elections, he has carried his point. It is of bad omen for other States; and if one sect obtain this power over the common fund for education, why may not another, if it wax as politically powerful as the Irish Roman Catholics in New York? There is something here, we confess, to qualify the advantages of universal suffrage. Of this evil and ominous precedent, it is remarked

The Americans hate everything that wears the appearWe glean the following notices en passant:ance of exclusion or sectarianism, yet they have now I landed at Potomac Creek, and proceeded by stage virtually consented to give up the principle of syncretism, nine miles to Fredericksburg, over a road celebrated by as it has been called,) which has hitherto been their Dickens in his Notes. The "black driver," whom he boast; for, of course, the precedent established in favour describes, is highly indignant at the part he is made to play of the Roman Catholics must be followed universally, as hero in the scene, and strongly denies the truth of the if other religious communities make similar demands. representation. The road is bad, but not so bad as I Some informality, I believe, in the act has as yet pre-expected, or as others that I have seen. vented the alteration from being carried into effect; and a strong effort will be made against its ratification in the next legislature: but such is the power of Bishop Hughes, that it is generally supposed he must be victorious again.

Mr. Godley appears to have felt himself more at home among the ancient gentry, or cavaliers of For aught that we know, this question may Virginia-" the old dominion," than in any other since have been decided against these encroaching part of the Union. Though he is very moderate in Catholics, and we trust it may. The future in his abstract principles regarding slavery, he could terests of the entire Federal Union may be wrapped not think well of the condition of the blacks in Virup in the settlement of this vital point. The ginia, whether moral or physical. A material Americans are rather notorious for their admira- change seems to have taken place in his mind, tion of titles, and of those who are honoured to bear when he came into actual contact with the slaves them. While Mr. Godley was in Baltimore, there and their masters. He relates :were several Englishmen there, and a live lord

workhouse.

I am not inclined, then, to denounce the principle of the system, [slavery]; nor should I see much reason for wishing it discarded, if the practical hardships attendant upon its operation in the Western hemisphere could be dealt with apart from abolition.

This, at all events, is plain speaking. In one place our author expresses a hope that Mr. Carlyle, in his "Past and Present," is coming round rapidly to a 'Christian and a Catholic philosophy." But on the whole, though not objectionable in principle, slavery was found so bad in practice, owing, however, only to temporary and extraneous causes, that Mr. Godley wishes it could safely be got rid of. One hopeful symptom is, that in the more Northern of the slavery States, the opinion gains ground that free labour is in the end the cheapest. The angry and even ferocious slaveholders, however, meet with more sympathy from Mr. Godley than the rash Abolitionists, whom he denounces in round terms. His conclusions are often more entitled to attention than many of his passing opinions. Of the Abolitionists, he remarks:

-Protestant is a word

middle ages, and which now lingers in the Sclavonic | Now, there are upwards of twelve hundred, with portion of it, was in many very important respects supe- twenty-seven bishops; while the congregations rior to the free and independent position which (in theory have been quadrupled. Yet there are still nearly at least) employer and workmen hold with respect to each other with us. It is a serious question, whether as many Universalists in the States as Episthe independence be not, practically, almost entirely on copalians. There are many counteracting causes, one side; and whether, as respects the masses, the ad- besides, to the spread of Tractarian Catholicity, vantages derived from the nominal command of their and particularly the general latitudinarianism own time and labour be not more than counterbalanced by the loss of that protection and sympathy from their of the American mind, which Mr. Godley consuperiors which a more permanent tie engendered, by siders an unfavourable prognostic "for the prothe wear and tear arising from intense competition in gress of Catholic views in America." In brief, Mr. the labour-market, by the anxiety attendant upon an Godley doubts that "a nation can ever be characuncertain future, and by the too frequent destitution of terized at the same time by strong Republicanism, sickness and old age, or (its only alternative) the public and a faithful reception of the Catholic system of theology.” And he is right. which seems offensive in the nostrils of this gentleman. He never once uses it in reference to the English Church; but if America should become Catholic, he thinks that a due combination of the native elements of character, emulation, love of adventure, national pride, and contempt for inaction, fused and animated by the doctrines of Catholicity, would produce extraordinary results. On the whole, Mr. Godley does not anticipate any great progress towards Catholicity in America; though the movement among the Congregational ministers of Boston augurs well. This Catholic church, with its various names, is rightly enough described by him as the church of the rich. Now, do these Independent ministers of Boston and other places note which way the tide is setting in, and aim at being the clergy of the rich of America? Mr. Godley thinks that the Church at home, the Catholic Church, is far too much circumscribed in her jurisdiction by the state. In America, she has the sole management of her own affairs, without any sort of interference or control. The government would never dream of swamping a number of her bishoprics, as the Whigs did those of the Irish Church; and Mr. Godley can see no public danger in convocations of clergy and ecclesiastical assemblies, and would probably support Mr. Peter Borthwick's threatened motion. He, however, forgets entirely, for the moment, that the Church of England is the creature of the state, and that the Anglo-American Church, like the Unitarians or Baptists, or any other sect, is a body quite independent of the state, and which may, therefore, regulate its own affairs in any way it pleases. Let the Catholic Church of England renounce its endowments and privileges, and by all means be free, like the sister Church of America, as soon as she sees fit. Nothing prevents it : millions would welcome the revolution. Mr. God

I have just seen, in a Virginian paper not a week old, a threat of retaliation, by “ kidnapping the leaders, and carrying them to the South, to be treated according to their deserts;" and the other day a bookseller was fined 1000 dollars in Charleston for selling Dr. Channing's last discourse upon slavery. But I confess that I see no reason for apprehending a dissolution of the Union from such differences; both parties feel so strongly that union is essential to their common interests: and this is the last age and the last country in the world in which tangible interests are likely to be sacrificed for the purpose of carrying out a principle.

Jefferson said, many years ago, "Nothing is more clearly written in the book of destiny than the emancipation of the blacks." It may be so, but at present it appears as far off as when he spoke; nor do I see any prospect of it, except through the agency of a foreign invasion, or a dissolution of the Union.

And yet the growing opinion in favour of free labour had just been mentioned; and is surely one important element in advancing the cause of universal emancipation.

The most gratifying symptom which Mr. Godley found in America, was the increase which the Anglo-American Church has made within these last twenty years. It is now decidedly "the fashionable sect," and consequently includes a large proportion of "the wealthier and more civilized classes in its congregations. There has also been an increased demand for the writings of a certain class of the old English divines, and "of such among the moderns as have caught most of their spirit." Who are meant may readily be guessed. Twenty-five years since, there were but three hundred clergy of the Anglo-American church.

VOL. XI. NO. CXXVII.

ley took leave of America filled with interest and curiosity about the destinies of a country, which, if the Federal Union last, must speedily become the most powerful nation in the world. And he sees no probability of the sudden dissolution of that union. The British provinces are another source of speculation. Are “ they to be British or American, Independent or United, Catholic or sectarian?” Though the newfangled Catholics, the Puseyites, are apparently the most zealous in theory of all modern propagandists, one section of the question can be safely answered. Reflecting how these provinces are already leavened with Presbyterianism,

20

and with Protestantism of all shades, it may be affirmed that they will never become what Mr. Godley means by Catholic; though Catholicity may, in them as in America, be the religion of the rich, till, in the lapse of time, some church more fashionable still shall eclipse the Reformed Anglican Church. There will always be many laymen in Canada to maintain, in direct opposition to the Puseyite Catholics, that "the Bible alone" is a sufficient rule of faith and practice, and who will hold conventicles and practise extempore prayer; and many ministers who will not preach the duty of absolute submission to the powers that be, and even advocate what Mr. Godley calls "the grossly unscriptural principle, that a slave may

use force to obtain his freedom." The doctrine of "passive obedience" can never again become the rule of the Old World, nor yet find acceptance in the New.

There is a considerable amount of thought in these Letters, and much amiability and candour of tone; and if any one imagine that their effect is injured by the ultra-Catholicity which the writer urges, in season and out of season, the only explanation is, that such was his fixed purposesuch he considers his imperative duty.

It may not be out of place to mention, that ever since Mr. Godley was in the United States, a sudden and violent disruption threatens to shake the Anglo-American Church to its foundation.

THE CURATE; OR, HOPES.
TRANSLATED FROM FREDRIKA BREMER'S SHORT STORIES.

I ALWAYS had a peculiar method of travelling with the least possible distress along the stony road of life; although, in a physical as well as in a moral sense, I generally walked barefoot. I hoped hoped on from day to day, from morn to even, at evening for the next morning; in autumn for spring, in spring for autumn; from one year to another and thus I had hoped away almost thirty years of my life's journey, without feeling severely any of my troubles, except the want of good boots. I consoled myself under this calamity when in the open air; but when introduced to respectable company, I was tormented with a desire of setting my heels foremost, because they were best covered with leather. I ought to confess, too, that I felt my poverty still more when, in the huts of misery, I could give no better comfort than friendly words. But I comforted myself, like thousands beside, with a hopeful glance at fortune's rolling wheel, and the philosophical observation, "Time will bring good counsel."

When I was curate under a country clergyman, with scanty pay and mean fare, morally languishing, with no society but the ill-tempered wife of the tippling parson, the booby son, and the daughter who, with high shoulders and feet turned in, went prying about from morning till night, I felt a sudden rapture of tenderness and delight when a letter, from one of my acquaintances, gave me the information that my uncle P., a merchant in Stockholm, personally unknown to me, lay at the point of death, and, under a sudden attack of family affection, had expressed a desire to behold his good-for-nothing nephew.

And now see the thankful nephew, with a little lean bundle under his arm, and a million of rich hopes in his breast, seated upon a most uncomfortable stiff-necked market cart, jogging along, up hill and down hill, to the capital!

At the tavern where I alighted I ventured to order a little, only a very little, breakfast-just a slice of bread and butter and two eggs. My landlord and a fat gentleman walked to and fro in the room, and chatted. "I must say," said the fat gentleman, "this wholesale tradesman P., who died yesterday, was a rascal.”

"Ha, ha," thought I, "but a rascal who had plenty of gold. Harkye, friend, (to the waiter,) can you bring me a slice of roast beef, or whatever meat you have, to make me more substantial fare here. A dish of soup would not be amiss; but quick, if you please!" "Yes," said my landlord, "it is heavy-thirty thousand dollars, and bankstock beside! No one in the town would have dreamed of it-thirty thousand!" "Thirty thousand!" I inwardly ejaculated in my joyous soul. "Harkye, waiter! give me, as soon as you can, thirty thousand-no, no-give me a pint of wine, I mean ;" and all my pulses were beating merrily to the tune of "thirty thousand!"

"Ah!" said the fat gentleman, "and would you believe that among his debts is one of five thousand dollars for champagne? There stand his creditors clenching their fists; for all his furniture is worth but a few pence, and outside the door they find for their comfort-his calash!"

"Aha, that's another thing!" said I to myself. "Here, waiter! take away the beef, the soup, and the wine. I must not taste them: for what have I been doing all the morning but eating!" "You have ordered them," said the waiter. "Friend!" said I, scratching out an apology just behind my ear, "it was an error; I ordered them for a rich gentleman, as I supposed, who is now as poor as myself, I find, and will never be able to pay for them: but you shall have the money for the eggs and bread and butter I have eaten, as well as something to drink for your trouble.” So saying, and slipping a trifle more than the charge into his hand, I left the tavern, with a wounded heart and unappeased stomach, to seek for cheap lodgings, and to study means of raising money.

This violent collision between my hopes and the reality had given me a headache; but when I met, during my street-wandering, a gentleman decked with bands and stars, but with a faded face and wrinkled brow, and saw a young nobleman whom I had known at the University of Upsal, walking as if the weight of age and "tædium vite" would bring him down upon his nose, I lifted up my head, took a deep inspiration of the air, (which, unfortunately for me, was just there strongly