Of their influence into the scale of extreme democracy and
fanatical excesses. The unity of action which their ecclesiastical system
ensures to them makes their progressive increase much to be deprecated.
It is owing in great measure to the efforts of the ministers of religion
that the unbending principles of truth and right have any hold upon the
masses; they are ever to be found on the side of rational and
constitutional liberty in its extreme form, as opposed to licence and
anarchy; and they give the form of practical action to the better feelings
of the human mind. Amid the great difficulties with which they are
surrounded, owing to the want of any fixed principles of right among the
masses, they are ever seeking to impress upon the public mind that the
undeviating laws of morality and truth cannot be violated with impunity
any more by millions than by individuals, and that to nations, as to
individuals, the day of reckoning must sooner or later arrive.
The voluntary system in religion, as it exists in its unmodified form in
America, has one serious attendant evil. Where a minister depends for his
income, not upon the contributions to a common fund, as is the case in the
Free Church of Scotland, but upon the congregation unto which he
ministers, his conscience is to a dangerous extent under the power of his
hearers. In many instances his uncertain pecuniary relations with them
must lead him to slur over popular sins, and keep the unpalatable
doctrines of the Bible in the background, practically neglecting to convey
to fallen and wicked man his Creator's message, "Repent, and believe the
Gospel." It has been found impossible in the States to find a just medium
between state-support, and the apathy which in the opinion of many it has
a tendency to engender, and an unmodified voluntary system, with the
subservience and "high-pressure" which are incidental to it.
Be this as it may, the clergy of the United States deserve the highest
honour for their high standard of morality, the fervour of their
ministrations, the zeal of their practice, and their abstinence from
politics.
CHAPTER XIX.
General remarks continued - The common schools - Their defect - Difficulties
- Management of the schools - The free academy - Railways - Telegraphs -
Poverty - Literature - Advantages for emigrants - Difficulties of emigrants -
Peace or war - Concluding observations.
At a time when the deficiencies of our own educational system are so
strongly felt, it may be well to give an outline of that pursued in the
States. The following statistics, taken from the last census, show that
our Transatlantic brethren have made great progress in moral and
intellectual interests.
At the period when the enumeration was made there were 80,958 public
schools, with 91,966 teachers, and 2,890,507 scholars; 119 colleges, with
11,903 students; 44 schools of theology; 36 schools of medicine; and 16
schools of law.
