cious. The people are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Dutch, French, and Swedes. Now it is not possible that all these natives and foreigners should yet have been amalgamated, and formed into one homogeneous mass. The prejudices and habits, if not the tenets in which they were respectively educated, require them to have as many ministers as sects to which they belong, or no ministers at all. 1 tarried three weeks in a village in which there are no less than nine different denominations; and all so tenacious of their respective peculiarities as to insist upon the alternative of having each one its own kind of minister, or none. The Seceder, the Covenanter, the Lutheran, the Dutch Reformed, the Quaker, the Catholic, the Universalist, the Smithite, and other sectaries equally remote from these and from one another in religious opinions;-how will they, so opposite and generally so bigotted, unite in the support of any truly orthodox minister, who of course must, in some important points, differ from them all? and yet these various denominations exist extensively in the west; and several of them, in nearly every township and village. This is an evil which I knew not how to estimate till I saw it; but an evil which almost necessarily results from the mixed character of the people which foreign countries as well as the Eastern States, are constantly sending to the fertile territories of the west. Nor is diversity of denomination the only alarming effect of such a multifarious population. There are vast numbers who do not belong, and, consistently with their moral sentiments, cannot belong to any religious denomination whatever. From different quarters of the world, various species of infidelity have been introduced: and much of the seed industriously sown, has taken deep root. 1 was credibly informed that in one county in which I spent a week, most of the gentlemen of the bar were confirmed infidels, and nearly all the remainder inclining to infidelity. Deism prevails extensively among the opulent and influential classes of the community throughout the south western parts of Ohio. Thus it appears that greatly as the ambassadors of Christ are needed in our distant new settlements, the prospect of their being regularly established there soon, in any considerable numbers, is extremely unpromising. Another point which demands our regret, is the fact that modes of church government are made a subject of considerable contention, in many extensive districts both of New-York and Ohio. The dispute is chiefly between Congregationalists and Presbyterians; although both, in some instances, are warmly combatted by Episcopalians. As in almost all other cases, the controversy is intemperate and disastrous in proportion as it is made to rest on a jure divino basis. It was early to have been expected that the subject of ecclesiastical regimen would occasion considerable perplexity, if not collision, in towns settled by the members of two communions so much alike in doctrine, as to create a mutual attraction, and at the same time so dissimilar in discipline, as to produce a degree of mutual repulsion. By these two forces a large proportion of the western churches have long been bandied. Nor have they all found a resting place in either of the extremes, or at any intermediate point. Many of them have attempted to compound their differences, by laying aside a portion of their respective peculiarities, and incorporating the remainder, under certain modifications, into a common system. But this plan has generally produced, sooner or later, uneasiness in one or both of the par ties, and resulted in new difficulties. Some churches of each kind, are of the opinion that no compromise of this nature is practicable; and although they are professedly labouring to retain their peculiarities in the exercise of reciprocal good will, no little alienation, nevertheless still exists. It may be remarked however, that the present progress of things is favourable to the Presbyterian interest. And possibly the day is not far distant, when the Congregationalism of those regions, will have lost most of its distinctive features, or have been wholly transmuted, and brought under the full and perhaps, not undesirable jurisdiction of the General Assembly. Again: The prevalence of vice is alarming. Scarcely did I stop at any place for half an hour, but I was forced to hear the voice of the profane swearer. And often the most shocking oaths, the most direful curses and imprecations were uttered by persons against others, against their beasts, and even against themselves. Of the many other forms of vice peculiarly prevalent in most of the new settlements, I will mention only one, viz. the violation of the sabbath. By a great proportion of the people in places not a few, the holy day is devoted to purposes of travelling, visiting, fishing, hunting, drinking, gaming, labouring, or other kinds of amusement, or secular gain. In many places where public worship is attended, you will often see loaded teams and noisy vagrants passing directly before the doors of the sanctuary, and perhaps large herds of cattle impelled forward to some distant market. I tarried one sab bath in a splendid village, in which a swine was butchered within a few rods of the house of God; and that while a portion, alas! that it should have been so small a portion, of the people were assembled for worship! O how did my soul long to be away from the sight and the hearing of such VOL. VII.-No. 1. 4 abominations, to enjoy once more the almost universal stillness and decorum of a sabbath in my native State. Further: The want of schools is another painful subject which, as it is connected with the low state of morals in most parts of that interesting section of our country, ought not to pass unnoticed. It should be observed, however, that too much cannot be said in praise of the efforts which have been successfully made by the State of New-York, to establish common schools on a liberal and permanent foundation. No State in the Union can boast of a more general diffusion of the means of education. In the Western Re serve also, schools are numerous ; but in most of the other parts of Ohio, they are comparatively rare. I was informed that the inhabitants are authorized by law to form themselves into regular school districts, and to tax themselves for the purpose of instituting and maintaining primary schools. But as yet, they have not generally availed themselves of the privilege. So revolting is every thing like a pecuniary levy, that both their ministers and schoolmasters are supported by a voluntary, and too often, by a very slender subscription. Those parents, therefore, who are alive to the interests of their children, and can sustain the expense, are compelled to obtain a room and a teacher as they can, and institute what may be properly called private schools. This system excludes, of course, nearly all the children of the poor from the benefits of even a common education. Hence in almost every township, you will find considerable numbers who can neither read nor write. Indeed, I was distinctly informed that the principal reason why in multitudes of religious assemblies, few psalm books are used except by the minister and the clerk, of whom the latter delivers out to the singers the whole psalm in successive portions of two lines, is, that so many of the people who must all, if possible, actively join in the solemnity, are utterly unable to read. As it respects the means of education, most of the western counties of Pennsylvania, are in a condition quite as deplorable. In the course of 200 miles I noticed only one building that bore any decided resemblance to a district school-house. I might proceed to mention other lamentable things, such as that many of the churches whose formularies bear a near affinity to our own, are erroneous in doctrine, lax in discipline, and deficient in charity towards the churches of New England; that political feeling, especially in Pennsylvania, is exceedingly turbulent, and forms a dreadful barrier to the progress of religion; that intemperance and idleness are unparallelled, except perhaps in some of our large sea ports; and that pious people not only are comparatively few, but have generally little influence, and are almost ready to sit down in despair of ever seeing the moral wilderness around them converted into a fruitful field. But I forbear. Nor should I have thus far extended this unpleasant detail, but for the purpose and with the hope, of quickening us in the discharge of three imperious duties. 1. The duty of gratitude to God. Compared with the situation of the inhabitants of the new settlements, almost every thing in ours of a spiritua! nature, is on the side of our advantage. Here, in every town houses of worship are erected, churches organized, and ecclesiastical societies established; and in nearly all of them pastors are settled, and competently supported. Here the great majority of the churches have been blest with repeated outpourings of the Spirit of God; but there I was as a wonder unto many, merely because I came from a land of revivals, and had been often among them. They listened with astonishment, and with longing desires after the same blessings, while I told them what God had wrought for us. When I related how many of our dear young people had recently taken upon them the yoke of Jesus, they responded with a mournful sigh, "Of the church in this place, not one young person is a member." Here the population is unmixed with foreigners of different nations. We are all descendants of the Puritans, who were Englishmen, and mostly pious Englishmen. Here, the ambassadors of Christ are generally respected and loved, and welcomed into almost every house. Here, although profaneness exists among some classes, it is almost universally discountenanced and abstained from, by those who have any regard for their welfare in eternity, or their reputation a mong men. Here, if the sabbath is frequently violated by a few, it is seldom done openly. The voice of public opinion is set against it, and operates as a powerful restraint upon the most of those who have no sense of the holiness of the day. Here, schools are multiplied in every town, and generally well conducted. The laws provide for their establishment and their regular inspection. And their pe cuniary support is mainly derived from the public treasury; so that the blessing of a common education is diffused almost equally among the children of the rich and the poor, Here, our courts of justice are not thronged with Irish culprits, nor our prisons with Irish thieves. Here, the inhabitants with a few exceptions, are hospitable, industrious, *This epithet is not designed to insinuate that the inhabitants of the new States are generally wanting in courtesy and kindness to strangers. For although our company made in vain, no less than five applications for lodging at so many different houses; and although in each of those cases the repulse was the more try, ing as we were ill, or encountered by storm; yet, in all other instances we were treated with great civility and humanity. ། 1 and educated from the cradle to pay at least external respect to religion, religious institutions, and the people of God. Blessed be the God of our fathers, the happy-the enviable days of Connecticut are not past. She may have undergone some changes; but her churches, her altars, her ministers, and all her holy institutions remain, Considering then how highly we are privileged above those who are experiencing the moral privations and trials incident to nearly all new settlements, let there be inscribed on all our hearts laws of eternal gratitude to Him who hath made us to differ. 2. The duty of making a right use of our advantages. The inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon were grossly wicked; but there was this to mitigate their punishment,-the light against which they closed their eyes was small. It was the impenitent Jews, so highly exalted in regard to their means of spiritual improvement, who were emphatically to be cast down to hell. The brows of the Lord Jesus were nev. er clothed with more awful solemnity, and his holy voice never broke forth in more alarming tones of denunciation, than when he pointed them to the number and the magnitude of their abused mercies, only to notify them how deep they were to sink in final ruin. We have something more to do then, than just to survey the moral desolations of many parts of our country, and bless ourselves that we inherit the enviable institutions of the Pilgrims. External privileges alone will not save us. No connexion with a particular church, or religious denomination; no participation in the choicest means of grace; no protracted resi I am persuaded that whatever want of hospitality exists in the new settlements, is confined almost exclusively to persons of a certain foreign extraction, and to "the first settler," who precedes the arrival of inhabitants from the older States, and who, as Dr. Rush remarks, "is nearly related to an Indian in his manners.” dence in a region of schools and churches, ministers and revivals, can be a substitute for repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ-for an absolute regeneration of the heart. So long as this change is not wrought within us, we are posting on to a dreadful retribution under the guilt of misusing all that distinguishes us above the inhabitants of the wilderness. The unspeakable privileges which we enjoy are costly. They were purchased for us not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, and the transmission of them to us, cost our venerable ancestors innumerable privations and hardships, perils and tears. We cannot, therefore, abuse them with impunity. We cannot neglect them and be saved. : Finally The duty of doing our utmost to improve the moral condition of the people, whose deplorable circumstances have been partially spread before you. Where there is so much indifference and abounding sectarism, and so many infidels of various gradations, there is much to be done by able missionaries, to rouse apathy, to defend truth, and attack error, before that extensive waste will be transformed into a garden of the Lord. The truth of this position is demonstrated by the fact, that nearly all which has been hitherto done towards accomplishing this object, has been effected primarily through the faithful agency of missionaries sent out by the charities of the Eastern States. New Connecticut, the moral garden of Ohio, has been made what it is, chiefly by the blessing of God on the foresight, care, and continued bounty of the Misfewness and scattered state of the insionary Society of this State. The habitants,their divisions of sentiment, and their comparative poverty, together with other multiplied embarrassments which commonly exist in new settlements, have rendered them greatly dependent on our aid. The wise policy of our Missionary Society has been, therefore, to send missionaries to be ultimately settled among them for the whole or a part of the time, as they were able to bear the expense, and surmount other obstacles. To the prosecution of this judicious course, the Reserve owes nearly all her churches and ministers, and nearly the whole of her moral eminence. Hence I cannot but express it as my deliberate opinion that, among all the reasonable calls which are made upon us for our religious charities, none is louder or more urgent than that which is annually addressed to us by the Missionary Society of Connecticut, in behalf of the western settlements. And if we have any gratitude to God for our peculiar mercies, or any christian sympathy with others who are deprived of them, I am confident that we shall not need to have this work of beneficence laboriously pressed upon us as a duty. We shall enter upon it as a privilege, as a high gratification of our warmest feelings. No science has been so little understood as the science of mind. Of this fact, the unfixed and everchanging systems of mental philosophers are ample demonstration. If it were possible to grasp by a single effort of mind, the systems which have successively gained the admiration of the world, and have successively been forgotten, we should have, on this subject, a more impressive view of the gigantic strides of human intellect, and of the abortiveness of all human effort:-of that mighty power which can busy itself in the profoundest depths of mind, and of the littleness of all its accomplishments, than on any other So fixed and unalterable is this fact, that an attempt now to explore the nature and laws of mind, is regarded almost as an attempt of course to abolish other systems, and to build upon their ruins, a system founded on new principles, and new solutions of intellectual phenomena. This constant change of system is not owing to any change of the phenomena of mind. It has been as sumed in all systems, that the laws of mind are in all generations the same :-that the same circumstances every where, and in every member of the human family will develope the same laws of action. Neither have the fluctuations of mental science been owing to any indistinctness with regard to the field of legitimate investigation. It is ascertained that the laws of matter apply to all matter:-that wherever a body is found exhibiting the common properties of material substances, we may reason and act in relation to it, without the formality of subjecting it to experiment. The same thing has been assumed in regard to mind. It has never been considered as a matter demanding proof that one mind is governed by the same laws as another : -or that the same movements of mind are indications of the same character. And this has been assumed not merely in relation to the human family, but in relation to all minds to the intellect of the uni verse. We assume that the same laws of mind which govern man, move the energies of all created spirits; and of the Great Spirit uncreated;-and that the same things which are in one an indication of wisdom, benignity, and intelligence, are an indication of similar traits of character in all others. And to ascertain what are the laws of mind, we apply the same principles of investigation to men, and to angels, and to God. We observe the developement of their minds; we catch the indications of their agency, and refer what we observe of |