The General Religious Level Is, I
Think, Higher With Them; But There Is, If I Am Right In My
Supposition, With Us A Higher Eminence In Religion, As There Is Also
A Deeper Depth Of Ungodliness.
I think, then, that we are bound to acknowledge that the Americans
have succeeded as a nation, politically and socially.
When I speak
of social success, I do not mean to say that their manners are
correct according to this or that standard; I will not say that they
are correct or are not correct. In that matter of manners I have
found those with whom it seemed to me natural that I should
associate very pleasant according to my standard. I do not know
that I am a good critic on such a subject, or that I have ever
thought much of it with the view of criticising; I have been happy
and comfortable with them, and for me that has been sufficient. In
speaking of social success I allude to their success in private life
as distinguished from that which they have achieved in public life;
to their successes in commerce, in mechanics, in the comforts and
luxuries of life, in physic and all that leads to the solace of
affliction, in literature, and I may add also, considering the youth
of the nation, in the arts. We are, I think, bound to acknowledge
that they have succeeded. And if they have succeeded, it is vain
for us to say that a system is wrong which has, at any rate,
admitted of such success.
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