CHAPTER V.

RELIGION.

For the right examination of the divine dealings in the ancient world,

heaven has vouchsafed an unerring guide. The predictions of the

inspired writers, and especially the prophecies of Daniel, furnish a

key to all the remarkable events which authentic history records. The

fact of fatal revolutions, and both the names and leading traits of

their predestined agents, are declared with a boldness which ought to

confound the skeptic whom it fails to convince.

While Rome was already trembling under the power of decay, Judea

witnessed the fulfillment of those great designs in aid of which that

empire was permitted to gain universal mastery, and, in the words of

one of her own Cæsars, recorded by Tacitus, to arrive at such a satiety

of glory as made her willing to give peace to the world. Thus, when

Christianity was to be produced, all was made ready for her advent, and

the appropriate field was cleared. Rome expiring amid her ruins, gave

birth to the Catholic hierarchy as the last effort of her grandeur, the

uses and abuses of which were not less subordinated to the progressive

welfare of mankind. The history of religion is the pedestal of all

history, and is the supreme manifestation of God's supervision of

humanity. This light illumines all the rest, and most clearly shows

that, because Providence takes no retrograde steps, human progress

never recoils, nor lacks agents adapted to its beneficent advance. The

great chain of heavenly purpose can not be broken, however violent the

assaults of earth. Great revolutions may seem to be suddenly unfolded:

but in fact they were conceived and nurtured in the womb of society

long before they emerged to the light of day. A review of religion in

the age of Leo X. will most strongly impress us with this truth; and

while we are obliged to abridge the statement of pertinent facts, we

will hope not to be superficial in the elucidation of their governing

principles. A palimpsest manuscript perhaps has had its original

hymn to Apollo expunged, to admit a mediæval legend, but it was only

that a supervening age might profit by the mutilated treasures so

providentially preserved.

Under the domination of ancient Rome an unnoticed grain of seed

fell in the Rheingau, and resulted in all the vineyards which have

since enriched that prolific land. At the dawn of modern society,

Christianity, that eagle from the throne of God, flying with the sun,

deposited among the rocks of the Rhine an egg which contained the

germ of more spiritual fruitfulness. Many Christians died the death

of martyrs in those western wilds, and their ashes thrown to the

winds, became the seed-corn of a new world. Innumerable heroes arose

who were actuated by a profound faith--not of abstract reason, but

of deep sentiment; the secret and source of an inspiration not to be

cast aside, but which filled the soul, absorbed its faculties, and

formed the chief aim of its existence. From the fifth century, Europe

became a perpetually enlarged field for Christianity, but not its

boundary. It was necessary that the divine power which underlies modern

civilization, and which was given to transform the world, should go

forth from the darkness and impediments of the middle ages, in order

to develop itself, and produce the grander fruits it was destined to

mature. That period has been characterized as the chrysalis of the new

world. The first portion was marked by universal night and deadly sleep

followed by a crystallized formalism of corporations in which soon

appeared those grand beginnings of national regeneration which Christ

came to occasion and complete. If the development of the divine purpose

seemed to stop in the fourth century, when Christianity became the

religion of the Roman empire, it was because that, at the time national

existence became extinct in the East, the new Japhetic race of the

West was to be trained to moral responsibility, and thus to national

independence also, in religion.

In every epoch of the world, religion is the foundation and formative

principle of all; it is this which generates the general faith,

molds its manners, and fosters its institutions. The age we are now

considering opened under auspices the most forbidding, and yet not

unfavorable to the culture of exalted moral excellence. Destruction

had invaded the world-wide empire of that city which arrogated to

itself the epithet _eternal_; and even those great ecclesiastical

establishments, the fruit of much martyr-blood, and of the devout

labors of the primitive fathers, were swept away by the overwhelming

torrent. "But," Neander says, "while the pagans hopelessly mourned at

the grave of earthly glory, and, filled with despair, beheld all the

forms of ancient culture dashed in pieces by the hands of barbarians,

devout Christians held fast to the anchor of believing hope, which

raised them above all that was changeable, and gave them a firm

stand-point in the midst of the destroying waters. They knew that,

though heaven and earth might pass away, the words of the Lord could

not pass away;" and these words were to them, even when surrounded by

death, an inexhaustible source of life. The existing ecclesiastical

forms, as far as they were connected with the constitution of the Roman

empire, necessarily perished in the universal breaking-up of society;

but the essence of the church, as of Christianity, could not be touched

by any destructive power, and at this period of the world's decrepitude

and exhaustion showed itself more evidently to be the unchangeable

vital principle of a new creation. In this time of invading

destruction, a Christian father (probably Leo the Great, before he

was a bishop) thus wrote: "Even the weapons by which the world is

destroyed, subserve the operations of Christian grace. How many, who in

the quiet of peace had delayed their baptism, were impelled to it by

the fear of imminent danger! How many sluggish and lukewarm souls are

roused by sudden and threatening alarm, on whom peaceful exhortation

had produced no effect! Many sons of the church who had been brought

into captivity, make their masters subject to the gospel, and become

teachers of the Christian faith to those to whom the chances of war

have subjected them. Others of the barbarians, who had entered the

ranks of the Roman auxiliaries, have learned in Christian countries

what they could not learn in their native land, and returned to their

homes instructed in Christianity. Thus nothing can prevent divine grace

from fulfilling its designs, whatever they may be; so that conflict

leads to unity, wounds are changed into restoratives, and that which

threatened danger to the church is destined to promote its increase."

The bishops of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Rome,

at an early period took precedence over the others, and received the

title of patriarchs, which the eastern metropolitans still retain. The

name of pope, from the Greek pappas, father, was once common to all the

bishops, and is still given to the Greek priests in Russia. The term

was not monopolized by the bishop of Rome, till the time of Gregory

VII., in 1073, when he claimed, as the successor of St. Peter, the

primacy over all others, and was sustained in this by the provincial

councils. At length, however, difficulties arose, which led pope Felix

II. to excommunicate the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria;

and thus the Eastern or Greek Church was separated from the Western

or Roman, though both assumed to be universal. But it was the western

church only that advanced in the career of improved civilization.

The monastic system, under which monks and nuns secluded themselves,

was introduced by Anthony, in Egypt, and, in connection with papal

celibacy, soon spread throughout Christendom. The use of images in

worship, commenced in the sixth century, in the East; and though

condemned at Constantinople in 754, it afterward prevailed, both there

and in all the West. Meanwhile the gospel had been preached, in France,

about A.D. 290; in Ireland, about 470; and in England, by the monk

Augustin, who died about 608.

In the midst of the great and universal ruins of the old Roman

empire, the church alone remained upright, and became the corner

stone of the new edifice. Civilization passed under her direction

to the other side of the Alps, where it established a new centre

of unity and brotherhood, around which a vast circle soon extended

itself, and embraced all Europe in the same range of improvement. A

common faith united all the members of that society of the middle

ages, and from the day of its conversion, each nation dated its

entrance upon the path of progress. From the fifth to the sixteenth

century, the notions, sentiments, and manners of European society were

essentially theological. Every great question that was started, whether

philosophical, political, or historical, was considered in a religious

point of view. Notwithstanding all the evils, errors, and abuses which

may have crept into the Roman church, it must be acknowledged that

her influence upon popular progress and culture was beneficial; that

she assisted in the development of the general mind rather than its

compression, in its extension, rather than its confinement.

The uses of early Catholicism are well stated by Macaulay, as follows:

"Whatever reproach may, at a later period, have been justly thrown on

the indolence and luxury of religious orders, it was surely good that,

in an age of ignorance and violence, there should be quiet cloisters

and gardens, in which the arts of peace could be safely cultivated,

in which gentle and contemplative natures could find an asylum, in

which one brother could employ himself in transcribing the Æneid of

Virgil, and another in meditating the Analytics of Aristotle; in which

he who had a genius for art might illuminate a martyrology or carve a

crucifix, and in which he who had a turn for natural philosophy might

make experiments on the properties of plants and minerals. Had not such

retreats been scattered here and there among the huts of a miserable

peasantry and the castles of a ferocious aristocracy. European society

would have consisted merely of beasts of burden and of beasts of prey.

The church has many times been compared by divines to that ark of which

we read in the Book of Genesis; but never was the resemblance more

perfect than during that evil time when she alone rode, amid darkness

and tempest, on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient

power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that feeble germ from

which a second and more glorious civilization was to spring." Elsewhere

the same eloquent writer suggests that, what the Olympian chariot race

and the Pythian oracle were to all the Greek cities, from Trebizond to

Marseilles, Rome and her bishops were to all Christians of the Latin

communion, from Calabria to the Hebrides. This elicited sentiments of

enlarged benevolence, and caused races separated from each other by

seas and mountains, to acknowledge a fraternal tie, and a common code

of public law. A regular communication was opened between the western

islands and that part of Europe in which the traces of ancient power

and policy were yet discernible. "Many noble monuments which have since

been destroyed or defaced, still retained their pristine magnificence;

and travelers, to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible, might

gain from the Roman aqueducts and temples some faint notion of Roman

history. The dome of Agrippa still glittering with bronze; the

mausoleum of Adrian, not yet deprived of its columns and statues; the

Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a quarry, told to the

Mercian or Northumbrian pilgrims some part of the story of that great

civilized world which had passed away. The islanders returned, with awe

deeply impressed on their half-opened minds, and told the wondering

inhabitants of the hovels of London and York that, near to the grave of

Saint Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings which

would never be dissolved till the judgment day. Learning followed in

the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age

were assiduously studied in the Anglo-Saxon monasteries. The names of

Bede, of Alcuin, and of John surnamed Erigena, were justly celebrated

throughout Europe. Such was the state of this country when, in the

ninth century, began the last great descent of the northern barbarians."

Prominent in the early scenes of that great act in the drama of human

history which appropriately is characterized by the name of a pope,

stood Gregory, the first of the name, who, from the year 590 to 604,

occupied the sacred seat. God, to whom all his works are known from

eternity, raised up this instrument so well fitted to guide the church

in the West, in the midst of numerous and fearful storms. Up to his

fortieth year he had filled an important civil office; and afterward

in the calm consecration of monastic life he acquired the power and

stability of extraordinary self-control. Depreciating literary critics

have charged that Gregory expelled from Rome the mathematical studies;

that he burned the Palatine library, first collected by Augustus Cæsar;

that himself despised classical learning, which he forbade others to

pursue; and that he destroyed many profane monuments of art, with which

the city had been embellished. But the appellation of Great, by which

he is commonly distinguished, attests the opinion which was entertained

of his general character, and doubtless was in good part deserved.

It chanced that certain Anglo-Saxons, being exposed for sale in the

slave-market of Rome, attracted the attention of the mighty pope

just named. He at once resolved that Christianity should be preached

to the nation to which these beautiful captives belonged, and never

perhaps was a resolution adopted whence more important results ensued.

Augustin, attended by forty Italian assistants, planted the doctrines

of the Holy See among the Germanic Britons at Canterbury, and thence

spread their influence through all the ranks of our pagan ancestors. It

was not long before intelligent converts transplanted their sentiments

to the continent, and filled the whole empire of the Franks with their

creed. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, was an Anglo-Saxon, whose

great influence was exerted to perfect and extend civilization among

the German tribes of the West. While other realms were sinking together

into one common ruin, and the world seemed about to become the prey

of the Moslem, the house of Pepin of Heristal, afterward called the

Carlovingian, arose to blend regal with papal resistance, by which

means the first effectual resistance was offered to the Mohammedan

conquerors.

Christianity was scornfully trampled on by southern infidels and

northern barbarians, but her invulnerable spirit was subdued by

neither. Like her founders, she was seemingly conquered for a time,

but in apparent defeat, death gave her positive victory. Bending her

heavenly form to the tempest, she paused meekly till its utmost fury

had passed, and then raised her captivating countenance to woo the

savage foes who held her captive. Awe-struck, they reverently removed

her chains, adored at her shrine, and swore fidelity to her cause.

Refined into enthusiasm, they turned their energies toward more useful

channels, and the subsequent history of chivalry and the crusades

recorded its mighty results. Divine truth came not to avenge, but to

console; it did not promise peace on earth, but retribution in heaven,

and was not so ambitious to break the chains of the slave, as to share

them with him. If the church could not destroy feudalism, she created

chivalry; to quench the thirst for battles, she invented processions

and masses. To the victims of injustice, she opened the asylum of the

sanctuary; for blasted hopes and exposed honor, she proffered the

silence of cloisters; and against imperial ambition, she wielded the

thunders of the Vatican. Through a long and gloomy period, popery and

the monasteries doubtless preserved the social system from utter ruin;

and it is to be regretted that no sooner had the new system triumphed,

than the seeds of corruption appeared. We dwell with most interest

upon the period when the brilliant ardor of western valor breathed

a new life into the contemplative and ascetic virtues of eastern

Christianity; when the red cross shone on the breast-plate of European

warriors, and their lance was couched in a holy war. It was then that

the militant church developed, if she did not perfect, that spirit

which the soothing influence of religious love would substitute for the

violated empire of the law, and for the laxity of social disorder--the

spirit of chivalry. Hence arose that noble school of loyalty and

truth, of devotion and gallantry, of humanity and liberality, which

was the right arm of Christianity in her sacred mission of peace and

righteousness. Thus it was that, unable for a long period to disarm

the ferocity of those warlike ages, religion directed it to a nobler

end, and by inscrutable ways, transformed it into one of its most

efficacious instruments.

It was on the shores of Palestine that the different orders of

knighthood were first established, in which military ardor was combined

with religious enthusiasm, and graduated distinctions in the ranks of

chivalry became the rewards of distinguished deeds. The power of these

incentives was unparalleled in human history. They gave the first

check to the brilliant success of Saracenic arms, and secured to an

earl of Boulogne the crown of Jerusalem. Men of all tempers and most

diversified dispositions imbibed motives for their ambition at a common

source, which simultaneously fed the lion energy of Richard, the calmer

fortitude of Edward, and the more enlightened mind of St. Louis.

The same blending of secular and sacred zeal, which had animated the

crusaders to defend unprotected pilgrims in the East, incited them

to promote improvement in the West, and educated them for the task.

While absent, their ideas had been enlarged by an acquaintance with

Roman jurisprudence, which still ruled in the eastern empire. They

had witnessed with astonished admiration the excellence attained by

several of the Italian states, through the agencies of commerce and

manufactures; and on their return, they were not only sensible of

the imperfect administration of justice under the feudal rule, but

also of the need of an improved productive system. The crusades were

beneficial, because they occasioned a revolution in the intellectual

state of Europe by introducing a preparatory change of feelings

and habits which no other agency could produce. The great good

they conferred was none the less valuable for being mediate and

progressive. No radical change in the condition of man, thus wrought,

has ever transpired without resulting in the most salutary effects

upon the character of all his intellectual operations. Doubtless, the

crusades were not so much a cause of actual knowledge, introduced

directly under their influence, as of those aroused faculties and

improved habits by which both the useful and elegant arts were greatly

promoted. No single event, however startling, and no one age, however

prolific of suggestions, could effectually have restored the mental

energies of the West after so many centuries of brutal ignorance, but

the successive crusades did all to this end, and as successfully, that

could be achieved. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries

teemed with the direct and multifarious results.

As the noble grandeur of Olympus, the fertile plains of Thessaly, the

gloomy recesses of the rock-crowned Pytho, and a thousand co-operative

causes tended to swell the romantic harmony of legendary song in

ancient Greece, giving a favorite deity to each particular province;

while the great emigration to the coast of Asia Minor enhanced the

copiousness of their religious rites, by engrafting on their legend

much of the frenzied excitement of the Asiatic race, so Europe in the

middle ages had its patron saints, and around the altar of supreme

worship were concentrated the reminiscences of every preceding age

and clime. According to Colonel Tod's statement of oriental customs,

the martial Rajpoots are not strangers to armorial bearings, now so

indiscriminately used in the West. The great banner of Mewar exhibits a

golden sun on a crimson field, those of the chiefs bear a dagger. Amber

displays the five-colored flag. The lion rampant on an argent field, is

extinct with the state of Chanderi. In Europe, these customs were not

introduced till the period of the crusades, and were copied from the

Saracens, while the use of them among the remote eastern tribes can be

traced to a period anterior to the war of Troy. Every royal house had

its palladium, which was frequently borne to battle at the saddle-bow

of the prince.

From Pliny's letters to Trajan, and from other sources, we learn that

ancient idolaters were in the habit of so consecrating spots and

buildings destined for religious purposes, as forever to withdraw

them from secular uses. Ere they began their accustomed rites, they

sprinkled the place and the assistants with lustral water, which from

the priest's hands was supposed to have conferred peculiar sanctity.

The Romans burned frankincense, and other perfumes, in honor of their

gods; and celebrated, at the entrance into the winter solstice, a

festival to the goddess Strenna. The return of spring was celebrated

with garlands, and the dance around a tall May-pole; and with kindred

solemnities they entered into the summer solstice, with which they

began the year. The Christians adopted similar consecrations with a

like design. Hence the use of holy water, the practice of burning

lamps and candles on altars and at tombs, together with incense burned

in honor of the saints. Christmas, and the festival of St. John,

correspond with the pagan rites they displaced, while the presents

common to one, and the bonfires which illuminate the other, are

mementoes of their origin. The idolatrous priestesses, who were vowed

to perpetual virginity, were reproduced in the mediæval church, as

soon as the Christian ranks were ample enough to spare certain members

for that purpose, both male and female. In fact, the very tunic of

the priest, the lituus of the augur, and cap of the flamin of pagan

antiquity, were preserved in the dalmatic, the mitre, the staff, and

the crosier of Christian bishops. Still more important similarities

crept in, and a supposed virgin became the object of enthusiastic

worship in the age of Leo X., as in the foregoing ages of Augustus

and Pericles. Among the Asiatic Greeks, Diana was supreme; with the

European Greeks and Romans, Minerva was first; and Catholicism at

length found its highest love in Mary, the immaculate Mother of God.

True, "Christianity had conquered Paganism, but Paganism had infected

Christianity. * * * The rites of the Pantheon had passed into her

worship, the subtilties of the Academy into her creed." This was

evident from the symbols which were freely adopted from the Romans

in the decoration of the new churches. The typical use of the cross

was, of course, entirely original; but the vine and palm-branch of

Bacchus, the corn of Ceres, Venus's dove, Diana's stag, Juno's peacock,

Jupiter's eagle, Cybele's lion, and Cupids changed into cherubs, were

all copied from the pagans, and made emblematic of Christian doctrines.

Such were the facts of the case, when the kingdom of Catholicism had

come with power, and was seated on a throne, not according to this

world, yet possessing a larger territory, and exercising a higher

dominion, than had ever been given to sword or sceptre.

How wonderful is Providence in perpetually eliciting light and progress

from the East! Charlemagne gave the popedom its supremacy beyond the

Alps, A.D. 800; and before the close of that century, a small body of

spiritual Christians, near the Euphrates, were persecuted for combining

the adoption of the Scriptures as their sole guide with the most

resolute refusal to bow down to images. The emperor Constantine, who

sympathized with their views, caused them to pass into Europe. Those

Paulicians were the original reformers, the remnant of Judah, who came

forth by royal command, to rebuild the temple of the faith, and restore

the walls of their desecrated Jerusalem. Under the various names of

Bulgarians, Cathari, Waldenses, and Albigenses, those exiles were the

first founders of Protestantism. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries

were the zenith of Catholic supremacy, yet at that period Germany gave

a fatal blow to the temporal power of the popedom. The emperor Henry

IV., in the twelfth century, had begun the quarrel, on the right of

investing bishops, the first effects of which were to drive Gregory

VII. into exile, where this mighty pontiff died. From the close of the

thirteenth century the papal sovereignty over Europe sank rapidly,

and was almost annihilated by the schism of Avignon. Subsequently, it

regained a portion of former power, but the empire of Innocent and

Boniface was ended forever.

The church educated disciples to see her faults, and supplied them with

weapons as well as occasions for attack. There were reformers long

before the "Reformation," like Arnold in Brescia, Waldo in France, John

Huss at Constance, and Wickliff in England.

Every manuscript transcribed from the classics, and every Bible set

free from the moles and the bats; every improvement in law, science,

and art, together with each progressive invention, from the mariner's

compass to the monk's gunpowder, was the forerunner and guaranty of

even greater light and freedom than the reform of the sixteenth century

saw realized.

The alleged infallibility and unchangeableness of the Roman church

is necessarily self-destructive; since all systems, civil or

ecclesiastical, which are incapable of advancing with the tide of

general improvement, must be swept away by its progress. Tenets and

customs framed for times of barbarous ignorance, could not withstand

the test of improved civilization and knowledge. It is said that the

shadow is nowhere so dark as immediately under the lamp; and when

the true light of Heaven is obscured, the vessel that bears it casts

the darkest shade. When theology takes the place of piety, and dead

creeds are substituted for living virtues, it should not occasion

surprise if the symbols of religion are deified, and all other power

is lost. The wisdom that is from above is not a formal confession,

but a progressive principle imbued with vital truth; and when the

church forgot the life, the truth vanished from the symbol, leaving

the defunct relics of unspiritual knowledge. But this was not always

so. Through long centuries of darkness and toil, religious teachers

filled a real office, a thing not of silks and drawing-rooms, but of

the translation of the Scriptures, preaching the gospel, and appearing

at the martyr's stake when requisite. Then a bishop was a real genuine

pastor, who had a flock and fed it; he was a leader of men, and lived

up to the growing wants of mankind. In due time, the perversion of this

office wrought its own cure. By engendering grievances, it generated

complaints, which occasioned inquiries; and thus not only were certain

unfounded claims discovered, but a radical change in the whole system

was effected. It was felt that the ministers of the gospel, styling

themselves the vicars of Christ, had too long been undoing his work.

It was alleged that they withdrew his books, counterfeited his words,

made their own opinion a law, enforcing it by fire and sword; that they

intruded themselves into the secrets of the heart, and laid conscience

asleep. They monopolized the eternal clemency, and set a price for the

ransom of the soul, even beyond the limits of repentance; and reached

the climax of perverseness when they sat in the Vatican, the rivals of

kings in wealth and power, if not in crime.

It was at this crisis in mediæval religion, that, early in the

sixteenth century, the Augustin monk Luther visited Rome to strengthen

his faith, where he found incredulity seated on the tomb of the apostle

Peter, and paganism revived in the chief seat of religious power.

Julius II., with a helmet on his head, dreamed only of battles; and

the cardinals, ciceroneans in their language, were transformed into

poets, diplomatists, and warriors. Leo X. succeeded, and by becoming a

prince still more in the style of other princes, he ceased to be the

representative of the Christian republic. But he soon heard from afar

a clamor springing up beyond the Alps, and arising among barbarians.

"A quarrel between monks," said Leo. Pericles despised the barbarians

of Macedon, and perished. Augustus despised the barbarians of Scythia,

and perished. Leo X. despised the barbarians of Germany, and while

the young mind of that western world was in revolt, the glory of the

popedom paled before the flames at Wittemberg, in which, amid shouting

students, the propositions of Tetzel were burned.

We believe that the reformation must have taken place, and nearly at

the same time and place, though neither a Tetzel nor a Luther had ever

lived. The great correlatives which finally resulted in that outbreak

and forward movement, were very far from being accidents; they were

most providential and necessary phenomena in the course of the social

development of civilized mankind. Luther was the mere cock-crowing of a

day, for the advent of which innumerable heroes before him had labored

and longed. The emancipation and enlargement of that age had a more

powerful cause than either some casual incident, exasperated personal

interests, or unmingled views of religious improvement. It was a new

and vast struggle of the human mind to achieve its destiny; a new-born

purpose to think and judge for itself, freely and independently, of

facts and opinions which, until then, were imposed upon Europe by

the coercion of unquestioned authority. It was the great primary

insurrection of the popular heart and will against absolute spiritual

power, and was chiefly brought about by the church itself. What is most

to be regretted is, that the work then done was so incomplete, and that

the perfection of that reformation has been so long delayed.

During all this brightening period, Florence remained the chief city

whose beauty and power were coveted alike by Bourbons and the Medici.

Leo X. loved her fondly; and the revolt of his native city was more

painful to Clement VII. than even the downfall of Rome. And how

eagerly did Paul III. seek to obtain footing in Florence! With a proud

self-reliance young Duke Cosmo wrote: "The pope who has succeeded in

so many undertakings, has now no wish more eager than that of doing

something in Florence as well; he would fain estrange this city from

the emperor, but this is a hope that he shall carry with him into his

grave." Yes, truly, many such like dukes, emperors, and popes, buried

their petty jealousies and ambitions in loathsome clay, but the great

and glorious God overruled all their schemings, and rendered them

instrumental in urging forward the tide of improvement more broadly

and swiftly to its goal. If Columbus, in opposition to the counsel of

Martin Alonzo Pinzon, had continued to sail in a westerly direction,

he would have fallen into the warm Gulf Stream, which would probably

have borne him to Florida, and thence to Cape Hatteras and Virginia.

That would have introduced a Catholic and Spanish population upon the

soil of republican North America, instead of the English and Protestant

colonists which were its more auspicious germs. The same infinite hand

winnowed away the old European chaff through needful tempests, and

wonderfully fitted the seed-wheat with which to sow this vast domain of

untainted soil.

We have before alluded to the mission of Augustin, when, having come

thousands of miles over Alps and sea to debarbarize our degraded

ancestors, he landed on the eastern coast of England, and began a

most successful career by baptizing Ethelbert, king of Kent, into the

Christian faith. This was the first unarmed invasion of the British

shore, yet a bannered host. A company of black-robed recluses from

the ruins of the Cœlian hill, undertook the conquest of the remotest

western isles then known, and marched bravely to the task, bearing

before them, as Venerable Bede records, the image of our Redeemer,

and his saving cross. Those same Benedictine brethren, with their

successors, were the authors of nearly every thing great and good which

was afterwards produced from Canterbury to Killarney, and from Iona's

solitary retreat to the more magnificent shrines which glorified the

rugged western coasts, and reflected with augmented charms the last

beams of the setting sun. The literature, art, science, philosophy,

and religion of England would now have but little to show, had it

not been for the protracted and noble toil of the great religious

orders, Franciscans and Dominicans, but especially those greatest of

benefactors, the learned and industrious disciples of the earlier

Benedict.

Tread through the ruined cloisters of Furness, or Fountains, or

Tintern, and think not that when devotees retired from the strife, the

passion, the whirl of the Maelstrom of life, the sounds of ambition and

trade never penetrated hither. Alas, within these sacred inclosures

passion and pomp reigned violently as in the nearest neighborhood

to the throne, what day one brother rose to the cellararius, or a

more talented aspirant was exalted to the abbacy. Memory coined her

chronicles, and fancy wove her dreams then as now. The bustle of

preparation preceded the expected knight, or baron, or prince who

honored the monastery with his presence, and when the Lord Abbot

returned from visiting the national parliament. Neither monotony nor

dullness prevailed while the monks literally, as well as in a mental

and religious sense, transformed the wilderness and noxious fens of

England into a healthful and productive garden.

Thus redeemed and cultivated, of all portions of the eastern hemisphere

England is the country of constitutional rights and religious freedom.

It would seem as if that insulated corner of the world had been

created and placed there as a nursery on purpose to receive from the

mainland plants the most select to be eventually transferred to a yet

more propitious soil. To this end conduced all the movements of the

different nations which successively occupied that hardy territory.

The conquest of the Normans, and the state of the country at the

period of this conquest, about the middle of the eleventh century,

together with the great events which succeeded it, conspired with

an efficacy constantly increased to mature the colonists who were

commissioned to plant in a new world the elements of liberty which had

fortified and rocked their own cradle in the most vigorous clime. As

in literature, art, science, and philosophy, so especially in religion

does the great principle of independency run back most remotely with

the English race. The best things that existed on the continent at the

culmination of mediæval excellence were carried across the channel

bodily by the Normans, and first among these was the disposition and

power to resist papal domination. Guizot states that the pope had given

his approval to William's enterprise, and had excommunicated Harold.

Nevertheless, William boldly repulsed the pretensions of Gregory VII.,

and forbade his subjects to recognize any one as pope until he had

done so himself. The canons of every council were to be submitted

to him for his sanction or rejection. No bull or letter of the pope

might be published without the permission of the king. He protected

his ministers and barons against excommunication. He subjected the

clergy to feudal military service. And finally, during his reign, the

ecclesiastical and civil courts, which had previously been commingled

in the county courts, were separated. Thus, while in Italy and France

the Roman populations possessed no institutions at all, in England

Saxon institutions were never stifled by Norman institutions, but,

associated with them, enlarged their scope, and liberated their action.

All over the continent barbarism, feudalism, and absolute power held

successful sway, derived either from Roman or ecclesiastical ideas;

but in England, absolute power was never able to obtain a footing;

oppression, temporal and spiritual, was frequently practiced in fact,

but it was never established by law.

As the early Benedictines laid at the foot of the cross all the noble

and graceful gifts which had been bestowed on them, not seeking

popular applause, so the greatest of their successors, by the same

Providence, were made subservient to the work of progress in general,

and of religious improvement in particular. The lamp of divine truth

was not suffered to be extinguished even in the darkest times. From

the earliest, and through the deepest corruptions of Christianity,

God has never left himself without a succession of witnesses. For

example, Vigilantius, in the sixth century, vehemently remonstrated

against relics, the invocation of saints, lighted candles in churches,

celibacy, pilgrimages, prayers for the dead, and all the doubtful

innovations which had crept into the church. Claudius, of Turin,

called the first Protestant reformer, in the ninth century bore a

noble testimony to the truth. Arnold of Brescia, Henry of Lausanne,

and Peter of Brughes, successfully raised their voices against growing

corruptions, and pleaded for reform. But freest, mightiest, and most

salutary was the voice of England on this behalf. Thomas Bradwardine,

Archbishop of Canterbury, and Greathead, the learned and fearless

Bishop of Lincoln, and the noble Fitzrulf, Archbishop of Armagh, in

the thirteenth century, caused their powerful lights to shine from

the earliest and most exalted points. Still these were but the lesser

lights, the casual out-breakings of pent-up fires, precursors of the

approaching morning and brilliant day.

But it was in that same western sky that the auspicious star arose,

and Wickliff appeared. Thenceforth men became yet more guilty of

thinking out of the beaten track, of questioning the arrogant claims

of the priesthood, and of not only publishing to the world the living

oracles of God, but also of teaching the people their right and duty

to read them. The Scriptures were for the first time translated into

English by the pastor at Lutterworth, and by his agency, mainly, was

a foundation laid for the reform of Christendom. No sooner was this

chief luminary violently eclipsed in England, than it began to shine

with redoubled splendor on the continent, and the darkness which had so

long gathered over the religious world was scattered. Queen Ann, the

wife of Richard II., a native of Bohemia, having embraced the doctrines

of Wickliff, caused the books of the reformer to be circulated in her

paternal land. Huss and Jerome of Prague, by this means caught the fire

of the English reformer, raised the banner of religious progress, and

ceased not, till their lamp was extinguished in the blood of martyrdom,

to devote their great learning and influence in defense of obscured

truth. From the ashes of these sacrifices rose a light which shone

throughout all Germany; and, like the flames which kindled on Latimer

and Ridley, at that great source of the Lutheran reformation, Oxford,

lighted a candle which, under the blessing of God, could never go out.

A spirit of inquiry was roused not only in schools and universities,

but among the nobility, and in the minds of the common people, not

to be repressed. The foretokenings of rising day which resounded in

Alpine glens, and along the valleys of Piedmont and Languedoc, long

before broke from Lollard dungeons, and were echoed by the Huguenots.

The same gracious God who, through the darkest centuries, kept alive

the fire of true religion in the East, by means of the Nestorians,

and in due time kindled it afresh in the hearts of the Waldenses of

the West, from age to age, and from place to place, fitted a thousand

minds for the accomplishment of his purposes. Councils, emperors,

kings, philosophers, poets, the church herself, all in their turn

contributed their influence, and hastened the result. It was written in

the decrees of Heaven that the Bible should be the weapon by which the

principalities and powers of sin should be overcome, the strongholds of

the adversary demolished, and from their high places in the sanctuary

the unclean birds should be dislodged. But the regenerator of the

living temple, destined to rebuild the sacred altar, and restore its

fine gold, must first be set free from the blinding bondage of dead

languages. Therefore arose the towering genius of Reuchlin, the teacher

of the great Melancthon, and the masterly mind of Erasmus, the one to

give Europe a translation of the Old Testament, and the other of the

New; while both, with worthy compeers and successors, employed their

profound and varied talents in defense of invincible truth. All the

springs of intellectual action which were so palpably at work in the

sixteenth century, are clearly traceable to the thirteenth, when the

energies of the great West were elicited, and independent thought was

first born. The German reformation was a necessary consequence of what

preceded. Internal fires had long been burning, and the heaving earth

must soon give them vent. Infinite wisdom saw that the grand eruption

had better transpire in central Europe, and it is evident that the time

had come for it to take place somewhere. Had not Luther led, it must

ere long have been conducted by some other hand.

And here we should especially observe that Leo X., though in the

management of general affairs a man of consummate skill, prompt,

adroit, and energetic; yet, in reference to the storm arising beyond

the Alps, seemed bereft of his accustomed policy, while they were

endued with uncommon sagacity who were undermining his throne, and

plucking from his crown its richest gems. The cardinals, his advisory

council, appeared, in the language of Scripture, to have lost their

hands, and were strangely blind; but Leo himself was most like the son

of Balak, whose common sight was darkened, as much as the eyes of his

mind were open, who, when he stood upon the commanding height, foresaw

the advent of the Messiah, and foreknew the countless hosts of the

spiritual Israel, yet pushed against the armed angel of the Lord more

stupidly than the ass he bestrode.

When the reformation of the sixteenth century broke out, Catholicism,

like Tithonus of the fable, had reached the last stage of decrepitude,

without being permitted to die. The work of resuscitation was greatly

needed, and might have been much more thoroughly done. Religion, while

she exults in every recent auxiliary to her cause, and is especially

grateful for each searching trial that may have purged her holy flame,

can not with ingratitude forget the papal domination which kept it

burning through long centuries of obscurest gloom. The agency of Luther

was a notable episode in progressive history, but nothing about it

was either isolated or accidental. The aim of divine interference is

clearly discernible through it all, and the means employed were as

strongly marked, as they were manifestly fitted for the parts they

performed. A regular system of conserving causes prepared for the

crisis, by which, and in the results thus accruing, the sovereign

design was sublimely exposed. As soon as the desired end had been

accomplished, the whole system began to dissolve, and a new cycle

succeeded, which was also in turn to have its end.

It was neither Romanism, nor Germanism, that was destined to mold

the sacred institutions of a new world, not even the more republican

Frenchism elaborated by the frigid dialectician at Geneva; but the

gospel of Jesus, with all its blessed freedom, completely disenthralled

from priestly dictation and arbitrary creeds. English independency

was the true spark struck from the Eternal Rock; and when, like the

post-diluvian altar of Noah, it burned on the heights of America's

eastern coast, it was manifestly the will of Providence that with

augmented might it should sweep westward to enlighten and redeem the

world.

WASHINGTON;

OR,

THE AGE OF UNIVERSAL AMELIORATION.

PROLOGUE OF MOTTOES.

"Antiquity deserveth that reverence that men should make a stand

thereupon, and discover what is the best way; but when the discovery is

well taken, then to make progression."--Lord Bacon.

"The faith in the perpetual progression of human nature toward

perfection--will, in some shape, always be the creed of

virtue."--Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

"The Lutheran clergy have exhibited this spirit of priestcraft under

their consistorial polity, and the Calvinist under their presbyterian

form of government, as much as the Oriental, Roman, and Anglican

bishops; it was manifested as much at Wittemberg, Geneva, and Dort, as

at Jerusalem, Rome, and Canterbury."--Christian Charles Josias Bunsen.

"Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of

the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of

the fullness of Christ."--Ephesians iv. 13.

PART FOURTH.

WASHINGTON.--AGE OF UNIVERSAL AMELIORATION.

CHAPTER I.

LITERATURE.

The glory of the vegetable world is realized in the aloe, as from the

single stately blossom which a century has matured it diffuses the balm

and beauty of consummate life. And such seems to be the destiny of

nations, to pour forth the accumulation of their ruling qualities, and

then disappear. Greece blossomed, and Pericles was her central flower,

proud, elegant, and voluptuous, "the Corinthian capital of society."

Rome towered in a trunk of glory, and Augustus was revealed, grand and

ambitious, bearing the imperial nest on high. Mediæval Europe blossomed

around the garden of the Medici, and Leo X. would have been lost in the

multitude of concomitant glories, literary, artistic, and chivalrous,

had he not been supreme by virtue of both nature and office, even

while the twin-flowers adorned opposite borders of the mighty field,

Godfrey the captor of Rome and king of Jerusalem, and Richard of the

lion-heart, smiting for England with the hammer hand. The old world

having exhibited the preliminary exponents of an unbounded design,

America produced a specimen bearing a superiority of majesty and

duration of bloom commensurate with the protracted period of its

growth, and the more glorious intention of its use.

Every successive epoch of civilization, with the correlative ideas on

which it was founded, and from which it derived its peculiar aspect,

after maintaining its ground with graduated lustre and utility, has

arrived at its inevitable period of decline and dissolution. But in

ceasing, apparently, to grow and to imbue society with its beneficial

influence, in exchanging an erect attitude for a prostrate one, no

vital principle has undergone an entire extinction, so as actually to

disappear, and leave no trace of its reproductive benefits. A portion

of its vitality forever survives in the monuments which attest the

reign of the power to which they owe their existence; and these are

not only sufficient to prolong and sanctify its memory, but are in

turn themselves the sources of yet ampler and nobler influence. For

example, the Teutonic spirit, so long disciplined in Arctic regions,

at the fall of the Roman empire was infused into degenerate races,

and for eight centuries continued to press toward lower latitudes,

everywhere disseminating hardy habits, pure ethics, and the deep

sentiments of freedom. Italy received the Lombards; Spain, the Goths;

Gaul, the Franks; while Britain in due time fell to the vigorous

Saxons, and Norman superiority finally added the accumulated wealth of

all. Diagonal forces are the strongest, and while human progress has

from the first moved westward only, the great redeeming and ennobling

power has always descended from the North. The skill that tames the

war-horse, the courage that rules the wave, and the energy, honor, and

perseverance best adapted to beautify a barbarous continent, germinated

on the field of Hastings, and were transplanted hither at the moment of

most auspicious growth.

From Pericles to Augustus, there was a rapid transition through

Alexander, armed tyranny. From Augustus to Leo X. a protracted

depreciation extended from the Apostles through monks and crusaders,

armed superstition. From Leo to Washington transpired the great

preliminary age of scientific discovery through the agency of Galileo,

Columbus, and Guttenberg, heaven's luminary, ocean's guide, and earth's

fulcrum of all power, the press, armed invention. From Washington

onward, literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion, perfectly

revived and divinely harmonized, will constitute armed freedom. The

close of the mediæval period left universal intellect in revolt. The

western rim of the old world was all on fire, and through the flooding

light let us now scan the new realms beyond.

When the fourteenth century expired, there was no healthful political

organization extant, but in the fifteenth all Europe entered upon

a grand system of centralization, as if expecting one general

commonwealth. The sixteenth century was one of direct preparation;

and the seventeenth, above all other epochs, was characterized by the

establishment and extension of colonial empire. Preparatory to this,

the choicest elements were driven into England by persecution, with the

shuttle and the loom, the graver and the press. Drakes and Raleighs

scattered armadas, and for the first time in human history, the great

mass of the common people stood revealed. Settlements were made about

the year 1606 by the French in Nova Scotia, and in 1608 in Canada.

Cape Breton, and Placentia in Newfoundland, afterward attracted their

attention, and a disastrous effort was made to gain a foothold in

Florida. But voluntary emigration from France never existed, nor is it

the fitting character to be perpetuated unmixed. Ambitious of wielding

the sword, and not the spade, that martial people allied themselves

with savages, and endeavored to seize on the whole vast territory

north and west of the Ohio and Mississippi. Providence however, had in

reserve a better element, destined to combine the whole continent in

one great republic, while France has at present no prosperous colony in

the eastern hemisphere, and scarcely a foot of ground upon the coveted

western world.

It was on the eastern coast, and in English colonies alone, that the

great foundations of the seventeenth century were laid. In 1607, the

Cavalier element was planted at Jamestown, Virginia; and in 1620, the

Roundheads landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. But these are antagonists

by nature. A little descendant of the one genus can not meet an equally

diminutive specimen of the other without the imminent and instantaneous

peril of a very small fight. But there is _vis inertia_ enough

in a Dutchman to regulate any thing; and therefore, in 1624, the

island of Manhattan was bought of the Indians for twenty-four dollars.

At that time, Holland was the greatest of maritime nations, and so

God chose them appropriately to plant the city which is already the

commercial metropolis of our continent, and which eventually may rank

supreme on the globe. Other colonies followed, till the sifted wheat

of the old world was sown all along the nearest coast of the new.

Three years after the Puritans landed in Massachusetts, other Pilgrim

Fathers settled in New Hampshire, and Swedes united with Finlanders in

procuring a tract of land near the falls of the Delaware. In 1633 the

old feudal elements were colonized in Maryland, under the auspices of

Lord Baltimore; and in 1635 Roger Williams moved from Massachusetts to

found Rhode Island, unfurled the banner of civil and religious liberty

in his city of Providence, and left "What-Cheer Rock" as the first

goel of westward progress in America. At the revocation of the edict

of Nantes, the best element of French society was persecuted in the

Huguenots, and these fled to the wilds yet remoter from the original

colonies. North Carolina was settled in 1628, and South Carolina

in 1669. New Jersey, in 1664, opened an asylum to the Germans whom

the sword of Louis XIV. drove from the Palatinate; and in 1682 the

persecuted Quakers, embodying the peaceful element of English history,

came to possess themselves and the fruits of their quiet industry

beneath the oaks of Pennsylvania. If we glance beyond this great

century of colonization, we see Georgia planted by General Oglethrope

in 1733, which fact, in common with all the preceding, reminds us

of the wonderful care manifested by the God of nations in selecting

the primary germs of a new civilization, and in giving them their

relative positions on the border of a predestined and immense domain.

The birth of many pioneer Washingtons necessitated the services of

one transcendent hero clearly authenticated as the chosen lieutenant

of the Almighty. Liberty's great battle was fought and won. Soon the

area of freedom became too narrow, and the danger of internal strife

too great. The third President of the United States buys Louisiana.

Why then? Because, on the Hudson, the steamboat is at the same time

put afloat. The rightful possession of those great western waters

gives us more available inland navigation than can elsewhere be found

on the entire globe. The grand instrument of progress, therefore,

like all other needful agencies, appears in the fitting time and

place. The middle of the nineteenth century arrives, and great danger

again threatens; when lo! far in the West rings out the cry, "Gold!

gold!" Why then, and there? Because Americans, in general, and New

Englanders, in particular, will go to the mouth of the cannon, or dare

yet more fearful terrors, at any time for a dollar, and free States

are speedily planted on the Pacific. It is no longer pertinent for a

little Northerner or a little Southerner to talk about dividing this

Union; great Westerners spring to their feet in predominating millions,

crying, "No, you shall not divide!" Simultaneously with the discovery

of California, the keel of the first successful steamship was laid in

New York, not to run to Havre or Liverpool, but to New Orleans--the

first link in a stupendous chain of commerce, destined soon to carry

and bring the choicest treasures of earth. The trade winds of God blow

westward. The west end of nearly every great city in Europe and America

is the growing end. Soon a guide-board, standing east of "Pilgrim

Rock," will point over a great inland thoroughfare, saying, "To the

Pacific direct;" and west of San Francisco, its counterpart will read,

"To the Atlantic direct," while on each hand countless myriads will

ennoble their toil with intelligence, and build the sublimest monuments

of power with faculties the most free. As the rude archaic sculptures

of Silenus were gradually refined into the perfected glories of the

Parthenon, so all the vitalities successively developed and superseded

through sixty centuries will become resuscitated and harmonized on this

American continent.

From this general view let us descend to particular details, that we

may enumerate sufficient facts to justify the conclusion just stated.

The federal union of twelve cities in Etruria into one state, none

of which possessed an absolute superiority over the other, and whose

affairs were regulated by deputies from each city, and not by a king or

any hereditary officer, constituted the most interesting institution

of antiquity. Derived from Asia, and exclusively Pelasgic, it was

the first form of republicanism that appeared in the history of the

world, the masterly element which, infused into the constitution of the

states of Greece, and afterward of Rome, gave rise to that political

freedom which was the parent of all their greatness, and which has

ever since grown increasingly favorable to the development of peaceful

arts and social amelioration. Fortified and refined by the discipline

of sixty centuries, the diversified elements of consummate power and

progress were auspiciously blended in the thirteen original colonies

of the United States. Every event down to the seventeenth century,

especially in England, had contributed to render the fathers of our

republic most happily adapted to their predestined work. During the

seven centuries which preceded this great era, our wretched and

degraded ancestors became the most highly civilized people the world

had ever seen. Macaulay says, "They have spread their dominion over

every quarter of the globe--have scattered the seeds of mighty empires

and republics over vast continents of which no dim intimation had

ever reached Ptolemy or Strabo--have created a maritime power which

would annihilate, in a quarter of an hour, the navies of Tyre, Athens,

Carthage, Venice, and Genoa together--have carried the science of

healing, the means of locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical

art, every manufacture, every thing that promotes the convenience

of life, to a perfection which our ancestors would have thought

magical--have produced a literature abounding with works not inferior

to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us--have discovered the

laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies--have speculated

with exquisite subtlety on the operations of the human mind--have been

the acknowledged leaders of the human race in the career of political

improvement. The history of England is the history of this great change

in the moral, intellectual, and physical state of the inhabitants

of our own island. There is much amusing and instructive episodical

matter; but this is the main action. To us, we will own, nothing is

so interesting and delightful as to contemplate the steps by which

the England of the Domesday Book--the England of the Curfew and the

Forest Laws--the England of crusaders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers,

serfs, outlaws--became the England which we know and love--the classic

ground of liberty and philosophy, the school of all knowledge,

the mart of all trade. The charter of Henry Beauclerc--the Great

Charter--the first assembling of the House of Commons--the extinction

of personal slavery--the separation from the See of Rome--the Petition

of Right--the Habeas Corpus Act--the Revolution--the establishment

of the liberty of unlicensed printing--the abolition of religious

disabilities--the reform of the representative system--all these seem

to us to be the successive stages of one great revolution; nor can we

comprehend any one of these memorable events unless we look at it in

connection with those which preceded, and with those which followed

it. Each of those great and ever-memorable struggles--Saxon against

Norman--Vilain against Lord--Protestant against Papist--Roundhead

against Cavalier--Dissenter against Churchman--Manchester against Old

Sarum, was, in its own order and season, a struggle on the result

of which were staked the dearest interests of the human race; and

every man who in the contest which, in his time, divided our country,

distinguished himself on the right side, is entitled to our gratitude

and respect."

After the above summary, we need not stop to portray the steady

progress made in the parent land toward efficient colonization through

the agency of such men as Clarendon, Capel, and Falkland, Hampden

and Hollis, Ireton, Lambert, and Cromwell, Ludlow, Harrington, and

Milton. As soon as the English Commonwealth became the central point

of European civilization, the focus where all the noblest powers of

humanity concentrated themselves in a prodigious activity, the third

continent began to be the luminous side of our planet, the full-grown

flower of the terrestrial globe. Thenceforth North America became to

all nations the land of the future. The fertility of its soil, and the

favorableness of its position, the grandeur of its forms and the extent

of its spaces, seem to have prepared it to become the abode of the

vastest and most powerful association of men that ever existed. If the

order of nature is a foreshadowing of that which is to be, certainly

the physical aspects of this western world, as well as the historical

facts which connect it with the East, are sublime intimations of the

will of Providence. The germinal institutions so evolved and localized

were new, like the soil whereon they were planted. The selectest

specimens of whole peoples, clustered in homogeneous groups, took root

and increased with a rapidity which soon enabled their adopted America

to take her position face to face with Europe, not as a dependent

minor, but as a full-aged daughter, independent and an equal, a

fought-for and acknowledged right. The centre of the civilized world

had again been removed to a remoter point in the West, and all the

mental splendor of the East was brought over to illuminate the immense

realms then first redeemed from barbarism both north and south.

From the rude early dialects of India arose the majestic Sanscrit,

the copious and redundant mother of all oriental tongues. The Greek

was the purest current from that remote source, and was simplified in

its westward flow; and the Latin is a still more recently simplified

dialect of the Greek. The vernaculars of all modern nations are

directly connected with the last mentioned sources, and have still

further simplified the original principles. Of linguistic progress the

English is a striking example, and may be placed at the head of all the

languages of the world, as the most simple. It is the most recently

perfected, and at the moment when its vigor was the greatest, and its

wealth the most copious, the highest mental abilities coalesced with

the noblest political principles and emigrated to America. Our colonial

literature began at a period of the highest illumination, and was not

unworthy of its foster-fathers Shakspeare and Spenser, Coke and Hooker,

Hampden and Sydney, Bacon and Milton. In culminating excellence,

Anglo-Saxon literature was transferred to this land in a body, at

once; and never was a conception of greater magnitude or evolving more

fertilizing effects, started in the vast arena of human progress. That

era gave to history a soul and significance, by connecting it with the

supreme Deity who anew gathered the divine breath that had swept over

the ruins of empires, and with tornado energy dashed down the barriers

in the way of man. The colonial period was signalized by a series of

pitched battles between the progressive spirit of the seventeenth

century and the old feudal ideas, which all the deadly blows of the

preceding age had not sufficed to eradicate, and which then threatened

to resume their former sway and predominance. Then came the revolution

of seventy-six, a yet more potent preliminary to the great struggle

destined to throw off the mountains of oppression which still crush

the hearts of nations. The morning of this new day was radiant with

a numerous galaxy of magnificent intellects. The ages of Pericles,

Augustus, and Leo X. were consummated in the epoch of Cromwell, and

all was but the vestibule direct to the grander age of Washington.

Simultaneous with the advent of the latter, mighty leaders arose

who were the personifications and ready agents of whatever appeared

necessary to be thought, said, or done. Many of these perished in the

struggle, but not their work; from necessitated ruin sprang superior

grandeurs, and the general progress paused not needlessly to bemoan

its heroes in their individual graves. When the time arrived for old

limbs to descend, that new sap might more freely rise and circulate

to renew national life and rejuvenate ideas, many colonists in the

wilds of America, like Tell amid the glaciers of Switzerland were

ready to exclaim, Perish my name, if need be, but let Freedom live!

Nor did they doubt the final issue, but devoutly believed that great

revolutions, however involved their apparent orbits, like the stars,

march in fixed cycles which perpetually tend to the perfection of the

common weal. As great and good thoughts, the best gold of earth, are

least destroyed when most dispersed, so colonial literature aimed

perpetually to equalize all good and hinder none. Public spirit then

was an exalted moral virtue, the direct reverse of selfishness, its

end being the noblest to which our faculties are capable of aspiring,

the welfare of the whole human race. No people ever possessed this in

richer abundance than the first writers among our colonists, and the

fruits thereof were increasingly conspicuous during their efforts to

lay the foundations of that vast temple of liberty they came to rear.

Each little community of patriots were almost equally expert with the

axe, the sword, and the pen, possessing a brave fortitude which could

emulate the magnanimity of the Roman senate, who, though stunned by an

unexpected and overwhelming blow, had the spirit to go forth to meet

the unfortunate Varro and thank him, because he still had hopes of his

country. Not a few of our literary pioneers exemplified the patriotic

energy of the individual, who, when Hannibal was encamped at the gates

of Rome, went into the market-place, and bought, "at no cheap rate,"

the ground on which the conqueror's tent was standing. Such especially

was the spirit of him who was wiser than the prudent Fabius, greater

and better than the great and good Aristides, the unprecedented hero

who gave his name to the happy age in which we live.

From 1578 to 1704, under Elizabeth, James the First, Charles the

First, the Long Parliament, Cromwell, Charles the Second, James the

Second, William the Third, and Queen Anne, the charters of several of

the colonies were in succession recognized, contested, restrained or

enlarged, lost and regained, which long-continued struggle vigorously

exercised and matured all the leading minds. From this and other

kindred literary causes resulted the master spirits who achieved

national independence and founded the republic. Among these stood

Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Jay, Henry, Mason,

Greene, Knox, Morris, Pinckney, Clinton, Trumbull, and Rutledge.

Perhaps the world never saw a national convention wherein the average

of mental power rose higher than in the one which held its first

session in Philadelphia, on the 14th of May, 1787, with Washington in

the chair. Between that date and the 17th of September following, the

Constitution of the United States was formed; and on the 30th of April,

1789, at the very moment when the Constituent Assembly was commencing

its session in Paris, the first President of the republic took his oath.

The original cultivators of our virgin soil not only set out with a

complete body of ancestral literature, and examples of the highest

cultivation derived from anterior nations, but they diligently

improved upon what they had received. It was necessary that the

first published documents should partake largely of politics; but

the mental strength and elaborate excellence of these resolute

endeavors excited the wonder and admiration of the chief veterans

of the world. In these writings they saw clearly defined and fully

inaugurated the glorious age of universal amelioration. It began in

the general revolt of the Dutch in Holland, about 1576, resulting

in the Republic of the Seven United Provinces; was continued by the

edict of Nantes, in 1589, passed by Henry IV. of France; and, in the

old world, culminated, through the agency of the Long Parliament of

1641 and 1642, in the English revolution of 1688. Starting at the goal

where all previous eras of reform paused in a grand consummation, the

American revolution, which dates from 1775, has moved irresistibly

forward with a liberating and ennobling influence often seen and felt

beyond its own immediate sphere. The French revolution of 1798, which

overturned religious and political feudalism on the continent, and

the revolutions of the Spanish American provinces in the year 1810,

together with the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, which so materially

modified the remains of despotism in France, Germany, Prussia, Italy,

and Austria, are but offshoots of this great central tree of freedom

whose continually-spreading might and beauty shall ultimately protect

and refresh the human race.

The first great contributors to our national literature had the

ambition and ability to catch the departed spirit of obsolete forms

and embody it in new and nobler shapes. In the place of superseded

institutions, they substituted such original ones as would mold,

vitalize, and impel the existing mass of plastic character, and thus do

for the passing and prospective age what the old in their day did for

the past. Evil from its nature is akin to death, but all goodness is

immortal; and it is the latter which Providence mercifully accumulates

along the path of progress, the precious inheritance bequeathed to us

by the heroes of humanity, to ameliorate the condition of survivors,

and inspire eternal hope. It is fated that freedom can never be

asserted without desperate literary strife, nor be fully established

until it is cemented in patriotic blood; that it can only be won and

perpetuated by those who feel in their own energies the means of

asserting it against all odds, and will obtain the invaluable boon at

any rate. The emancipation and elevation of the American colonies into

a republic was in heroical letters as well as arms the great primary

monument of our land. The pages not less than the speeches of great

leaders were successive flashes of divine eloquence, such as never

before shone over the vanguard of mankind. We can not wonder that

comrades in purpose and pursuit gathered in closer admiration, and

were thrilled under the power of their lofty genius. They might incur

martyrdom, but never sank in despair; nor has a drop of such blood been

wasted, since blood ransomed the earth.

The Mayflower brought no pre-eminently distinguished man, but what

was better, a written constitution which defined and fortified the

united greatness of confederated fellow pioneers. The Pilgrim Fathers,

equally exalted by the oneness of their purpose, stood on a sublime

level which the cumulative labors of six thousand years had cast up; a

social grandeur which was best represented by that cluster of kindred

institutions, the family, school, and church, they came thereon to

plant. When these elements had been extended westward to the remotest

available point, and were liberalized by an expansion over the

widest diameter, the freest pen expressed the most perfect equality,

indicating a yet loftier terrace which it will probably require a long

period fully to reach. At that time a fresh cluster of great men had

risen so far in advance of the common mass, that it was only a minority

who at first dared to adopt the views of more enlightened minds; and

even in the assembly of illustrious prophets themselves, it was only

by a majority of one, at first, that the Declaration of Independence

was carried. But unlike the old barons at Runnymede, our republican

champions could all sign their full names to the new Magna Charta,

and were ready, at the greatest hazards, to authenticate the birth

and prerogatives of Young America. Never was so mighty an instrument

executed by so youthful hands. Of the fifty-five signers, eight had

passed fifty years, but were under sixty; twenty-two had reached forty;

seventeen were thirty, and two were but twenty-seven years old. Had

there been fewer young men at that eventful crisis, it is probable

that Jefferson's daring patriotism would have been repudiated, and his

sagacious purchase of Louisiana, with all the literary and commercial

facilities consequent thereupon, together with all the preliminary

advancement toward that great centre of national domain, would have

been disastrously postponed.

But, no! Thanks to an overruling Providence, the seasons, agents, and

instrumentalities appropriately appear and ultimately conduce to the

one great end, beneficent amelioration perpetually increased. All

great minds are thus rendered cotemporaneous, and are naturalized

among us in the highest sense. Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and Bacon,

Molière, Cervantes, and Shakspeare, touch the springs of emotion and

sway mental energies on the banks of the Hudson, the Ohio, or the

Missouri, as on the banks of the Guadalquiver, the Seine, or the Avon.

National literature is no longer limited to its fatherland, whether a

contracted island or fragmentary continent, but spreads in a language

more comprehensive than that of ancient Greece or Rome, and exhibits

full development on the immensity of an entire hemisphere. Mutual

pledges are rapidly increased between all literary producers, and their

reciprocal labors promise soon to establish a grand brotherhood cast

in the mighty mold of the largest liberty, and combined to realize the

divine conception which rose in the majestic mind of Milton, of "that

lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have

consented shall be the reward of those whose _published labors_

advanced the good of mankind."

The Puritan colonies were from the beginning pre-eminent in the cause

of education. In 1636, steps were taken toward the foundation of a

college at Newtown, since called Cambridge, in honor of the English

university. Two years later, this purpose was confirmed by the bequest

of John Harvard, who gave the new institution a sum of money and a

valuable library. The first printing-press in America was set up in

Harvard, in the President's house, in 1639. The literary and moral

training of all children and youth was regarded as most important, and

Massachusetts, as early as 1647, required by law that every township

which had fifty householders should have a school-house and employ

a teacher, and such as had one thousand freeholders should have a

grammar-school. From that time forward the subject of education has

received increasing attention, especially in the new western States.

Michigan has a public fund for this purpose which yields $30,000

annually, a sum fully equal to that of the oldest commonwealth; and

the like fund in Wisconsin yields more than three times that amount,

per annum. The last States that are organized begin with the highest

improvements extant in the first, and thus carry forward this supreme

agent of civilization in advance of all the rest. Since the opening of

the present century, colleges in New England have been increased from

seven to fourteen; in the Middle States, from six to twenty-two; in the

Southern States, from nine to thirty-seven; and in the Western States,

from three to forty-seven.

The first newspaper in this country was the "Boston News-Letter,"

commenced in 1704; followed by the "Boston Gazette," in 1719, and the

"American Weekly Mercury," at Philadelphia, in the same year. The "New

York Gazette" first appeared in 1725. A half century later, there

were but thirty-seven public journals in all the colonies, and these

were regarded favorably by both low and high, with a few exceptions.

Governor Berkley, of Virginia, in 1675, said: "I thank God that we have

no free schools nor printing-presses, and I hope that we shall not

have any for a hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience,

and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them,

and libeled governments. God keep us from both!" Lord Effingham, of

the same colony, in 1683, was ordered "to allow no person to use a

printing-press on any occasion whatever."

We need not attempt to estimate how immense is the periodical

literature of the United States at present, embracing the newspapers,

and the monthly and quarterly magazines and reviews. There is no

department of art in our country in which greater progress has been

made during the last thirty years than in that of printing; and

while the entire number of copies struck off, annually, must be many

millions, much the larger proportion is produced for, if not by, the

free West.

The first original books in America were written in New England, and

there the chief seat of literary influence has heretofore remained. But

it is easy to perceive that a great change has already taken place; and

yet easier is it to predict that when, instead of aping foreign models,

we come to have a literature really national, its perfection, like all

its best materials, will be found in the great West. A magnificent

field for intellect, in all its inventive and constructive shapes, is

manifestly opening in nearer proximity to the Rocky Mountains and the

Pacific shore. As material treasures, long buried, are now from that

remote quarter sent forth to enrich the world, so will an infinitely

more useful superabundance of intellect be poured thence by and by to

enlighten and redeem the effete continents beyond.

The East has always guarded the literary elements of a productive

age, while the appropriate field of their culture was preparing,

and then has yielded the contracted measure of seed to be scattered

and gathered in harvests of immensely augmented worth. A literature

which expresses our native peculiarities, and adequately represents

American character and deeds, does not yet exist, and this is as much

an occasion for gratitude, as it is easy to be explained. Our primary

mission was to realize the idea of a perfect Commonwealth which had

stirred the greatest minds of every age from Plato to Roger Williams.

All history has been but the record of human strivings after a better,

higher, and more perfect social state, the inauguration of the age of

reason and righteousness in the true sense of those much abused words.

Therefore an original political literature, harmonious with the new

position which progressive humanity had assumed away from arbitrary

conventionalities, was to be our first success; and, to the wondering

admiration of all Europe, that has already been achieved. Starting

from great and genuine principles, laid down by Milton, Hampden, and

Sidney, our fathers erected a governmental model the most perfect on

earth. That, however, was no provincial creation, but the first grand

national monument, which fortunately through successive generations,

claimed the best energies of all leading minds. Nothing but a direct

struggle for freedom of person and thought could emancipate the common

intellect from feudal associations, hereditary errors, and crippling

conventionalities. That triumph attained, and the prolific descendants

of the victors amalgamated in yet more ardent endeavors on a broader

and more tranquil arena, its correlative, the creation of a national

fabric purely literary, may be confidently anticipated. This, too,

will not be an aggregate of ancient provincialisms, but an original

homogeneous mass of American, continental mind, enriched from a

thousand genuine sources of local sentiments. The newest States are

in thought the freest and most original, which will cause the whole

country to individualize itself more and more. The gigantic movement of

independent intellect toward the West every hour deepens the contrast

between itself and the petty insipidities it leaves behind. The East

has, indeed, given the key-note to most of our popular thinking, but

the West has invariably furnished the chief chorus, and spontaneously

extemporized every variation whose brilliant originality has elicited

thrilling applause. New England has been most prolific of authors,

but the best of them write away from the narrow hearth of their

nativity, or on foreign themes. Books are beginning to be imbued with

a national spirit, as characteristic as are our institutions; and the

world will probably not have to wait long, before the purely literary

productions of America will be assigned a place equally exalted with

the masterpieces of our political science.

The best histories of European literatures, and the sweetest legendary

songs, echoing the reminiscences of the faded past, have been recently

produced in Massachusetts. It was appropriate that the most attractive

portraiture of Columbus and his Companions should be given to the world

from the "Sunny Side" of the Hudson; and the gifted historian of our

Republic could hardly write with adequate breadth and force except

under the expansive influence of this mighty metropolis. But how will

the poet sing, the critic discriminate, and the annalist indite, when

centuries shall have developed the resources of a hemisphere, and

gathered a galaxy of its brightest luminaries in central skies to pour

their combined effulgence from sea to sea and from pole to pole!

Of course, literary excellence is as yet but very imperfectly attained

in the West, but all present auspices are clearly indicative of

prospective worth. As in volcanic eruptions, the deepest and firmest

strata shoot to the apex of the fiery cone, so in self-impelled

emigrations the best material goes first and farthest. The greater

the remove, the more disenthralled the mind, and the more copious of

observation, as well as profounder the depths of reflection, which

will have been brought into view by the transit. All past literatures

contributed to lay a deep and broad foundation for our own; and

every historic incident of public life with us, more than in any

other nation, is closely related to the essential nature and social

improvement of mankind. Literary excellence has never moved eastward

a furlong since thought began. On the contrary, the course of mental

exaltation and aggrandizement is in exactly the opposite direction.

Every body instinctively says "down East" and "out West," since it

is felt to be a universal rule that only in moving in the latter

direction is the largest liberty enjoyed. Years ago we defined a

westerner as being "a Yankee expanded, a New Englander enlarged;" and

it is ultimately from that stock, refined and ennobled, through the

inspiration of the majestic West, that our best national literature

will originate.

The literal invasion of savage forests, which is indispensable to the

expansion of our republican domain, has given a designation to another

great element of popular education peculiar to our land. The stump,

not less than the steam engine, has become the means of disseminating

knowledge, and of breaking down the influence of both local dictation

and caucus caballing. It is as true as it may appear strange, that

American eloquence has thus become most analogous to Athenian, and the

orator is made the successful rival even of the press. Not a little of

moral sublimity is presented by a great Presidential canvass, and it

is difficult to estimate the amount of valuable information on such

occasions diffused. The best talents of the country traverse the whole

nation, even the most inaccessible regions, like Peter the Hermit,

that they may everywhere arouse the public mind, excite and feed its

power of thought. On such occasions the remark of Lord Brougham is

always verified, that the speaker who lowers his composition in order

to accommodate himself to the habits and tastes of the multitude, will

find that he commits a grievous mistake. Our promiscuous assemblies

are highly intelligent, and, on account of the interest they take in

public affairs, they are the most susceptible of improvement. They

most relish the logical statement of profound principles which they

are sagacious to comprehend, and zealous to re-discuss. It is in this

way that Bunkum speeches sent to millions of readers, and innumerable

lectures delivered nightly on all sorts of subjects to throngs in

country and town, are made doubly profitable in the habits of reading

and reasoning which they elicit and confirm. Nothing in the past will

compare with the prodigious excitement which precedes popular elections

in America, and the general calm which immediately follows. It is a

sublime process of universal education, the best adapted to perfect

and perpetuate the free institutions in the bosom of which it had its

birth. Having inquired into the origin of representative government,

Montesquieu declared that "this noble system was first found in the

woods of Germany." It has ever improved in exact proportion as it

has removed from its original source, and the masses last gathered

to its embrace seem to be most rapidly and thoroughly transformed by

its worth. Enlightened and heroical, they repudiate the aristocratic

system, according to which a person is born to a position of

sovereignty merely because he has been born into a privileged class;

and firmly cling to the democratic rule, wherein an individual is born

to a position of sovereignty by the simple fact that he is born human.

Of all earth's institutions, the American Republic stands supreme, as

being the first open university of this doctrine; and we have the best

reasons to believe that mankind, without exception, will yet become its

happy and honored alumni.

George Berkeley and Roger Williams were both educated at Christ Church

College, Oxford. How great is the contrast between the traditional

conservatism of mediæval universities as they exist in old England

at the present day, and the literary spirit so free and progressive

in young America. The greatest boast of the former is that they

remain just where Wykeham, Waynfleet, and Wolsey left them, and that

they have neither advanced nor changed the system of education since

they were founded. We have before alluded to the fact, that it was

the zeal of commoners and not the munificence of kings which almost

wholly created both universities; and when those great institutions,

designed for the general good, were perverted into the hot-beds of

regal pride and aristocratic exclusiveness, their chief power was at

an end. Oxford and Cambridge were influential on the popular mind only

so far as they were the exponents and promoters of its intelligence.

Since they have declined further to co-operate in this, they possess

little value save as venerable monuments of the past, retreats wherein

the great pioneers of the age of Washington were trained. In addition

to Berkeley and Williams, they fostered the republican spirit of

Milton, the illustrious bard and patriot who chanted the high praises

of liberty in his Defenses of the People of England, in his Apology

for the Liberty of the Press, and in his Causes of the Reformation in

England. How glorious to behold him emerging from "those dark ages

wherein the huge overshadowing train of error had almost swept all the

stars out of the firmament of the church;" warning his countrymen "that

unless their liberty be of a kind such as arms can neither procure nor

take away, which alone is the fruit of piety, justice, temperance, and

unadulterated virtue; they may only be seen to pass through the fire

to perish in the smoke;" pleading for "a book as containing a progeny

of life in it, active as that soul whose progeny it is, and preserving

as in a vial the purest extraction of the living intellect which bred

it;" reminding his countrymen "that they might as well almost kill a

man as kill a good book, because who kills a man, kills a reasonable

creature, God's image, but who destroys a good book, kills reason

itself, kills the image of God as it were in the eye." Of a kindred

spirit was Algernon Sidney to whom we owe those great and eloquent

Discourses which our fathers studied as the first complete definition

and exegesis of the nature and duties of government; so full of brave

and noble sentences, forever setting the indignant foot on the divine

rights of kings; and asserting that "He that oppugns the public liberty

overthrows his own, and is guilty of the most brutish of all follies,

while he arrogates to himself that which he denies to all men," and

maintaining throughout the essential monarchy of the people. In due

time followed the magnificent Burke, amid whose stormy invectives

against the excesses of freedom, are many rich and profound truths.

Nor less useful to the cause of literary and political progress was

his great rival, the critic, jurist, and reformer, Mackintosh, who

prophesied the downfall of spiritual power before the close of the

nineteenth century, and was always the jealous defender of popular

rights.

Cotemporaneous with these latter heroes in literature, and extending

with enhanced splendor of inspiration and effects to our own day, what

a magnificent series of mental producers has this republic reared

and enjoyed! It is prophetic of a yet loftier and more glorious

improvement, that when ennobling truths have once been announced, they

can never be thrown back into obscurity or indifference; but must

spread through the world, to become a portion of the intellectual

atmosphere of nations, and give tone and temper to all rising minds.

Great thinkers are chosen to lead the world forward, until, not for

possessions but virtues, not for his trappings but for himself, man is

respected, and the rights of a common humanity are everywhere enjoyed.

We believe that the destiny of humanity is accomplished, not by

revolving in a circle, but by a spiral ascent, and that a free

literature is its brightest precursor and accompaniment. Mental

liberty must be regarded as an operative cause the most powerful in

the redemption of every suffering class. Its champions, though they

perish, are the world's martyrs. Hearts everywhere beat quicker when

their names are mentioned, the scenes of their heroism are perpetually

hallowed, and their memory becomes a universal religion. When the

Bastile fell, the source of their beneficent might was remembered by

the victors, who sent the huge key to Mount Vernon. We may be assured

that when all nations shall have been regenerated through governments

which shall exist by and for the people--when liberty shall have so

far brought dignity of character and excellence in literature, as

to lead the masses to ask. "Where are the powers which wrought this

great and glorious change?" Heaven and earth shall reply, "Among those

powers--yea, foremost in its energetic and comprehensive efficacy was

the inspired pen, not less than the victorious sword, of the American

Revolution."

The main stream of the historic nations, with their progressive

literature, has always flowed toward the north-west. The original start

of this world-wide migration was long anterior to the times when the

soil of Europe was trodden by Greeks, Romans, Sclavonians, Germans,

or Celts. But however remote was the first impulse, the irresistible

spell has only deepened with its advancement, and in our day sends the

same Japhetic tribes to settle on western prairies, or explore the

regions of gold beyond. Intestine wars, which constituted the chief

barrier to general progress, are most commonly excited by difference

of races. But under our national banner all active elements, even the

most opposite, are gathering and becoming rapidly fused into each

other, so as to form one homogeneous and luminous whole. Civilization

is contagious, and of all sovereigns Liberty is most pacific toward

her admirers. Identity of language is a mighty auxiliary to elevating

equality, and the subjugation of this continent to the sway of our

native literature will present the most magnificent trophy that ever

signalized the triumph of civilization. That this will eventually be

accomplished by literary Americans, whose sphere of thought will be

as central as it will be both elevated and comprehensive, ought not

for a moment to be doubted. Thus far we have produced only a border

literature, narrow as the place of its birth, and frigid like the

clime. But when an adequate field shall have been cleared near the

centre of our domain, wherein intellect may extend an unfettered grasp,

and leisure is attained for elaborate composition, remote from foreign

models and independent of petty criticism, then the world will see

realized a literature commensurate with the vastness of the western

republic, and rich enough to endow all her children with more than

eastern wealth.

Coincident with the planting of the last English colony in America,

Leibnitz came forward at Berlin with his comparative philosophy of

language, and was the first successful classifier of the tongues

then known. The next step of advancement in this fundamental path of

literature was taken in England, in 1751, by John Harris, who, in his

"Hermes," laid the foundation of grammatical philosophy on the largest

scale. It is a significant fact that the third prominent step in the

same direction should be taken by an American, whose great national

work on the Indian tribes was, on the 3d of March, 1847, authorized

by Congress to be published, by special act. Not to anticipate our

review of science in this age, we may simply remark that another

national publication, that of Squier on the ancient monuments in the

Mississippi valley, has excited the most lively interest throughout

the archæological world, and recently won its richest medal. In

reference to the above-mentioned work by Doctor Schoolcraft, Doctor

Bunsen says: "In 1850, the first volume of that gigantic work appeared,

and now a third volume, printed in 1853, has been transmitted to me

by the liberality of that government. It may fairly be said that, by

this great national and Christian undertaking, which realizes the

aspirations of President Jefferson, and carries out to their full

extent the labors and efforts of a Secretary of State, the Honorable

Albert Gallatin, the government of the United States has done more

for the antiquities and language of a foreign race than any European

government has hitherto done for the language of their ancestors."

In the mental, not less than in the material world, this one rule

universally obtains, that, the higher the nature, and the more

important the influence of a given effect, the more deliberate is its

march toward perfectibility and development. If our literature is yet

as youthful as it has been slow, it has at least furnished abundant

indications that a great original career has actually begun, and under

auspices which promise the most brilliant success. Both in men and

animals a mixture of races differing from each other, but not too far

differenced, is a circumstance which tends most to the improvement

of the species; and in the history of letters, all that is greatest

and best has been accomplished by the most mixed races of mankind.

Diversified currents of free thought, as gigantic as the rivers which

reflect our central mountains, and irrigate the immensity of their

intervales, are pouring from the Atlantic toward the Pacific shores. On

their way, they will mingle and blend in an amalgam deeper, broader,

and richer than the preceding world ever saw. As of old, the elegance

of the Asiatic will be sustained by the vigor of the Dorian, while each

lends the other that quality without which neither could well succeed,

but by which multifarious co-operation, an aggregate of consummate

worth will be attained.

With reference to a worthy national literature, we are drifting in

a right direction; and whatever others may fear in consequence of

quitting antiquated channels and familiar scenes, we have good reasons

for indulging in sanguine hope. All past experience suggests the

expansion of our westward chart, and promises the richest discoveries

the bolder we venture forth. No nation can be debased through an

excess of wealth, luxury, and power, so long as a harmony is maintained

between its institutions and the progress of untrammeled opinion.

Political life, as well as moral, is but a series of regenerations;

and that nation which has longest braved the severest storms, where

the winds are comparatively free, has grown stronger in the tumult

than in the calm, and now possesses the greatest energy of youth in

those who are most rebellious against antique wrongs. We began with

this juvenile energy, and are maturing its best strength on the fruits

of all anterior struggles. Former heroes, in their blind madness, may

have pulled down the temple of ancient civilization on their shoulders,

and buried themselves beneath its ruins; but there is a resurrection

vouchsafed to all immortal life, and its mightiest manifestations of

every type are renewed on our shores. If this continent has longest

lain fallow, it is that the resuscitated energies of redeemed humanity

may produce their mightiest fruits thereon.

Wonderful works, produced in distant regions and at various times,

reduplicate their latent productiveness as they proceed from age

to age, creating an interminable progeny of ideas, and attesting

the vitality of genius evermore. This is the true transmigrator,

traversing all eras, and maintaining a prolific life amid every variety

of vicissitude, kindred to the Great Intelligence, by whose mandate

respecting human destinies, as in material things, all concomitants

may be changed, but nothing of utility is to be destroyed. What would

have been the present moral condition of the world if the Hebrew poetry

had never been translated; if the revival of the study of the Greek

literature had never taken place; if Raphael and Michael Angelo had

never been born; if Dantè, Petrarch, Boccacio, Chaucer, Shakspeare,

Calderon, Lord Bacon, and Milton had never existed; if no monuments

of ancient art had been handed down to us; and if the poetry of the

ancient religion had been extinguished with its belief? But by the

intervention of these and other like excitements, the human mind has

been awakened to the inventions of modern science, and the creation

of recent literatures, which transcend in actual worth all the

masterpieces of ancient times. Hereby is the continuity of society,

its progress and civilization secured. Many a noble head and heart are

dust, but every ennobling thought emanating thence, however long ago,

is now alive, and will forever be. Each drop blends with that great

wave of progress, the movement of the entire ocean of mind, which is

commensurate with the magnitude of the mass to be moved. In due time,

the final result of almighty love will be joyfully realized. All noble

growths are gradual, and that beneficent power which is destined to

become superior over every other, moves with a slowness the most

sublime in controlling subordinate ministrations to human weal. Divine

logic will not be less conclusive on account of the multitude of its

cumulative data, or the deliberateness of its deductions therefrom. As

Guizot suggests, Providence moves through time as the gods of Homer

through space--it takes a step, and ages have rolled away!

History ever tends to authenticate the fact that there is a general

civilization of the whole human race, and a destiny to be accomplished

through a prescribed course, in which each nation transmits to its

successors the wealth of every superseded age, thus contributing to an

aggregated store which is to be perpetually augmented for the common

good. This is the noblest as well as most interesting view to be taken

of progressive humanity, as it comprehends every other, and furnishes

the only true interpretation. In regard to depth of feeling and

diversity of ideas, modern literature is infinitely more profound and

affluent than that of the ancients. It may not be more perfect in form,

but it greatly excels in practicalness, and moral worth. It is in this

variety of elements, and the sublime identity of purpose manifested

in their constant struggle, that the essential superiority of our

civilization consists. The proof of this has been presented in all

the vast assemblage of facts which human annals have preserved. These

connect causes with their effects, thus constituting events which, when

they are once consummated, form the immortal portion of history, and

are to be studied as the soul of the past, the groundwork of present

improvement, and a secure guaranty of still greater excellence in the

future. A yearning after generalization, as the basis of improved

literary and spiritual progress, is the noblest and most powerful of

all our intellectual desires; and it is a very great privilege to be

born in an age and country where this aspiration may with the most

rational zeal be indulged.

Literature is not only associated legitimately with all that is great

and dignified in the manifestations of human power, but, in our age,

it also assumes the most solemn if not the most sublime of characters.

Some are bold to teach, like Fichte, that there is a Divine Idea

pervading the visible universe, which visible universe is but its

symbol and personification, animated by the principle of vitality. To

discern and grasp this, to live wholly in it, is the privilege and

vocation of virtue, knowledge, freedom; and the end, therefore, of all

intellectual efforts in every age. Literary men are the interpreters

of this latent enigma, a perpetual priesthood, standing forth,

generation after generation, as the dispensers and living types of

God's everlasting wisdom, commissioned to make it manifest, to reveal

and embody it by successive fragments in their works. Each age, by its

inherent tendencies, is different from every other age, and demands a

different manifestation of the eternal purpose. Hence every laborer

in the vineyard of letters must be thoroughly imbued with the spirit

of his age if he would be permanently useful; while he who is not

thus inspired, soon becomes a mere groper in the dark, both benighted

and impotent. This view explains the true civilizing principle of

literature, and expands it so as to embrace all things human and

divine. It is not only the expression of society, but also its very

life and soul, and may either be a powerful instrument for creation and

regeneration, or a fatal one for destruction. There is a reciprocal

influence between an age and the books it engenders, as there is

between the lettered spirit and its living use. The heroic grandeur

of Greece inspired Homer; but it was from Homer that its civilization

sprang. The first epic then garnered into itself all antecedent

history, and opened a channel wherein succeeding generations might

inherit all that bygone efforts and innovations had produced. Great

and revered models of subsequent nations have since been grafted upon

the original stock of literary worth, from which must surely result

both prose and poetical monuments of a comprehensive unity and force

commensurate with the age reserved for their transcendent excellence.

As we best prepare a people for a high Christianity by beginning to

preach to it at once, so we can not otherwise fit nations to enjoy

liberty than by directly inculcating among them its worth, through the

medium of a free literature; and it is certain that of all nations

belonging to the progressive family, Americans are best prepared for

this mission, since they have most desired and insisted upon it since

the birth of the republic. As the Greeks were more fitted for the fine

arts than the Romans, and the latter were mightier in arms than the

Mediævals whom Providence sent forth as the missionaries of a renewed

advancement, when the restoration of learning prepared the way for

still greater achievements, so is it the manifest destiny of the age of

Washington to diffuse in wider and deeper profusion the most humanizing

blessings, and thus to conduct instrumentally to that perfection of

civilization for which earth and man were designed.

CHAPTER II.