Other Nations, Of Which I Will Not Now Stop To
Name Even One, Have Had Their Periods Of Natural Dishonesty.
It may
be that others are even now to be placed in the same category.
But
it is a fault which industry and intelligence combined will after
awhile serve to lessen and to banish. The industrious man desires
to keep the fruit of his own industry, and the intelligent man will
ultimately be able to do so. That the Americans are self-idolaters
is perhaps true - with a difference. An American desires you to
worship his country, or his brother; but he does not often, by any
of the usual signs of conceit, call upon you to worship himself; as
an American, treating of America, he is self-idolatrous; that is a
self-idolatry which I can endure. Then, as to his want of religion -
and it is a very sad want - I can only say of him that I, as an
Englishman, do not feel myself justified in flinging the first stone
at him. In that matter of religion, as in the matter of education,
the American, I think, stands on a level higher than ours. There is
not in the States so absolute an ignorance of religion as is to be
found in some of our manufacturing and mining districts, and also,
alas! in some of our agricultural districts; but also, I think,
there is less of respect and veneration for God's word among their
educated classes than there is with us; and, perhaps, also less
knowledge as to God's word.
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