have deprived the Dutch of their privile- more pleasantly in the unembarrassed ges, and forced them into the Episcopal work of their calling; nor were they likeChurch. He had orders from the govern- ly to have been worse off in respect of ment at home "to give all countenance this world's blessings than the faithful and encouragement to the exercise of the among them really were. ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, as far as conveniently might be in the province; that no schoolmaster be henceforward permitted to come from this kingdom, and keep a school in that our said province, without the license of our said Lord Bishop of London."*

Assuredly the Episcopal Church in the United States at the present day furnishes decisive proof that Episcopacy can exist and flourish without aid from the civil government. Dr. Hawks thinks that it has even peculiar advantages for self-sustentation, proved, as he conceives, by the In what has been said of the intolerance experience of the Episcopal Church in manifested in several of the colonies in Scotland, and that of the Syrian Churches which the Protestant Episcopal Church in India, as well as the history of that was established, I would not be under- Church in the United States. Without exstood as charging such intolerance upon pressing an opinion on that point, I hesithat Church. No doubt men of an intol- tate not to say that the Episcopal Church, erant spirit were to be found in it, but, alas! | with all the advantage of having the peotrue religious liberty, and an enlarged spir-ple enlisted on her side in several of the it of toleration, were far from being general in those days; but it had members also of a most catholic spirit, who neither could nor did approve of such acts as the above. The intolerance was rather that of the colonial governments, and to them properly belongs the credit or discredit attached to it.

colonies at the outset, and sustained as she was by the prestige of the National Church of the mother-country, would have done far better had she relied on her own resources under God, in the faithful ministration of his Word, and of the ordinances of His House, than in trusting to the arm of the State in the colonies in which she endeavoured to plant herself.

CHAPTER XXI.

STATE OF RELIGION DURING THE COLONIAL ERA.

in 1775.

In conclusion, I cannot but think that the union of the Episcopal Church with the State in some colonies, and of the Congregational Church with the civil power in others, was, upon the whole, far more mischievous than beneficial; an opinion in which I feel persuaded that the great body alike of the Episcopal and Congregational ministers concur. Had the founders of BEFORE quitting the Colonial Era in the the Episcopal Church in Virginia and Ma- history of the United States, let us take ryland, excellent men as I believe they a general view of the state of religion were, gone to work in reliance on the throughout all the colonies during the peblessing of God upon their efforts, and en- riod of 168 years, from 1607 to the comdeavoured to raise up a faithful native min-mencement of the war of the Revolution istry, trusting to the willingness of the people to provide for their support, I doubt not that they would have succeeded far better in building up the Episcopal Church than they did with all the advantages of the State alliance which they enjoyed. They would doubtless have had to encounter many difficulties, but they would have laid a surer foundation also for ultimate success. Dr. Hawks gives a painfully interesting narrative of the struggles which the established clergy of Virginia and Maryland had to sustain with their parishioners about their salaries; the one party striving to obtain what the law assigned to them; the other, aided even at times by legislative enactments, availing themselves of every stratagem in order to evade the legal claims of the clergy. The time and anxiety, the wearing out of mind and body, which these disputes cost faithful ministers, not to mention the sacrifice of influence, would have been laid out better and "History of the Evangelical Churches of New

York."

As communities, the Anglo-American colonies, from their earliest days, were pervaded by religious influence, not equally powerful, yet real and salutary in all. This was especially true of New-England, whose first settlers openly declared to the world that they left their native land not so much to promote individual religion as to form Christian societies. They could have maintained silent, personal, individual communion with their heavenly Father in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, or in Holland, as did some recluses in the monastic institutions of the earlier and Middle Ages. But they had no such purpose. Their Christianity was of a diffusive kind; their hearts yearned for opportunities of extending it. Religion with them was not only a concern between man and God, but one in which society at large had a deep interest. Hence some fruits of this high and holy principle might be expected in the communities which they founded, and we not unreasonably desire to know how far

the result corresponded with such excel- | other good men of that day, present most lent intentions. It were unfair, however, interesting details in proof of this. Amerto expect much in this way, considering the circumstances of the colonists, settling in a remote wilderness, amid fierce and cruel savages, and exposed to all the fa- Nor were the aboriginal heathen around tigues and sicknesses incident to such a the colonies forgotten in those days. Elsettlement, and to the anxieties and diffi- liot and others laboured with great succulties attending the organization of their cess among the Indians in the vicinity of governments, collisions with the mother-Boston. Several thousand souls were concountry, and participation in all that coun-verted. The Bible was translated into try's wars.

This was the period in which Edwards and Prince, Frelinghuysen, Dickinson, Finley, and the Tennents, laboured in the Northern and the Middle States; Davies, and others of kindred spirit, in Virginia; the Wesleys for a while in Georgia; while Whitfield, like the angel symbolized in the Apocalypse as flying through the heavens, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to the nations, traversed colony after colony in his repeated visits to the New World, and was made an instrument of blessing to multitudes.

by inferior men. The second Governor | important, though painful lessons, were Winthrop, it is true, showed himself, in the learned, in regard to the economy of the administration of the united colonies of Spirit, which have not been wholly forgotConnecticut, to be a great and good man, ten to this day. and a father alike to the Church and the State. Among the ministers, too, there was a considerable number of distinguished men; but their labours were not equally blessed with those of the Fathers. Among the best known were the Mathers, Increase and Cotton, father and son, the latter more distinguished for the extent and variety of his acquirements than for soundness of judgment; Norton and others in Massachusetts; Pierpont in Connecticut; Dr. Blair, who for a long time was the Bishop of London's commissary in Virginia; Dr. Bray, who held the same office in Maryland, two persons to whom the Episcopal Church in those colonies was much indebted for its prosperity.

The faithful pastors in New-England received an accession to their number, in the early part of this period, by the arrival from England of some of the two thousand ministers who were ejected there for non-conformity, soon after the accession of Charles II.

The third period, comprehending the thirty years from 1720 to 1750, was distinguished by extensive revivals of religion, and this, notwithstanding the agitation produced in the colonies, by the share they had in the war between France and England towards the close of that period, and other unfavourable circumstances besides. The Great Awakening, as it has been called, infused a new life into the churches, more especially in New-England, in certain parts of New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, and some other colonies, and its effects were visible long afterward in many places. It is true that fanatical teachers did much mischief in several quarters by associating themselves with the work of God, and introducing their own unwarrantable measures, so as to rob it, in the end, of much of the glorious character that distinguished it at first. Yet it cannot be denied that it was a great blessing to the churches. Some

* Cotton Mather's acquirements were really prodigious, considering the age and the circumstances in which he lived. His publications amounted to no fewer than 342, several of which, such as his "Magnalia, or the Ecclesiastical History of New-England," were large works. He displayed, however, such a mixture of credulity, pedantry, and bad taste, that he was not appreciated as he deserved. The part which he took in the affair of the witches, though greatly misrepresented by some writers, did him vast injury. He was singularly given to believe all sorts of mar

The fourth and concluding period of the Colonial Era comprehends the twenty-five years from 1750 to 1775, and was one of great public agitation. In the early part of it the colonies aided England with all their might in another war with France, ending in the conquest of the Canadas, which were secured to the conquerors by the treaty of Paris in 1763. In the latter part of it men's minds became universally engrossed with the disputes between the colonies and the mother-country, and when all prospect of having these brought to an amicable settlement seemed desperate, preparation began to be made for that dreadful alternative-war. Such a state of things could not fail to have an untoward influence on religion. Yet most of those distinguished men whom I have spoken of as labouring in the latter part of the immediately preceding period, were spared to continue their work in the beginning of this. Whitfield renewed from time to time his angel visits, and the Spirit was not grieved quite away from the churches by the commotions of the people. Still, no such glorious scenes were beheld during this period as had been witnessed in the last; on the contrary, that declension in spiritual life, and spiritual effort, which war ever occasions, was now everywhere visible, even before hostilities had actually commenced.

review which the limits of this work perSuch is the very cursory and imperfect mit us to take of the religious vicissitudes of the United States during their colonial days. That period of 168 years was, comparatively speaking, one of decline, and even deadness, in the greater part of Protestant Europe; indeed, the latter part may be regarded as having been so universally. Yet, during the same period, I feel very † For a full and able account of this great work of certain that a minute examination of the grace, as well as of other revivals of religion, of un- history of the American Protestant churchusual power and extent in America, see a work pub-es would show that in no other part of lished at Boston in 1842, entitled the "Great Awa- Christendom, in proportion to the populakening," by the Rev. Joseph Tracy. It is by far tion, was there a greater amount of true the fullest account of the early revivals in America knowledge of the Gospel, and of practical that has yet appeared, and being derived from authentic sources, is worthy of entire credence. godliness, among both ministers and their

vellous stories.

L

flocks. No doubt there were long intervals | with our fathers, and the Word of his promof coldness, or, rather, of deadness, as to ise wherein he had caused them to trust. spiritual things, during which both pastors And though our unworthiness and our unand people became too much engrossed profitableness had been great, he did not with the "cares of life." But, blessed be cast us away from his sight, but deigned God, he did not abandon us forever. Though to hear us when we called upon him in the he visited our transgressions with a rod, dark and gloomy hour, and saved us with and chastised us for our sins, yet he re- a great salvation. And this he did "bemembered the covenant which he made cause his mercy endureth forever."

CHAPTER I.

BOOK III.

THE NATIONAL ERA.

EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION UPON RELIGION.

-CHANGES TO WHICH IT NECESSARILY GAVE

RISE.

FROM the Colonial we now proceed to the National period in the history of the United States.

1775 to 1800, the first eight, spent in hostilities with England, were pre-eminently so. The effects of war on the churches of all communions were extensively and variously disastrous. To say nothing of the distraction of the mind from the subject of salvation, its more palpable influences were seen and felt everywhere. Young men were called away from the seclusion and protection of the parental roof, and from the vicinity of the oracle of God, to the demoralizing atmosphere of a camp; congregations were sometimes entirely broken up; churches were burned, or converted into barracks or hospitals, by one or other of the belligerant armies, often by both successively; in more than one instance pastors were murdered; the usual ministerial intercourse was interrupted; efforts for the dissemination of the Gospel were, in a great measure, suspended; colleges and other seminaries of learning were closed for want of students and professors; and the public morals in various respects, and in almost all possible ways, deteriorated. Christianity is a religion of peace, and the tempest of war never fails to blast and scatter the leaves of the Tree which was planted for the healing of the nations.

The first twenty-five years of the national existence of the States were fraught with evil to the cause of religion. First came the war of the Revolution, which literally engrossed all men's minds. The population of the country at its commencement scarcely, if at all, exceeded 3,500,000; and for a people so few and so scattered, divided into thirteen colonies, quite independent, at the outset, of each other, having no national treasury, no central government or power, nothing, in short, to unite them but one common feeling of patriotism, it was a gigantic undertaking. The war was followed by a long period of prostration. Connexion with England having been dissolved, the colonies had to assume the form of states, their governments had to be reorganized, and a general, or federal government, instituted. The infant nation, now severed from the mother-country, had to begin an existence of its own, at the cost of years of anxiety and agitation. Dangers threatened it on every side, and scarcely had the General Government been organized, and the states learned to know their places a little in the federal economy, when the French Revolution burst forth like a volcano, and threatened to sweep the United States into its fiery stream. In the end it led them to declare war against France for their national honour, or, rather, for their national existence. That war was happily brought to an end by Napoleon, on his becoming First Consul, and thus was the infant country allowed to enjoy a little longer repose, as far as depended on foreign na-adelphia. The letter from which the extract given

tions.

Unfavourable to the promotion of religion as were the whole twenty-five years from

A single passage from a letter, written by a distinguished and most excellent German clergyman,* will give the reader some idea of the state of things during that war. It was written not long after its commencement. The perusal of it cannot fail to impress the mind of every Christian with the duty of praying that the peace which now so happily reigns among the nations may evermore continue :

"Throughout the whole country great preparations are making for the war, and almost every person is under arms. The

*The Rev. Dr. Helmuth, formerly pastor in Philin the text is taken is found in the "Hallische Nachrichten," p. 1357-8, and quoted by Professor Schmucker in his "Retrospect of Lutheranism in the United States."

ardour manifested in these melancholy cir- ed at about 250 at most; the churches at cumstances is indescribable. If a hundred about 300.* In 1788, the Presbyterians had men are required, many more immediately exactly 177 ministers, and 417 congregaoffer, and are dissatisfied when they are tions. As the Lutherans had eleven minnot accepted. I know of no similar case isters in 1748, and forty churches three in history. Neighbourhoods, concerning years after, the former could hardly have which it would have been expected that exceeded twenty-five, and the latter sixty, years would be requisite to induce them at the commencement of the Revolutionvoluntarily to take up arms, became strong-judging by the statistics of the directoly inclined for war as soon as the battle of ry for worship (Kirchenagende), published Lexington was known. Quakers and Men- in 1786. The German Reformed churchnonists take part in the military exercises, es were not more numerous. The Dutch and in great numbers renounce their former Reformed churches had thirty ministers religious principles. The hoarse din of and eighty-two congregations in 1784.§ In war is hourly heard in our streets. The 1776, the Associate Church had thirteen present disturbances inflict no small injury ministers, and perhaps twenty churches. on religion. Everybody is constantly on The Moravians had probably twelve minthe alert, anxious, like the ancient Athe-isters and six or eight churches. The Newnians, to hear the news, and, amid the mass of news, the hearts of men are, alas! closed against the good word of God. The Lord is chastising the people, but they do not feel it. Those who appear to be distant from danger are unconcerned; and those whom calamity has overtaken are enraged, and meditating vengeance. In the American army there are many clergymen, who serve both as chaplains and as officers. I myself know two, one of whom is a colonel, and the other a captain. The whole coun-ty-six in number when the war of the try is in perfect enthusiasm for liberty. The whole population, from New-England to Georgia, is of one mind, and determined to risk life and all things in defence of liberty. The few who think differently are not permitted to utter their sentiments. In Philadelphia the English and German students are formed into military companies, wear uniforms, and are exercised like regular troops. Would to God that men. would become as zealous and unanimous in asserting their spiritual liberty as they are in vindicating their political freedom."

It required some time for the churches to recover from the demoralizing effects of a war which had drawn the whole nation into its circle, and lasted for eight long years. But the times immediately following the Revolution were, as I have remarked, far from being favourable to the resuscitation of true religion, and to the restoration of the churches, even to the condition, unsatisfactory as it was, in which they stood previously to the contest. Through God's blessing, however, they not only shared in the returning tranquillity of the country, but from that time to this, with some short periods of interruption, have steadily grown with its growth and strengthened with its strength.

It is not easy to ascertain what was the exact number of ministers and churches in the United States when these became severed from England, but the following estimate cannot be very wide of the truth. The Episcopal clergymen may be reckon

England Congregationalists could not, at the commencement of the Revolution, have had above 700 churches and 575 pastors. The Baptists, in 1784, had 424 ministers, and 471 churches or congregations.|| The Methodists, at the time of the Revolution, did not exist as a body distinct from the Established Episcopal Church, and had no ordained ministers. As for the Roman Catholics, according to Bishop England's estimate, their priests did not exceed twen

Revolution commenced, but their congregations were at least twice as numerous. T

These statements, though far from precise, are from the best sources, and suffice to give a tolerably correct view of the numbers of the clergy and churches at the commencement of the national existence of the country, and for the first ten years after the breaking out of hostilities with England.

From the best estimate. I can make, it seems very certain that in 1775 the total number of ministers of the Gospel in the United States did not exceed 1441, nor the congregations 1940. Indeed, I am convinced that this is rather too large an estimate.** The population of the thirteen

The number of the clergy and churches in the Episcopal Church, given in the text, has been estimated from various historical sketches and docu

ments.

"History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States," by Dr. Hodge, part ii., p. 504.

in

Dr. Schmucker's "Retrospect of Lutheranism the United States."

Church in another part of this work.

See the Historical sketch of the Reformed Dutch

|| View of the Baptist churches in America, given in the "American Quarterly Register," vols. xiii. and xiv.

¶ Letter from Bishop England, of Charleston, to the Central Council of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, at Lyons, published in the "Annales de la Propagation de la Foi," for the month of May, 1838, vol. x.