vails between the two communions in the Grand Duchy of Baden.--Pp. 92, 93.

At Darmstadt I hastened to the house of

Leander Van Ess, with whom I had been sometime in correspondence in England; he had left the town in the morning early, to go to Cologne, and would not return for a week! A greater disappointment I scarcely ever felt. I saw, however, the study of this excellent man; I sat in his chair; I vi

sited his collection of Bibles; I conversed with his secretary. Leander Van Ess was fifty-one the eighteenth of last month. He has left the university of Marburg, where he was professor, and lives under the Protestant Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt

I suppose for the sake of his personal safety. He has had a spitting of blood for four years, which prevents his preaching. He gives himself up to the propagation of the Gospel. He remains a Catholic priest. He has printed fourteen editions of his New Testament; each was of an immense number of copies. He has circulated altogether four hundred and ninety-four thousand eight hundred and sixty, an incredible number. The desire for the Scriptures among the Catholics, priests as well as laity, is greater and greater. Sometimes he circulates seven thousand in a single month. Lately, a priest in one parish sent for two thousand New Testaments; the parish is in the Schwarzwald or Black Forest. The

secretary presented me with his picture, and a copy of his New Testament. Oh, what a blessing is such a man! what cannot the grace of God do in the most corrupt church! how charitable should we be in our judgments of individuals! This admirable man, though he calls himself a Catholic, has the spirit of a Reformer. He dwells on nothing but the great and necessary truths of Christianity. There is a firmness and undauntedness in all he does which reminds one almost of Martin Luther.

Let us pray that many, many such Catholic professors may be raised up in every part of the Continent--and the traditions of men will fall away' of themselves. Pp. 60, 61.

Mr. W. was more fortunate in meeting with the venerable Antistes Hess; but the interesting account is too long for us to insert. The closing passage must not be omitted:

When he took leave of my wife, he presented her with one of his smaller works, and prayed that peace and grace might be with her, and that her sons and her daughter might be her comfort and support. He then added, "We shall never meet again in this world, but we shall meet in another, to be with Jesus:

that is our proper country; there is peace, holiness, and joy."--P. 103.

The following prayer from the Latin Prayer Book of Great St. Bernard induces a hope that more spiritual religion may be found among the monks of that benevolent institution than is usually apprehended:

"Come, Holy Spirit, and send from Heaven a ray of thy light. Come, thou father of the poor, thou giver of gifts, thou light of the world, the blessed comforter, the sweet guest of the soul, and its sweet refreshment; thou, our repose in labour, our coolness in heat, our comfort in affliction! Oh, most blessed Spirit, fulfil the hearts of thy faithful people! Without thy influence there is nothing in man which is not weakness and guilt. Ob, cleanse that which is sordid; bedew that which is dried up; heal that which is wounded; bend that which is stubborn; cherish in thy bosom that which is cold; guide that which is wandering; and grant unto thy servants, putting their trust in thee, the merit of thy righteousness; grant them final salvation, grant them everlasting joy! O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto thee!"-Pp. 90, 91.

We are compelled most reluctantly to close our extracts; the following, though abused as it has recently been by the Antibiblical faction and made the basis of an attack on the Bible Society, must not be omitted.

I am sure we have little idea in England of the state of things abroad. We amazingly overstate the comparative amount of good effected by our societies;- the world is still" dead in trespasses and sins," -vast tracts of barren Protestantism, or untilled and fruitless Popery, stretch all around us.--O, for that heavenly dew which only can soften, penetrate, and sanctify the soil!--the value of our religious advantages in England is more than ever impressed on my mind. Oh, a Sunday at home, what a blessing! The importance also of the Holy Scriptures (and of the Bible Society), and of dwelling on the plain, practical, necessary truths of the

Gospel, strikes me in a most forcible manner.--Pp. 69, 70.

Through the whole of this tour, Mr. W. appears as the minister of Christ ought ever to appear, intent upon his grand object. The first thing,' says a critic, that Mr. Wilson looks at and writes about

Mr. Hodgson's publication communicates an interesting, and, we believe, a faithful view of the state of religion, morals, &c. in America, though the far greater proportion of the work is employed on other topics. There is none of that indiscriminate abuse, and those illiberal insinuations, concerning the customs, manners, &c. of the Americans, with which we frequently meet; but, on the contrary, much which is calculated to raise their general character and conduct in our estimation, and to convince us of what we have long suspected, that a great part of the treatment so frequently complained of by our countrymen, is fairly to be attributed to their own haughty, and assuming, and unconciliating manners, and their own want of that true politeness of which they maintain the Americans are destitute. In this point of view we especially recommend the careful perusal of this work to all who may have occasion to visit the Western Continent, or who are disposed to emigrate, either to the United States or Canada..

We are, however, especially struck with the contrast presented between the state of religion in the new and the old Continents, as exhibited in these volumes of Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Wilson. That much is still defective in America, that many large districts are grievously neglected, and that the theories of those who would pour contempt on establishments, can derive from this quarter little support, plainly appears; but still religious

light and knowledge more generally prevail among the descendants of our forefathers than in any other part of the world, excepting only our highly favoured land; and this exception can scarcely be made with reference to some of the older states. Religion seems more generally the result of study and reflection in America, than among ourselves. Standard and excellent works on divinity seem more extensively circulated and read, and the consequence is that the views and impressions are often deeper and more accurate. The following extracts will be read with interest:

I was highly gratified by my visit to Elliot-this garden in a moral wilderness; and was pleased with the opportunity of seeing a missionary settlement in its infant state, before the wounds of recent separation from kindred and friends had ceased to bleed; and habit had rendered the missionaries familiar with the peculiarities

of their situation.

them still in Indian costume, was most inThe sight of the children also, many of teresting. I could not help imagining, that, before me, might be some Alfred of this

western world, the future founder of in

stitutions, which were to enlighten and

civilize his country; some Choctaw Swartz or Elliot, destined to disseminate the bless

ings of Christianity, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, from the Gulph of Mexico

to the Frozen Sea. I contrasted them in their social, their moral, and their reli

gious condition, with the straggling hunters, with their painted faces, who oc

casionally stared through the windows; or,

with the half-naked savages, whom we had seen in the forests a few nights before, dancing round their midnight fires, with their tomahawks and scalping knives, rending the air with their fierce war-whoop, or making the woods thrill with their savage yells. But they formed a yet stronger contrast with the poor Indians, whom we had seen on the frontier--corrupted, degraded, and debased by their intercourse with English, Irish, or American traders.

It was not without emotion that I parted, in all human probability for ever, from my kind and interesting friends, and prepared

to return to the tumultuous scenes of a busy world; from which, if life be spared, my thoughts will often stray to the sacred solitudes of Yaloo Busha, as to a source of the most grateful and refreshing recollections, I was almost the first person from

a distance, who had visited this remote settlement; and was charged with several letters to the friends of the missionaries. I believe they had pleasure in thinking that I should probably in a few weeks see those, the endearments of whose society they had renounced for ever in this world: it seemed to bring them nearer the scenes to which they had recently bid a last adieu. I felt a strange emotion, in being thus made a link of communication between these self-devoted followers of our blessed Lord, and the world which they had for ever quitted; and when I saw with what affection they cherished the recollection of many, whose faces they expected to see no more in this life, I turned with peculiar pleasure to our Saviour's animating assurance--"There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundred fold now in this time, and in the world to come life everlasting."-Vol. i. pp. 236-238.

Here, as at Concord, I found two large handsome volumes of Scott's Bible. The following morning (Sunday) I attended the Episcopal Church. It was so lined with Christmas, either winding round the pillars, or hung in festoons round the gallery, that it resembled a grove. The subject of the sermon was an exposition or vindication of the Liturgy; and my heart warmed when I heard the minister enumerate, among its claims to the affectionate regard of the congregation, "the opportunity which it afforded them of worshipping in the very words in which saints had, for centuries, breathed their devotions in the land of their fathers, and of still offering their incense in the same censer with their brethren in Britain, that brighter star in the firmament of the Reformation." In the afternoon, I attended the Presbyterian, or Scotch Calvinistie Church, when we had an excellent

sermon.

At the close of the service, the minister announced that it was the wish of many of the congregation, that the following Friday should be set apart for prayer and fasting; and that it was expected it would be observed by the members of the church. I felt that I was among the descendants of the Puritanic exiles (for such were many of them rather than emigrants), and I could not but breathe an earnest wish that the spirit of an Eliott might still linger in the land which preserved these vestiges of more devotional times.-Vol. II. p. 120, 121.

A longer residence in the principal cities of the United States, and a more intimate acquaintance with their inhabitants, have given me a better opportunity than I had previously enjoyed, of forming the estimate you request from me of the present state of

religion and morals on this side of the Atlantic. You must, however, make great allowance for errors in so difficult and delicate an undertaking, and will receive with peculiar caution, on such a subject, any general conclusions deduced from the observations of an individual traveller. You may, however, consider the favourable representations which I made, in a letter from Boston last autumn, with respect to opportunities of public worship, and the prevalence of evangelical preaching, as applicable to all the principal towns and cities from Portland to Savannah.

But churches are not religion; nor are the ministrations of a pastor an unerring criterion of the piety of his hearers. In a country, however, in which contributions to places of public worship are, for the most part, voluntary, a liberal dissemination of sacred edifices is a very favourable symptom; while a large number of faithful ministers, and the frequent occurrence of extensive congregations listening attentively to unwelcome truths from pastors appointed by their own election, and dependant on them for support, afford something more than a vague presumption of the existence of no inconsiderable degree of vital piety in the community.

My favourable impressions were strengthened as I proceeded, by noticing the attention generally paid on the Atlantic coast to the external observance of the Sabbath; by meeting continually with Bibles, and other religious books, in the steam-boats and houses of entertainment; and by witnessing the efforts so frequently apparent for the diffusion of religious truth.

Theological institutions for the education of ministers, well-endowed, and respectable, often arrest the attention of the traveller as he passes along the road; while a very little intercourse with society convinces him that associations of a more private nature, for preparing indigent young men for missionary services, together with Bible Societies, Missionary Societies, and Sunday School and Tract Societies, are liberally scattered.

I felt neither disposed nor called upon to deprive myself of the pleasure I derived from these favourable indications, by reflecting that they were no accurate measure of the degree in which personal religion prevails. I was quite aware, that in many cases, and especially where there is no establishment, churches are sometimes multiplied by the very dissensions of a congregation; that a proportion of the active effort engaged in the promotion of religious objects, is often very little connected with Christian principle; and that respect for external forms may survive the extinction of a devotional spirit. But at the same time, I felt persuaded, that although a