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ingly, that relate to this agency and its results in the experience of the churches in the United States, are those in which he himself feels most interest, and to which he would specially direct the attention of the reader.

The author has divided his work into eight Books. The First is devoted to preliminary remarks intended to throw light on various points, so that readers the least conversant with American history and society may, without difficulty, understand what follows. Some of these preliminary remarks may be thought at first not very pertinent to the subject in hand, but reasons will probably be found for changing this opinion before the reader comes to the end of the volume.

The Second Book treats of the early colonization of the country now forming the United States; the religious character of the first European colonists -their ecclesiastical institutions-and the state of the churches when the Revolution took place by which the colonies became independent of the mother-country.

The Third treats of the changes involved in and consequent upon that event-the influence of those changes-the character of the civil governments of the States-and the relations subsisting between those governments and the churches.

The Fourth exhibits the operations of the voluntary system in the United States, and the extent of its influence.

The Fifth treats of the discipline of the churches-the character of American preaching-and the subject of revivals.

The Sixth is occupied with brief notices of the evangelical denominations in the United States-their ecclesiastical polity and discipline-the doctrines peculiar to each-their history and prospects.

The Seventh treats in like manner of the unevangelical sects.

The Eighth shows what the churches are doing in the way of sending the Gospel to other lands.

From the very nature of such a work, it was requisite that the author should consult many authorities. In order to procure the requisite materials, he visited his native country last year, and so abundantly was he supplied with what he needed, that, in the actual execution of his task, he found himself in want of only one or two books and documents, and these of no essential importance.

But he would be guilty of great injustice were he not to acknowledge his obligations to many distinguished friends in America for their kind co-operation and aid. Without naming all who have anywise assisted him by furnishing necessary documents, or in communicating important facts, he cannot forbear to mention the names of the Rev. Drs. Dewitt, Hodge, Goodrich, Bacon, Anderson, Durbin, Emerson, and Schmucker, and the Rev. Messrs. Tracy, Berg, and Allen.* To the secretaries of almost all the Religious Societies and Institutions in the country he is also greatly indebted for the Re

* These gentlemen belong to the Reformed Dutch, Presbyterian, Congregational, Methodist, Lutheran, German Reformed, and Baptist churches, and are among the most distinguished ministers in the United States.

ports, and in many cases, also, for the valuable hints they have furnished. Nor can he omit to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. Howe, Principal of the Institute for the Blind at Boston, the Rev. Mr. Weld, Principal of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Hartford, in Connecticut, and Dr. Woodward, Director of the Hospital for the Insane at Worcester, Massachusetts.

For the invaluable chapter on Revivals, the reader, as well as the author, is indebted to the Rev. C. A. Goodrich, D.D., who has long been a distinguished professor in Yale College, at New-Haven, in Connecticut, than whom no man in the United States is more capable of treating that subject in a judicious and philosophical manner.

Nor should the names of the Honourable Henry Wheaton, the Minister for the United States of America at the court of Prussia, and of Robert Walsh, Esq., now residing in Paris, be omitted. Among other obligations, to the former of these gentlemen, the author is indebted for some views which the reader will find in the Third Book; and he has to thank the latter for many important suggestions which he has found much reason to appreciate in the course of his work. He makes this acknowledgment with the more pleasure, because Mr. Walsh is a Roman Catholic, and yet, with a kindness and liberality in every way remarkable, he tendered his assistance with the full knowledge that the author is a decided Protestant, and that his work, however liberal the spirit in which it is written, was to be of a thoroughly Protestant character.

One word more to the English reader. The author deems it right to say that his work was originally designed and primarily written for Germany and other countries on the Continent of Europe. Accordingly, it is fuller on some points than was absolutely requisite for British readers, these being, no doubt, better acquainted with the United States than are the inhabitants of the Continent.

Deeply sensible that the work is far from perfect, he commends it, nevertheless, to the blessing of Him without whose favour nothing that is good can be accomplished.

GENEVA (SWITZERLAND), September, 1843.

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RELIGION IN AMERICA.

BOOK I.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL NOTICE OF NORTH AMERICA.

case. These mountains simply stand, as it were, on the plateau or elevated plain on which those waters have their origin. Rising in the immediate vicinity of each other, and often interlocking, these streams are not in the least affected in their course by the mountains, the gaps and valleys of which

them, instead of their accommodating themselves to the shape and position of the mountains. In a part of its northern extension, this range of mountains seems to detach itself entirely from the plain where those streams have their source, and lies quite east of it, so that the streams that fall into the Atlantic, in making their way to the southeast, as it were, cut through the mountain range, in its entire width.

When first discovered by Europeans, and for a century and more afterward, the long and comparatively narrow strip of country between the Alleghany range and the Atlantic Ocean was covered with an unbroken forest. The mountains, likewise, up to their very summits, and the valleys that lay between them, were clad with wood. Nothing deserving the name of a field, or a prairie, was anywhere to be seen.

THE Configuration of the Continent of North America, at first view, presents several remarkable features. Spreading out like a partially open fan, with its apex towards the south, its coasts, in advancing|seem to have been made to accommodate northward, recede from each other with considerable regularity of proportion and correspondence, until, from being separated by only sixty miles at the Isthmus of Darien, they diverge to the extent of 4500 miles; the east coast pursuing a northeastern, and the west a nothwestern direction. Parallel to these coasts, and at almost equal distances from them, there are two ranges of mountains. The eastern range, called the Alleghany, or Appalachian, runs from southwest to northeast, at an average distance of 150 miles from the Atlantic. Its length is usually estimated at 900 miles." Its greatest width, which is in Virginia and Pennsylvania, is about 120 miles. Rather a system, than a range, of mountains, it is composed of parallel ridges, generally maintaining a northeast and southwest direction. But as it advances towards its northern extremity, and passes through the New-England States, it loses much of its continuity, and gradually runs off into a chain of nearly isolated mountains. The southern extremity gradually sinks down into the hills of Georgia, unless, indeed, we may consider it as disappearing in the low, central line of the peninsula of Florida. The northeastern end terminates in the ridges of Nova Scotia. The whole of this range is within the limits of the United States, excepting that part of it which stretches into the British Provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We may remark, in passing, that although this mountain range apparently separates the waters which flow into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, such is not really the

This is the length of the chain considered as a continuous range, from the northern parts of Georgia and Alabama to the State of New-York. Taken in the extensive sense in which it is spoken of in the text, the entire range exceeds 1500 English miles.

On the western side of the continent, as has been stated, another range of mountains runs parallel to the coast of the Pacific Ocean. This range is a part of the immense system of mountains running from Cape Horn throughout the entire length of the continent, and seems as if intended, like the backbone in large animals, to give it unity and strength. It is by far the longest in the world;* and bearing different names in different parts of its extent, it is the Andes in South America, the Cordilleras in Guatimala and Mexico, and the Rocky Mountains† in the north.

The long, and, in many parts, wide strip of land between the Oregon Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, is claimed, on the

* The entire length of this range is estimated to be 9000 English miles.

+ The proper name of this portion of the range is Oregon, a word of Indian origin, and which, whatever may be its original signification, is a much better name than that which it has so long borne, and which has nothing distinctive about it, for all mountains are rocky.

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