Let Us Suppose You And I To Be Travelling; We Observe That In This
House, To The Right, Lives A
Catholic, who prays to God as he has
been taught, and believes in transubstantiation; he works and raises
wheat, he
Has a large family of children, all hale and robust; his
belief, his prayers offend nobody. About one mile farther on the
same road, his next neighbour may be a good honest plodding German
Lutheran, who addresses himself to the same God, the God of all,
agreeably to the modes he has been educated in, and believes in
consubstantiation; by so doing he scandalises nobody; he also works
in his fields, embellishes the earth, clears swamps, etc. What has
the world to do with his Lutheran principles? He persecutes nobody,
and nobody persecutes him, he visits his neighbours, and his
neighbours visit him. Next to him lives a seceder, the most
enthusiastic of all sectaries; his zeal is hot and fiery, but
separated as he is from others of the same complexion, he has no
congregation of his own to resort to, where he might cabal and
mingle religious pride with worldly obstinacy. He likewise raises
good crops, his house is handsomely painted, his orchard is one of
the fairest in the neighbourhood. How does it concern the welfare of
the country, or of the province at large, what this man's religious
sentiments are, or really whether he has any at all? He is a good
farmer, he is a sober, peaceable, good citizen: William Penn himself
would not wish for more. This is the visible character, the
invisible one is only guessed at, and is nobody's business. Next
again lives a Low Dutchman, who implicitly believes the rules laid
down by the synod of Dort. He conceives no other idea of a clergyman
than that of an hired man; if he does his work well he will pay him
the stipulated sum; if not he will dismiss him, and do without his
sermons, and let his church be shut up for years. But
notwithstanding this coarse idea, you will find his house and farm
to be the neatest in all the country; and you will judge by his
waggon and fat horses, that he thinks more of the affairs of this
world than of those of the next. He is sober and laborious,
therefore he is all he ought to be as to the affairs of this life;
as for those of the next, he must trust to the great Creator. Each
of these people instruct their children as well as they can, but
these instructions are feeble compared to those which are given to
the youth of the poorest class in Europe. Their children will
therefore grow up less zealous and more indifferent in matters of
religion than their parents. The foolish vanity, or rather the fury
of making Proselytes, is unknown here; they have no time, the
seasons call for all their attention, and thus in a few years, this
mixed neighbourhood will exhibit a strange religious medley, that
will be neither pure Catholicism nor pure Calvinism. A very
perceptible indifference even in the first generation, will become
apparent; and it may happen that the daughter of the Catholic will
marry the son of the seceder, and settle by themselves at a distance
from their parents. What religious education will they give their
children? A very imperfect one. If there happens to be in the
neighbourhood any place of worship, we will suppose a Quaker's
meeting; rather than not show their fine clothes, they will go to
it, and some of them may perhaps attach themselves to that society.
Others will remain in a perfect state of indifference; the children
of these zealous parents will not be able to tell what their
religious principles are, and their grandchildren still less. The
neighbourhood of a place of worship generally leads them to it, and
the action of going thither, is the strongest evidence they can give
of their attachment to any sect. The Quakers are the only people who
retain a fondness for their own mode of worship; for be they ever so
far separated from each other, they hold a sort of communion with
the society, and seldom depart from its rules, at least in this
country. Thus all sects are mixed as well as all nations; thus
religious indifference is imperceptibly disseminated from one end of
the continent to the other; which is at present one of the strongest
characteristics of the Americans. Where this will reach no one can
tell, perhaps it may leave a vacuum fit to receive other systems.
Persecution, religious pride, the love of contradiction, are the
food of what the world commonly calls religion. These motives have
ceased here; zeal in Europe is confined; here it evaporates in the
great distance it has to travel; there it is a grain of powder
inclosed, here it burns away in the open air, and consumes without
effect.
But to return to our back settlers. I must tell you, that there is
something in the proximity of the woods, which is very singular. It
is with men as it is with the plants and animals that grow and live
in the forests; they are entirely different from those that live in
the plains. I will candidly tell you all my thoughts but you are not
to expect that I shall advance any reasons. By living in or near the
woods, their actions are regulated by the wildness of the
neighbourhood. The deer often come to eat their grain, the wolves to
destroy their sheep, the bears to kill their hogs, the foxes to
catch their poultry. This surrounding hostility immediately puts the
gun into their hands; they watch these animals, they kill some; and
thus by defending their property, they soon become professed
hunters; this is the progress; once hunters, farewell to the plough.
The chase renders them ferocious, gloomy, and unsociable; a hunter
wants no neighbour, he rather hates them, because he dreads the
competition.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 21 of 79
Words from 20260 to 21271
of 79752
