Sadducees who will not believe in the Devil, and are consequently Atheists. The book was reprinted in London, with a preface by the worthy Baxter.

For fifty years, an epidemic of demoniac possessions vexed Massachusetts. Four years after the young girl, retired into private life, had ceased to be the object of popular curiosity; the whole village of Salem was possessed. Curious scenes took place in the church. Rival women arose and accused each other of sorcery in the temple itself. Many innocents perished, and the affair was only put a stop to by tortures.

At the moment that these fierce ideas began to be softened, when the Christianity of these men, quitting this exalted fanaticism, became a more humane and prudent, even a finessing charity, in 1715, Franklin was nine years old. Activity was preserved, energy had not disappeared, the religious spirit existed in men's hearts, as powerful, and less sharp. Franklin and Washington, apostles of toleration, gentleness, and pacific activity, began to rise and grow in the midst of this reactionary movement, submitted to a new impulse. Franklin represents the second epoch which now expires, and which was signalized by the American independence.

A third era is commencing. Now that colonization, finished on the Atlantic sea-board, goes on triumphantly in the Valley of the Mississippi, and from the great northern

lakes to Sierra Nevada, the new reaction manifests itself: it is an impulse towards enterprise, war, conquest. The old faith, in its rigor, has left few traces: activity has become extraordinarily energetic: charity and concord have transformed themselves, little by little, into patriotism. the love of glory and of war break forth strongly. Still the Past lives in the Present, and the old Puritan germ is not dead. Nine tenths of the citizens of the United States are still Protestants: the Northern States preserve some Puritan sap; those of the South lean towards tolerance, towards Presbyterianism or towards Catholicism, of which the activity concentrates itself in the fertile Valley of the Mississippi. All the North, especially where the Mathers lived, dislikes the pacific element of this modified protestantism which is so general in southern and western cities, which is protected and favored by men of instruction, the capitalists, the whigs, or, as they may be called, the moderates or conservateurs. The new element of warlike enterprise, peculiar to democrats, to country-folk, to workmen, to the active, vehement mass, always eager to change the Present, mingles easily and well with the old Puritan element. Hence, that strange enterprise of the Mormons, who are trying to reconstitute, in the Rocky Mountains, the Biblical, patriarchal unity of power; and hence the sect of Millerites, Millenium people, who in their turn took refuge in the White Mountains.

The Millerite and Mormon follies are marks of the alliance of the popular genius, with the old Puritan leaven.

The Prophet Miller announced the end of the world for October 23, 1844; but as the event did not correspond with the prediction, he put it off until October 23, 1847. The popular masses of the North were shaken, and the fanatic movement extended as far as Philadelphia. Farmers neglected their labor, and public officers were appointed to rescue their

harvests. In signing their receipts, they would say, "I trust that this is the last time." Concord, a little village of New Hampshire, was entirely drawn into the movement. Between Plymouth and Boston several proprietors sold their estates, and gave the money for the construction of a tabernacle wherein were to be gathered all the faithful, clad in white for their ascension. The Bostonians made a good affair of it. In many shop-windows you read, "White robes of every texture, size, and shape, for the ascension on the 23d." Some Methodist preachers and some journals encouraged this strange hallucination. Some New Yorkers passed the nights of the 23d and 24th awaiting the trumpet of the angel. A young girl, having received from her betrothed a precious necklace, desired to consecrate it to preparations for this ascension. Accordingly, she took it to a jeweller, to whom she revealed her motive. "Why," said he, “here are some silver spoons which I am now engraving for your minister ; so that you see he does not believe in his own predictions."

In the most public part of Boston they built a huge shantee, capable of holding two or three thousand persons. The edifice was about to fall, and the magistrates interfered and required them to build it more strongly. The crazy troup, passed the night in it in prayer, robed in white, and singing,

I'm all in white; my soul is clear,

I'm going up; nought keeps me here

The flower-decked room was lighted by seven-branched candlesticks, and hung with Hebrew texts. The night passed, the morning came, nobody "went up," and the society became bankrupt. The hall became a theatre, and Mr. Lyell was amused to hear there, Hecate singing in the play of Macbeth,

Charlatanism, speculation, hyprocrisy mingle in these customs, and make out of them what they can. A preacher establishes himself in a village, kindles the minds, inflames the hearts, and makes the credulous contribute. Rigor is pure mockery in many pretended fanatics. "Madam, "said an innkeeper, gravely, to Mrs. Houston, "this is a religious house; prayers take place regularly, but if you do not wish to assist at them, we will shut our eyes to it."

Variety, liberty, tradition reign then in America in the religious sphere, as well as in the political. The free division of the Protestant sects, themselves sub-divided into constantly sub-dividing sects perfectly realizes the prediction of Bossuet. The Methodists count 1,200,000 communicants and 7,009 ministers; the Baptists a few less; the Presbyterians 350,000 members and 3,000 ministers; Congregationalists 200,000 members and 1,800 ministers; Evangelical Lutherans, mostly Germans, 145,000 communicants and 7,500 ministers; the Episcopalians 86,000 communicants and 13,000 ministers; the Universalists 60,000 communicants and 700 ministers. The Presbyterians, conservators of the severe tradition, despite their numerical inferiority, are the richest and most influential; the Baptists and Methodists are distinguished by an ardent zeal often excessive.

The Catholic movement in this country merits attention. Repulsed at first by the general sentiment of the English Protestant Colonists, the Catholic emigrants who gave to their settlement Maryland, the name of Queen Mary Tudor, and to their capital that of Lord Baltimore, were on the defensive for a century; nevertheless the very principle of Protestantism and Germanic independence protected them in

their isolation. Now they count nine hundred priests and 1,750,000 laymen. Not only do they nearly equal in numbers the most flourishing Protestant sect, but in the large cities they have powerful congregations; considerable rural districts are entirely Catholic, and the valley of the Mississippi, with its rapidly doubling population cannot help being theirs. Already are the Sisters of Charity at work in the wilderness; nineteen twentieths of the valley are sown with chapels; the cross hangs from the branches of the old trees, the mass is celebrated by the Missionaries amid those antique shades. At St. Louis and at New Orleans the best schools are Catholic; and nothing is so visible as the perfect capability of conciliation of Catholic dogma with that personal independence and social energy which the regions of Southern Europe have so irreparably, wrongly refused to favor.

A witness of this usurpation of its dominion, the old Puritan spirit awakes in revivals, which are religious fevers common among the Baptists, and excited by Nomadic preachers. Amid tears, sobs and convulsions four or five hundred men are plunged into the waters of regeneration. Debauchées, prodigals, adulterers, seat themselves before the people upon the "anxious seat," and confess their crimes. This fury of moral regeneration seizes sometimes upon whole provinces. Sometimes calmer parties take part against the instigators of these revivals, and cite them before the Courts of justice as "troubling the peace," or as "slanderers," if some rather vivid personality may have been uttered. "I saw one," says a traveller, "whom a band of musicians were playing out of town with the Rogue's March. A fight ensued, and when the parties came into Court and the Judge enquired why the accused had not quitted the place without noise, he replied, "I have my idea; the devil has his.'

"But you break the peace.'