handsome Episcopal church in the most fashionable part of Boston. Many of the most respectable inhabitants of Boston have joined his congregation-not a few from Unitarian societies.Many families are divided in their religious sentiments; some of the members attending Episcopal, others the Unitarian churches.

The most portentous feature in the history of the present state of Unitarianism in this country, is the strong hold it has obtained in Cambridge college, near Boston; the most extensive, and, in a literary point of view, the most respectable college in the Union; in which also a large proportion of the most influential persons of the nation are educated. Many parents are prevented by religious considerations from sending their children thither; but I wish I could say the objection was more general. This, and perhaps Transylvania university at Lexington, are happily the only colleges under the influence of Unitarian sentiments. Yale College, Princeton, Columbia, and all the others that I am acquainted with, are opposed to them; and Yale College has the happiness of having its principal professors men of decided piety. But the noble Theological Institution at Andover, liberally endowed, formed for the express purpose of raising up able champions to contend earnestly for the faith at home, and accomplished missionaries to diffuse it abroad, blest with learned and pious professors ardently engaged in the great objects of their institution, presents perhaps the most cheering view. The only confident assurance, however, of

the triumph of truth, is to be found in the promises of Him who has infallibly predicted its universal reception. I am glad I have done. it is a painful office to remark on what appear to be the doctrinal errors of others, when conscious of so many practical errors of our own. But I could not refuse your request.

LETTER IX.

Salem, Febuary 26, 1821.

In my letter of the 24th I had no room to advert to the state of morals and manners in the United States; and as these were among the topics on which you requested information, I avail myself of a little leisure to-night to comply with your wishes. I must, however, remind you, that I do not pretend to give you an accurate picture of American morals, (a task to which I feel myself incompetent, although I purposely deferred writing on the subject till on the very eve of embarking,) but merely to send you the observations of a solitary traveller-the impressions I have received in passing rather hastily over this extensive country.

If I were writing to a less judicious friend, I would also remind him that I do not feel myself responsible for any general conclusions he might draw from particular facts, or bound to reconcile the discordant inferences he might deduce from my statements. I am answerable for the facts. only; and if they sometimes leave you in an un

satisfactory state of suspense, from which you are strongly tempted to relieve yourself by jumping to a conclusion, I can only assure you, that I am often in the same predicament, and would gladly relieve us both by some bouncing assertions, if 1 could do it with sincerity; but there have been bounces enough on the subject of America already.

The state of morals differs so much in different parts of America, that no general description would be applicable to the whole. Indeed, one might almost as well attempt to include in any general description the various countries of Europe as the United States of America; for although a uniform system of government produces many prominent features of a common character in all the members of this great confederation, yet the wide range of climate embraced by its extensive limits, the great variety of habits, objects, and feelings, and especially of political and religious sentiments, which prevailed among the first settlers of the different States, the diversified pursuits and occupations of the present inhabitants, the admission or proscription of slavery, and a thousand other circumstances, have contributed to establish the most marked distinctions, and often to present the most striking contrasts, between the several sections of the Union. All this must render any general account of American morals a little prolix and perplexed. I will rely, therefore, on your indulgence, and will commence with what has long been considered a crying sin throughout the Union-intemperance.

The habitual use of ardent spirits is indeed very general. Even in the Eastern States it is

not uncommon; but in the Middle, and still more in the Southern States, it prevails to a lamentable extent. Under the denominations of anti-fogmatics, mint julep, and gin sling, copious libations are poured out on the altars of Bacchus, by votaries who often commence their sacrifices at an early hour in the morning, and renew them at intervals during the day; and yet I have not seen six instances of brutal intoxication since I landed in America,-nor, except among the poor corrupted frontier Indians, twenty cases in which I had reason to believe the faculties were in any degree disordered. The decanters of brandy which are placed on the dinner tables at the inns for the guests to help themselves, without additional charge, I have never seen used but with moderation; and, on the whole, I would say decidedly that, taking America generally from Maine to Louisiana, (you know that I have seen few of the Western States,) the sin of drinking to excess, prevails less extensively there than in England-that, whatever may be the injury to the constitution from the common use of spirits instead of malt liquor, there is less derangement of the faculties, less waste of time, and perhaps of money, and far less misery entailed on suffering families from intemperate drinking in this country than in our own. There is, indeed, a far more dreadful squandering of time in bar-rooms in many parts of America; but it is in cigar-smoking, and is not generally attended with pinching effects, or a deserted wife, or hungry children.

Drams are taken, as it were, "en passant," solitary, and in a parenthesis; not in a social circle

round a blazing fire, where I at this moment see John Bull sitting in an old arm chair, a three-legged deal table before him, his heart expanding as his blood warms, one hand on the knee of his next neighbour, or patting him on the back, the other pushing round the common tankard, the bond of good fellowship, which after a few more circuits will too probably convert this exhibition of rude enjoyment, into a melancholy scene of intoxication, in which man defaces the image of his Maker, and degrades himself to a level with the brutes.

In the higher classes, there is great moderation in the pleasures of the table, in the Eastern and Middle States at least: and as far as my experience goes, in the highest circles in the South. In Boston, New-York, and Philadelphia, even parties seldom dine later than three o'clock, (there are some exceptions,) and they usually disperse, after taking two or three glasses of wine. What may be the case at the parties of dissipated young men, or at public dinners; whether there is a Madeira guage for Republicanism, as we measure loyalty by Port, I do not know. At a public agricultural dinner, at which I was present, where there were one or two hundred persons in the company, there was the greatest order and moderation: and all rose to return home in about an hour after dinner.

With regard to some other immoralities, if they exist in the same degree as with us, which I am disposed, from the prevalence of early marriages, to question, it is under the shade of secrecy; for the cities, except New-Orleans, present nothing of the disgusting effrontery and unblushing profli