he stood with the intellectual aristocracy of United States, his opportunities, of which he seems constantly to have availed himself, of gathering information from those most trustworthy authorities, gives far greater weight to his statements on these more general subjects. We are hearing through him educated and accomplished Americans speaking of themselves and of their own country; while at the same time the pursuits of the geologist, leading him almost over the whole vast area of the United States, to its wildest and most untravelled regions, are constantly setting him down in the strangest quarters, bringing him into contact with every gradation of wild as well as of civilized life. He is among abolitionists and slaveholders-people of color, and of every shade and hue of color; he is lodging in a splendid hotel or in a loghut; travelling smoothly in well-appointed railroad carriages, in splendid floating hotels on the great rivers, or jolting over corduroy roads in cars or in stage-coaches, which might seem to be making their own road as they proceed; on Sundays he is listening to Dr. Channing-to Dr. Hawkes or some other of our eloquent Episcopalian divines-or to a black Baptist preacher, himself the only white man in a large congregation. We return to our traveller at Boston-admonishing the reader that we are about to dwell far more on these general topics than on the author's scientific inquiries. To geologists his work will not want our commendation: his name, and if more than his name were wanting, his former volumes, his masterly account of Niagara, his description of the organic remains discovered in various parts of the continent, as well as his other papers on the geology of the New World, will at once command their attention. Our first impression, not only at Boston, but throughout the extensive journeys on which we accompany Sir Charles Lyell, is that we are travelling in a transatlantic England; yet we can never forget that it is transatlantic: the points of resemblance and dissimilitudeof kindred, and of departure from the original stock-of national sympathies and national peculiarities are equally striking; and give at once the interest of that which is native and familiar, and the freshness of a strange and untrodden land. "It is an agreeable novelty to a naturalist to combine the speed of a railway and the luxury of good inns with the sight of a native forest; the advantages of civilization with the beauty of unreclaimed nature-no hedges, few ploughed fields, the wild plants, trees, birds, and animals undis | turbed." This is a slight and casual illustration of our travelling in a transatlantic England. But the affinity and the difference extend much further. England is circumscribed within two comparatively small islands-the United States stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the St. Lawrence to the Bay of Mexico. England, with colonies and dependencies almost as vast as America itself, but distant, scattered over remote regions, in every continentAmerica, swallowing up, as if already not spacious enough, bordering territory, but those territories only divided by mountain ranges or uncultivated provinces; England, therefore, with an excessive population pent within her narrow pale, is finding a vent only at great cost and with great difficulty, and is ever threatened by explosion from its accumulation in crowded quarters-America is spreading freely, and year after year adding almost new States to her Union; making highways of rivers which but a short time before were rarely broken by the canoe of the Indian, but are now daily and nightly foaming up before the prow and the paddles of the huge steamboat; exemplifying Cooper's famous sentence, quoted by Sir Charles Lyell, that Heaven itself would have no charm for the backwoodsman if he heard of any place farther west. England proper has long completely amalgamated her earlier races-the Briton, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman for centuries have been merged undistinguishably into the Englishman; we may say nearly the same as to Scotland; yet England has her Celtic population in Ireland—either from her impolitic and haughty exclusiveness, or the stubborn aversion on the other part, or what may almost seem a natural and inextinguishable oppugnancy, a mutual repulsion still lying on the outside of her higher civilization, a separate, unmingling nation. America has not the less dangerous black races, apparently repelled by a more indelible aversion, in a state of actual slavery—of which we wish that we could foresee some safe and speedy termination. England from her remote youth has slowly and gradually built up her history, her laws, her constitution, her cities, her wealth, her arts, her letters, her commerce, her conquests:-America, in some respects born old, is starting at the point where most nations terminate, with all the elements of European civilization, to be employed, quickened it may be, and sharpened by her own busy acuteness and restless activity; with a complete literature, in which it might almost seem impossible to find place for any great genius, should such arise among our American sons, in its highest branches at least of poetry and inventive fiction; with English books in every cottage; with the English Bible the book of her religion. She is receiving with every packet all the products of our mind-and we must not deny making some valuable returns in the writings of her Prescotts, Irvings, Bancrofts, Channings; America, in short, is an England almost without a Past-a Past at the furthest but of a few centuries; if calculated from her Declaration of Independence, a Past not of one century-though assuredly, if it had but given birth to Washington, no inglorious Past. But she has, it must seem, a Future (and this is the conclusion from Sir Charles Lyell's book) which, if there be any calculation to be formed on all the elements of power, wealth, greatness, happiness-if we have not fondly esteemed more highly than we ought, the precious inheritance of our old English institutions, and the peculiar social development which may counteract and correct, at least for a long period, the dangers inseparable from republican politicsa Future which might almost tempt us to the sanguine presumption of supposing, in favor of this Transatlantic England, an exception to the great mysterious law of Providence "Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosâ nocte premit Deus." Boston itself forces upon us, in more than one point, the analogy and the divergence of England and America. America is an England without a capital, without a London. A London she could not have had without a king, without an aristocracy, without a strong central government, without a central legislature, central courts of law, without a court, without an hereditary peerage, we may well add, without a St. Paul's and a Westminster Abbey. It is singular, but it is both significant and intelligible, that Washington is the only city in America which has not grown with rapidity: "In spite of some new public edifices built in a handsome style of Greek architecture, we are struck with the small progress made in three years since we were last here. The vacant spaces are not filling up with private houses, so that the would-be metropolis wears still the air of some projected scheme which has failed."-vol. i. p. 265. The cities of America answer to our great modern commercial towns, Liverpool, Man chester, Birmingham. Many of these English towns have boasted and may still boast of scientific and literary circles, to which have belonged men not equal perhaps to those of whom Boston is now proud, but still-notwithstanding the natural flow of the lifeblood to the heart, the gravitation which draws all the more eminent talent to London-of deserved name and estimation. Yet Boston, New York, perhaps Philadelphia and Baltimore (New Orleans seems to stand by itself, with some faint kindred with Paris) are, though not the capitals of the Federation, the capitals of States. Boston in one respect, as likewise the province of Massachusetts, and indeed the New England States in general, may glory in one distinction, of which we cannot boast, the cheerful, unreluctant submission to general and by no means light taxation for the purposes of public education. We have before us, besides Sir C. Lyell's volumes, a report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and an eloquent speech of the late most highly respected Minister of the United States in England, Mr. Everett, for a short time the president of Harvard College, near Boston. In the main facts they fully agree: "The number of public or free schools in Massachusetts in 1845-6, for a population of 800,000 souls, was about 500, which would allow a teacher for each twenty-five or thirty children, as many as they can well attend to. The sum raised by direct taxation for the wages and board of the tutors and for fuel for the schools is upwards of $600,000, or 120,000 at $754,000,] but this is exclusive of all expendiguineas, [Mr. Everett states the amount for 1848, ture for school-houses, libraries, and apparatus, for which other funds are appropriated, and every year a great number of newer and finer buildings are erected. Upon the whole about one million of dollars is spent in teaching a population of 800,000 souls, independently of the sums of Boston is supposed to be equal to the money expended on private instruction, which in the city levied by taxes for the free schools, or $260,000 (£55,000.) If we were to impose a school-rate in Great Britain, bearing the same proportion to our population of twenty-eight millions, the tax would amount annually to more than seven millions sterling, and would then be far less effective, owing to the higher cost of living and the comparative average standard of income among professional and official men."-vol. i. p. 190. The State of New York, it appears, is not behind Massachusetts; the population in 1845, was 2,604,495. The schools 11,000. The children in the schools for the whole or part of the year 807,200, being almost onethird; and of these only 31,240 in private schools. The expenditure, chiefly raised by rates, $1,191,697, equal to about £250,000. Sir Charles Lyell discusses at some length the causes which have led to this universal acquiescence in the duty and even the necessity of providing, at so large a cost to the whole State, this system of popular education: "During my first visit to the New England States, I was greatly at a loss to comprehend by what means so large a population had been brought to unite great earnestness of religious feeling with so much real toleration. In seeking for the cause, we must go farther back than the common schools, or at least the present improved state of popular education; for we are still met with the question-How could such schools be maintained by the State, or by compulsory assessments, on so liberal a footing, in spite of the fanaticism and sectarian prejudices of the vulgar? When we call to mind the enthusiasm of the early Puritans-how these religionists, who did not hesitate to condemn several citizens to be publicly whipped for denying that the Jewish code was obligatory on Christians as a rule of life, and who were fully persuaded that they alone were the chosen people of God, should bequeath to their immediate posterity such a philosophical spirit as must precede the organization by the whole people of a system of secular education acceptable to all, and accompanied by the social and political equality of religious sects such as no other civilized community has yet achieved -this certainly is a problem well worthy of the study of every reflecting mind. To attribute this national characteristic to the voluntary system would be an anachronism, as that is of comparatively modern date in New England; besides that the dependence of the ministers on their flocks, by transferring ecclesiastical power to the multitude, only gives to their bigotry, if they be ignorant, a more dangerous sway. So also of universal suffrage; by investing the million with political power, it renders the average amount of their enlightenment the measure of the liberty enjoyed by those who entertain religious opinions disapproved of by the majority. Of the natural effects of such power, and the homage paid to it by the higher classes, even when the political institutions are only partially democratic, we have abundant exemplification in Europe, where the educated of influence in this change of the staunch exSir Charles is disposed to attribute great clusionists, the old Puritan settlers, into perfect religious cosmopolitans, " to the reaction against the extreme Calvinism of the Church first established in this part of America, a movement which has had a powerful tendency to subdue and mitigate sectarian bitter ncss. He gives us some curious extracts (vol. i. pp. 53-5) from an old religious poem, the "Day of Doom," written by one Michael Wigglesworth, teacher of the town of Maldon, New England In this strange homily in verse the extreme Calvinistic opinions are followed out to their most appalling conclusions with unflinching fearlessness; and this poem was, not more than seventy years ago, a school-book in New England. We forget which was the teacher, within or without the Church, of the last century, who noted in his diary: "Enjoyed some hours comfortable meditation on the infinite mercy of God in damning little babes!" Of this race was our poet, who, in his picture of the Last Day, has this group: "Then to the bar all they drew near who died in infancy, And never had, or good or bad, effected personally"— Alleging that it was hard for them to suffer for the guilt of Adam : Not we, but he, ate of the tree whose fruit was interdicted, Yet on us all, of his sad fall, the punishment's inflicted." suffer 66 for what they never did.” the laity and clergy, in spite of their comparative To which the Judge replies that none can independence of the popular will, defer outwardly to many theological notions of the vulgar with which they have often no real sympathy."-vol. i. pp. 49, 50. Our author illustrates largely the mutual toleration which prevails, not only as to the great purpose of the common education. Thus, we read concerning the cheerful, smokeless town of Portland, the principal city of Maine: "But what you call old Adam's fall, and only his trespass, You call amiss to call it his; both his and yours it was. He was designed of all mankind to be a public head, A common root whence all should shoot: and stood in all their stead." "There are churches here of every religious de- With more to the like effect-when *Our transatlantic friends need not suspect us of the slightest wish to discompose them by transcribing a few of Sir C. Lyell's extracts from the poet Wigglesworth, who died, and by the way had a funeral sermon highly eulogistic preached over him by the celebrated Cotton Mather, in 1710. We do not need to be reminded that the "Day of Doom" might be paralleled, stanza for stanza, from hymnbooks of more recent composition, and even now current in old England. For example, we have on our table the seventeenth edition of the Hymns of Daniel Herbert, (2 vols. Simkin & Marshall.) The preface is dated 1825, and the poet says, "I live in Sudbury, that dirty place, Where are a few poor sinners saved by grace."—ii. These hymns are at this day, we believe, chanted throughout the communion of our Whitfield Methodists. Imagine a Christian congregation singing "to the praise and glory of God" in 1849 such strains "Were such a composition," proceeds our author, school managers or teachers in New England, now submitted to any committee of they would not only reject it, but the most orthodox amongst them would shrewdly suspect it to be a weak invention of the enemy, designed to caricature, or give undue promi nence to, precisely those tenets of the dominant Calvinism which the moderate party object to, as outraging human reason, and as derogatory to the moral attributes of the Supreme Being." No doubt it is the inevitable tendency of these extreme Calvinistic opinions to produce a violent revulsion. Calvinism is everywhere the legitimate parent of Unitarianism. It has been so in Calvin's own city, in Geneva; it has been so in England, In another of these hymns we read (ib. p. 8)— But why go so far as to the Whitfield Methodists or 1825? Here is a neat little volume just published in London, (Nisbet & Co., 1849,) entitled “ Evangelical Melodies," the author of which professes himself to be a member of the Church of England, animated by a fervent desire to redeem the pianoservice of the Evil One; and in this volume, which forte and the poetry of Moore and Burns from the probably has already attained great circulation and success within the bills of mortality, we find old favorites of younger days metamorphosed in certainly a most astounding fashion. For example "The Pilgrim Boy on his way has gone, In the path of Life you'll find him," &c.-p. 13. Sing, sing-if music desire Themes that with ravishing rapture are glowing, Surely believers can proffer her lyre Themes with such rapture replete to o'erflowing," &c.—p. 18. "Ah! think it not-the notion No warrant gleans from truth and factThat to this creed devotion Brings lawlessness in outward act!"-p. 56. "It is not an act at a moment done, Can attest that a soul has lost or won Campbell too has his share in the pious transmogrification. "Ye spirits of our Fathers Who (instrumentally) From England's church did exorcise The demon Popery !" &c.-p. 108. But Moore is the staple, and we hope, if he has not seen the precious little tome, that this incidental notice of it may both gratify and edify the recluse of Sloperton Cottage: it has been so in America. The process is with any hope of success. It is a curious simple, and, if slow, direct. The human and significant fact, that exactly the same mind directly it subsides from that high- process went on among the English descendwrought agony of belief which trembles be- ants of the Puritans, though in far more unfore and submissively adores the Calvinistic favorable times, in times dangerous to all Deity, can no longer endure the presumption religion, and under auspices less likely to which has thus harshly defined, and, as it maintain any hold on the religious mind. were, materialized the divine counsels; which This change too was chiefly in our great comhas hardened into rigid, clear dogma, all mercial and manufacturing towns, which, as which must be unfathomable mystery. It we have observed, are our nearest types of becomes impatient of all circumscription of the American cities. In almost all these the spiritual nature as of the moral attributes towns-if not the actual offspring, the growth of the Godhead. All other dogmas now ap- of our rapid, almost sudden, manufacturing pear as purely of human invention as those prosperity-the Church of England was at intolerable dogmas relating to predestination, its weakest. A single parish-church, in genelection, the five points, with their hideous eral a miserably poor vicarage, saw itself alconsequences. Calvinism has already snap- most in a few years the centre of a vast city. ped asunder the long chain of traditionary Many of the master-manufacturers were of theology, and contemptuously cast aside its the shrewd, sober, money-making race of the links. No restraint remains; the whole doc-old Dissenters. For them, as they grew in trinal system of older Christianity is broken up. In truth, the one leading thought throughout that school of powerful, eloquent, and, in justice we cannot but add, deeply devotional American writers, Channing, Dewey, Norton, is the abnegation of Calvinism; this is the key to all their doctrinal system, as far as they have any system; without this they cannot be fairly judged, or addressed "When in death I at length recline, This message bear to my kindred dear! Tell them I sought upon grace divine Day and night to live while I sojourned here. If a stone on my grave reposes, I pray you upon its surface write That he the mouth of whose grave it closes Held free-grace principles, main and might."-p. 190. Our own feelings of respect and veneration for the prelate lately, mostly fitly and happily advanced to the first place in our national hierarchy, must not prevent us from adding a single stave after Moore's well-known tribute to his illustrious countryman, the hero of Waterloo : intelligence and mingled more with mankind, the old stern Puritan creed became too narrow. Then arose Priestley and his schoolwe could follow out this whole history with far greater closeness and particularity-but it is well known how great a number of the old Presbyterian congregations utterly threw aside the old Presbyterian creed. Calvinism found refuge chiefly among the Whitfieldian Methodists, where it still broods in all its harrowing darkness; where it still (it is but justice to say) is crushing many hard hearts into religious belief; with amiable inconsistency bringing forth from that iron soil a large harvest of Christian gentleness and love. As to the United States, we confess that we have grave doubts whether the whole secret of this mutual toleration is not in the multiplicity of the sects; in the weakness of each single one against the hostile aggregate. But after all, is this more than outward reconciliation, a compulsory treaty in which all have been compelled to yield up to the common use the neutral ground of education, because no one has such a superiority of force as to occupy it as his exclusive possession? We have been very much struck by a passage from a sermon by a writer of a very high order, of the school of Channing-in some respects, we think, his superior-the Rev. Orville Dewey. Dr. Dewey wants perhaps some of that almost passionate earnestness, that copious flow, that melting tenderness, which carries away the reader of Dr. Channing; but he is a more keen observer of human nature, writes more directly to what we will call the rational conscience, has, with almost equal command of vigorous, at times nobly sustained language, a strong and prac |