of their own lives-the former to look upon woman with the most chivalric tenderness, and the latter to cultivate that delicacy of sentiment and action which takes alarm at the first approach of whatever is coarse and vulgar. The man of mean conduct was despised and discarded. The man of cruelty was shunned. The drunkard, the liar, the libertine was ostracised. The silly and the froward woman was rebuked, and she who overstepped the bounds of maiden propriety lost caste forever. The slightest whisper against a woman's character, if true, blasted a life and caused the heads of a family to hang in shame for generations; if false, the life of the accuser paid the forfeit for an accusation so revolting to the sentiment of the domestic circle.

rors.

Religion is the cement which holds together the constituent elements of society. The generation which immediately succeeded the Revolution lived in sparse settlements and was cut off from the word of God. It would seem that in the face of great dangers and calamities the religious element would be strengthened, but strangely enough, during periods of war familiarity with death appears to rob the grim monarch of his ter The soldier falls with the triumphant huzza upon his lips and a smile of defiance mocking the pallor of the last adversary. He is buried with the honors of war; a volley of musketry is fired over his grave, and his comrade, with a single tear for his memory, rushes in another hour to the arms of a like fate. With the generation which succeeded our war for independence that skepticism and infidelity which accompanied the rise and progress of the French Revolution, increased the indifference of its American sympathisers to matters pertaining to the life beyond the grave. There was

still another reason for carelessness in religious affairs; men high in authority and possessed of the affections of the people were known to entertain irreligious opinions. Beside this, there was no immediate means by which such an unhealthy condition of society could be remedied. The Parish of St. Paul's was no more. The Anglican Church lost its power and popularity with the Revolution, and its Episcopal successor had not only to struggle against the prejudice which had attached to the relation of its predecessor with the English government, but against the stronger prejudice which a rude and uncultivated people entertained against the ritual. The services were too complicated, the forms and ceremonies too cumbersome. The prayer-book appeared to them to require as much study as an Indian dialect.

JOHN WESLEY had been sent by the Anglican Church as a missionary to Georgia, and the renowned WHITEFIELD had followed him, but notwithstanding their labors, as late as 1769, there were but two churches in Georgia, and these were one hundred and fifty miles apart. Soon after the Revolution the Baptists obtained some foothold on Kiokee creek in Columbia county, where was established the first Baptist church in Georgia. The first Methodist society was formed in Augusta as late as 1799. It may be said that for twenty years, or one generation after the Revolution, there were no churches in Georgia. With the opening century, howwhen the introduction of the cotton gin had increased the comforts, wealth and opportunities of the people, a new condition of religious affairs began. The labors of WESLEY and WHITEFIELD had been seed sown in fruitful ground, destined after a long time, but finally, to bear abundant fruit. The Baptists and Methodists

ever,

were the missionaries of the Word. The simple practices and faith of these churches adapted themselves to the rude customs of the early settlers. Devoid of show and ceremony, they appealed to the emotional nature of man. Woman is more religious than man, because her emotional nature is more delicately organized. So an appeal to the emotions more readily captivates an unlettered and simple people than one more highly educated. The humble ministers of God passed to and fro, holding divine services in the log schoolhouses, in the cottages, under the wide-spreading trees beside the cool springs. They inculcated those divine precepts which society recognizes, so soon as announced, as the corner-stone of its structure, the key-stone of its arch-to love one's neighbor, to live virtuously, to do no wrong. Here and there churches were erected, but churches no longer could contain the multitudes who crowded to listen to the men of God-men often of the most captivating eloquence, always of a zeal which if it could not arouse the attention by beauties of rhetoric and logic, wrought the heart into a frenzy by the electricity of enthusiasm. To accommodate the multitudes camps were resorted to. Great arbors covered with brush, and under which were rough seats of logs and coarse boards, constituted the audience room. Often several preachers were occupied in exhorting different congregations at the same hour. From morning until midnight the groves resounded with prayer and song. The whole country assembled at these meetings. The tents witnessed the most profuse hospitality. In the intervals of service the families of the neighborhood mingled together, and as the conversation was naturally directed towards the events of the occasion, the con

duct and language of the people partook of a religious discretion and fervor. Amid such scenes were educated the most exalted sentiments of human nature. From such a presence the impure of heart, the disturber of public peace, the man of lasciviousness and violence slunk abashed.

The memory of revolutionary deeds excited this people to bravery; their political customs educated them to candor and honesty; their free institutions inflamed their pride and independence; but their camp-meetings did more than all else to make of them a peaceful, orderly and virtuous society.

CHAPTER II.

Discovery and Settlement of the Southwest-Hernando DeSoto-Marquette, Joliet and DeSalle-Iberville, Bienville and Sauvolle-The French in Alabama, Missis sippi and Louisiana-The English Successors in Alabama and Mississippi-The Spaniards in the Gulf States--Oglethorpe and his Settlement of GeorgiaCondition of the Gulf Country at the Outbreak of the Revolution-Strength and Position of the Indian Tribes, &c., &c.

"What a substratum for empire! Compared with which the foundation of the Macedonian, the Roman and the British sink into insignificance. Some of our large States have territory superior to the island of Great Britain, whilst the whole together are little inferior to Europe itself. Our independence will people this extent of country with freemen and will stimulate the innumerable inhabitants thereof, by every motive, to perfect the acts of government and to extend human happiness."

DAVID RAMSEY,

"The time will come when one hundred and fifty millions of people will be living in America, equal in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same cause, preserving the same civilization, the same language, the same literature, the same religion, the same habits, the same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same forms."

DE TOCQUEVILLE.

Hernando DeSoto, a native of Spain, in early youth enlisted under the banner of Pizarro, and acquired distinction in the conquest of Peru. Returning to Spain, he was made governor of Cuba in 1538, and adalentado of Florida. A year after, he sailed for Florida with an expedition of nine vessels and six hundred men. It was his ambition to establish on the northern coast of the gulf, an empire equal to that of Peru and Mexico. The story of his adventure is soon told.