They Are Willing To Have Religion, As They Are Willing To
Have Laws; But They Choose To Make It For Themselves.
They do not
object to pay for it, but they like to have the handling of the
article for which they pay.
As the descendants of Puritans and
other godly Protestants, they will submit to religious teaching,
but as republicans they will have no priestcraft. The French at
their revolution had the latter feeling without the former, and
were therefore consistent with themselves in abolishing all
worship. The Americans desire to do the same thing politically,
but infidelity has had no charms for them. They say their prayers,
and then seem to apologize for doing so, as though it were hardly
the act of a free and enlightened citizen, justified in ruling
himself as he pleases. All this to me is rowdy. I know no other
word by which I can so well describe it.
Nevertheless the nation is religious in its tendencies, and prone
to acknowledge the goodness of God in all things. A man there is
expected to belong to some church, and is not, I think, well looked
on if he profess that he belongs to none. He may be a
Swedenborgian, a Quaker, a Muggletonian, - anything will do, But it
is expected of him that he shall place himself under some flag, and
do his share in supporting the flag to which he belongs. This duty
is, I think, generally fulfilled.
CHAPTER XX.
FROM BOSTON TO WASHINGTON.
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