far to the west and south, so that its skirts only hang upon us. The same may be said of political influence,-that influence which this nation exercises in relation to others. In these departments, our superior relative importance has passed away. We feel it in the decisions of the national councils every year. It will henceforth be impossible for New England to secure any local object, depending on national patronage, that shall interfere with the interests of other and more powerful sections of the country. Her superior federal and political importance in the Union has passed away. The only claim to precedence, which she now can set up, her only prospect of a superior and pervading influence, in this country, are found in the world of mind.

Knowledge is power. Add to this, moral worth, such as the Christian religion is calculated to create, manly character, and a spirit of enterprise ;-and with these advantages, cherished and wielded in all their possible extent, New England may well be content, under the loss of superior federal and political consequence in the Union. She is destined, if not unfaithful to herself, and to her God, to exercise a higher, and a nobler influence, over the nation, and through the world;-an influence which shall itself control, wisely and beneficently, those very agencies, federal and national, which seemed to have escaped from her grasp; and to a very considerable extent, such is already the fact.

It is an indisputable truth,-no one, who has opportunity to make himself acquainted with the merits of this question, can fail to see it, to whatever part of the Union he may belong,-that, from the beginning, New England has taken and maintained superior ground, in learning, morals, and religion-in all those departments of education, which are most eminently calculated to exalt, purify, and invigorate human character.

In the statement of facts, such as belong to this subject, I do not think it worth while to stand in fear of that sectional jealousy, which may exist, or which may be supposed to exist, and which, perhaps, may rise in remonstrance against the advancement of such positions. Nor would I fear the accusation of a want of modesty and of good grace, or the impeachment of too much self-complacency, or of a hardihood of character, which might be better tempered by a little more intercourse with people out of the bounds of New England. I speak upon this subject as a citizen of the United States,-of the world.* And I have a class of facts under my hand, which I think adequate to corroborate the positions I assume. Jealousy, if it exists, is of little consequence. It must die away, or consume itself. And it is no matter how much emulation may be provoked, by such discussions, to go and do likewise, or, if possible, to excel. Genuine talent, in such a

* The writer of this article, though a native of New England, has spent nearly all his life, since he left the schools, in other parts of the Union.

community as that of the United States, will make its own way, and ultimately find its place, even against all local prejudice, and sectional jealousies.

I say, then, in the first place, that the literary institutions, and modes of education, in New England, have been, and still are, in general, greatly in advance of those in other parts of the Union. There is a wider, deeper, and more uniform patronage of education here. There is a more general and equal diffusion of knowledge. There is a much greater proportion of that exalted character, which the best education is calculated to produce. And the entire community of New England constantly bears the impress of such a superior state of things. It is true, indeed, that there are many flourishing literary institutions in other parts of the country, and the modes of education are rapidly advancing. But they cannot, if the sons of the Pilgrims are true to themselves and their ancestors, overtake those of New England. It is here they come for models. And it is morally impossible, that they should make themselves equal, so long as New England supports her proportionate ratio of advancement.

The state of morals and religion in New England, is greatly in advance of most other parts of the country. Morality depends upon religion. And it is the peculiar and eminent character of New England for religion, descending from the pilgrim fathers, which has given to her that pre-eminent character for morality, which is universally conceded to her, and to which she is, as yet, so justly entitled.

On the score of religion, there is, indeed, a subtraction to be made from the honor of New England, for the occasion of which we greatly grieve. We blush, and are deeply humbled, that the metropolis of this section of our country, and along with it the oldest, best endowed, and otherwise the most respectable literary institution in our land, should have suffered, under the visitation of God, such a deep and fearful degeneracy, in point of religion, from the integrity and faith of our fathers. But we are yet happy in the conviction, that this apostacy is becoming more and more circumscribed in its influence; that the eyes of the people are beginning to be opened to these ominous encroachments, and themselves humbled before God. There is, at this moment, manifestly a check, if not a retrograde movement, of this guilty dereliction of religious principle. If there cannot be a reformation in this particular, if these religious principles cannot be arrested, but must be permitted to go on, then farewell forever to the superior and commanding influence of New England. She must not only retire from her superior political importance, but sink down under the deep disgrace and self-destroying curse of an abandonment of those high principles, which inscribed their characters on the rock of Plymouth, and which have so long given pre-eminence and illus

trious character to the favored descendants of the Pilgrims. But we trust in God we have no occasion to take up this burden of prophecy, nor to weep this lamentation over the blighted prospects of New England's glory. This insiduous foe, which has made its way by stratagem into our camp, while the sentinels slept, is discovered is even now bending and falling backward before the onset of a determined phalanx, guided with truth, and with the conscious possession of rights secured by God, and purchased at the highest sacrifice by those who first planted them on this soil.

Much as we deplore this degeneracy, and are abased on account of it, we are happy in being able to say, that it has not materially affected the general character of New England. The impress of that original influence, which fled from the persecutions of papacy and nonconformity, across the ocean, was too deep and too abiding to be effaced by the transient and restricted operation of such a cause. The unadulterated religion of the Pilgrims has proved a leaven of persevering constancy, pervading with purifying efficacy the great mass of this community. God has remembered his covenant, has blessed the children of his people, has poured out his Spirit upon them, and supported an almost uninterrupted succession of revivals of religion in one place and in another, till these effusions of the divine Spirit have become frequent, and copious, and widely extended.

It is this peculiar character of God's gracious dispensations, vouchsafed in what are commonly called revivals of religion,-a character scarcely known in the meantime in other parts of Christendom,—it is this, I say, which has supported the moral virtue of New England, against the natural tendencies to deteriorate, and given it such prominency over other parts of our country, and of the world. These revivals have followed the children of New England to the west, exhibiting the same features, and exerting the same purifying influence. The most hopeful character of our country, in whatever part of the Union, (I call that character hopeful which is nearest to God, and most truly Christian,) a very great portion of this character, I am myself persuaded, may be found to have some intimate connexion with an influence, which has gone forth from this cradle and nursery of piety, and of high Christian virtue. Most generally there is some visible trace of such an origin. The great city and State of New York have been not a little moulded by the hand of New England, in all their most desirable attributes of character. New England population has rolled on, and swelled out, and covered the entire section of the United States above the Ohio river, so that it may fairly be said, that New England character, within those limits, has become predominant. As travellers, or as residents, the enterprising sons of New England have pervaded the Union, and we may rest assured, have not failed to exercise their influence.

Most of the great national charitable institutions, such as the Tract Society, the Education Society, the Home Missionary Society, &c. &c., received their original impulse, from New England. And one other, which is rapidly acquiring patronage through the nations, among those denominations of Christians which can unite in promoting its object,—and one too, which is already stretching out its arms of influence to the ends of the earth, limited by no longitude or latitude that embraces the habitations of men-the American Board of Foreign Missions, was born, and grew up to manhood, in New England. I need not say, that the conception and scope of this institution are vast, and that" its field is" literally "the world." It embraces nothing else, and nothing less, in its design, than the conversion of the world.

The cause of temperance, or an entire abstinence from the use of ardent spirits, has already embodied public opinion to a very large extent, and accomplished a vast deal towards its object, within this district, and is growing in its influence every day, while other parts of the country are yet hardly touched. When the people of New England are told, that there are three hundred thousand drunkards in the United States, thirty thousand of whom die annually and prematurely, and that twenty six millions of dollars are annually expended to purchase this mighty ruin, temporal and eternal, not only of the individual victims marked in these numbers, but of the still greater numbers, that are connected with them in life, bringing a devastation over families, and over the morals of the country, which defies imagination to estimate,-when, I say, the people of New England are duly certified of these astounding facts-enough to bring tears from the marble, and a groan of sympathy from the whole inanimate creation, they will not be, they have not been slow to feel the spirit-stirring virtue of their ancestry, and to form a sanctified alliance to break the spell of this physical and moral incubus, which rests, with such an oppressive, overwhelming hand, on the bosom, on the very soul, as well of their own community, as of the United States.

There is another evil in this country, big with fearful destiny, for the alleviation and removal of which, I am persuaded, the spirit and the men of New England must take lead, however that large portion of the Union, whose morbid sensibility is most tenderly touched by such interference, so called, may cry, avaunt. It is admitted that the Republic of the United States, as such, is not responsible for the introduction of slavery into its bosom. But heaven, and the rights of man, will hold us responsible for its removal. Nor will heaven, or the rights of man be satisfied with a long deferred and tardy enterprise, to remove from the heart and face of our country this hydra, of a thousand fold more horrible aspect, and however many of its heads may be stricken off, yet containing in itself a thousand-ten thousand times more of self-generating

powers, than the fabled original. Its amazing inconsistency with the genius of our government and institutions, is too glaring to permit a long protracted coexistence of the two. They who can tolerate the one, will not long, under that transforming temperament which God has given to man, be fit for the other. It is the spirit, and I may add, the men of New England, with a few prominent exceptions, who have urged the institution of that redeeming process, which is now operating, with extended arms, over the mighty mass, and with a vital influence, through the very heart of this immense body of human guilt. The two grand agents of this holy enterprise at the present moment, the one standing alone on the plains of Liberia, the other managing the correspondence, and circulating information at home, are both of them young men of New England.

I profess, I have not pursued this train of thought in the way of boasting, nor would I be guilty of it, to the disparagement of other sections of the Union. Were it within the scope of our present design, I could trace the same virtues, extensively and deeply impressed, and prominently exhibited, throughout the States. I have only wished to show, that there is a peculiarity in the character of New England, and that this peculiarity is highly honorable, and greatly hopeful of good to the nation, and to the world; that it has already made its impression on the nation, and is exerting and extending its influence to the ends of the earth. I have wished to show, that the enteprising spirit of New England has thrown its influence largely into the channel of moral and religious reformation, and that it has not only conceived some high and grand designs for the promotion of these objects, but that it has actually reduced those designs into organized systems of operation, which are even now marching on with augmented energies to the consummation of some of the grandest hopes, that could possibly gratify and cheer the purest benevolence of man, or of angel.

If it is true, as I have attempted to show in a former paper, that the United States hold a rank of high importance to the rest of the world, in a moral and religious view, and are destined to exert a renovating influence over the nations of the earth, we think it equally demonstrable, that New England is destined to exert a like moral and religious sway over that grand community of which she is a member, and through this nation, over the world. And we think it well, that she should know in what her importance consists, not for the purpose of self-complacency or boasting, but that she may bend her energies more directly, more systematically, and more efficiently, to these objects. That high character of mental energy and sublime enterprise, which the people of New England have inherited from their fathers, especially, when it has become inspirited with the soul, and invested with the robes of the