ffotltatmti
A SCOTTISH PROPESSOR OH THE AMEBIC AN
OHTJEOH AND NATION.
Address delivered by Rev. Prof. Me Cosh, LL.
8.,8. 8., before the Evangelical Alliance
Bath, England, Oct. ISth.
(CONCLUDED.)
WIDE DIFFUSION OF EDUCATION.
I am led into a kindred subject. That
country owes its greatness to its wide-spread
education. The truth is, the Constitution
of the United States, with its universal suf
frage, would not stand a year; it would be
shattered into fragments, but for the intelli
gence of the people. The greatest difficulty
of government there, arises from the influx
of ignorant Europeans, who are flattered and
misled by a class of politicians —lower than
any wc have in our country. I ain per
suaded that without their schools, lower and
higher, the United States would soon get
into inextricable confusion, like the South
Americans, or fall under a military despot
ism, like France. But with its high and
universal education, the country has as fair
a prospect of stability as any nation on the
earth. Surely the progress made, and the
power acquired of late years by Prussia and
the United States, the two countries in the
world in which the mass of the people re
ceive the highest education, is a clear proof
that it is knowledge that is power in a na
tion, as well as among individuals. The
fact should read a lesson to us who have not
yet, amidst the contests of classes and of
sects, been able to establish a thoroughly
good national system of education. The
education in the United States is hap
pily (what can scarcely be said of the Prus
sian) a Christian education. The system
originated in Hew England, but was ex
tended over all the States, except indeed, in
the South, where it was found incompatible
with the continuance of slavery. The laws
favor education —in some States make it
compulsory,—but in fact it is mainly pro
moted by the spirit of the people.
The young people remain longer at school
than they do in this country, and, as a rule,
the common people are all well-educated.
The artisan class there, both male and fe
male, like the middle class here, can talk
with you on the topics of the day, and they
know the history of their own country
and of ours, and the elem'ents of science,
mental and physical. In every town there
are not only Elementary Schools for
younger children and Grammar Schools in
the higher branches of English, but there
are High Schools for classics, mathematics,
and science, all provided by the States. The
colleges are very numerous, and are found
far west on the very outskirts of civilization,
as in lowa and San Francisco. Some of them
are yet in a state of infancy, but they are
healthy children, and promise in due time
to be, vigorous men. Spine of the older, co]U
leges in the East are quite equal to our own;
oxcept, indeed, that they have not yet such
largo rewards for higher scholarship, and that
their hardworking professors are disgrace
fully underpaid. I can speak on this sub
ject with confidence, in consequence of hav
ing visited some fifteen of their colleges, and
inspected some of them in a very careful
manner. At the commencements as they
call them—that is, on the occasions of con
ferring degrees—tile principal people of the
various States annually assemble to counte
nance the colleges and mark their progress ;
and it was one of the greatest privileges en
joyed by me in the States that I was invited
to attend and take part in the proceedings
by the presidents, the professors and the stu
dents of a number of colleges, and I had
there an opportunity of conversing with the
leading men of the country, with not only
the ministers of religion, but their judges,
their generals, their physicians, their mer
chants, and manufacturers. As a proof of
the interest taken by the people in their in
stitutions, I may mention that, during the
late war, when the wise men of this coun
try were predicting that the nation was
going on to bankruptcy and ruin, no less a
sum than five millions of money was con
tributed by philanthropic people to the es
tablishment and extension of universities
and theological seminaries.
INTELLIGENCE AND THRIFT OF THE WORK.-
TEOPLE,
i The consequence of this is, that there are
; an intelligence and physical comfort among
the common people, not to be found in this
or any European country. I wish I could
convoy you all to a New England village of
the better sort, such as I lived in once and
again. I reckon it the finest sight in
America, one of the finest sights in the world,
to a philanthropist. The houses are not in
close streets like ours, but are separated from
one another, each embosomed in trees, with
a garden, and each with four, five or six
apartments. There is sure to be a school
and a church or churches in the village, but
possibly no public house within five or ten
miles. Nearly every mau there reads his
daily newspaper, and many of them see a
monthly religious or literary magazine. I
was in villages with several hundreds of a
population in which there was not a single
family to whom you could offer a piece of
cast-olf clothing, or of bread, without giving
offence. To my unspeakable gratification, I
found like communities springing up all over
the West, in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and,
away beyond the .Mississippi, in Minnesota
and lowa. The rich land-there is being oc
cupied mainly by New Englanders, and by
the most industrious of the English, Scotch,
Irish, German, and other European settlers,
who carry with-them the best virtues of the
Old World to find in Jhe New World afitting
field for calling forth their talents and their
activities.
When you are in New England I. recom
mend you to visit some of their best facto
ries, as, for example, the Pacific Mills, as I
saw them at Lawrence, in Massachusetts.
■THE AMERICAN" PRESBYTERIAN; JANUARY 31, 1867.
There arc Tour thousand workpeople, and it
is a beautiful sight to see them so neatly
dressed as they go into and issue from the
mills. The females in one department re
ceive a dollar and fifteen cents a day, and in
another a dollar and forty-five cents. The
unmarried girls live in boarding-houses,
which I visited. They have a common sit
ting-room, comfortably furnished; they have
a separate dining-hall, where I saw them
seated at as comfortable a meal as the mid
dle classes have in this country; while every
two persons have a nfeatly-furnished bed
room. The skilled workmen get towards
§lOOO a year, and the foremen (section men)
towards §l5OO. These foremen have houses
provided for them —houses for which they
pay one hundred and seventy-five dollars a
year, and these houses are each three stories
high, with a front door and eleven apart
ments. Connected with the mills are a read
ing-room and a large library, for which each
worker has to pay a small sum. In the
town there is a hotel for travellers, but I
saw noypublic house for drinking. It is
proper to add that I found the work-people
in a like state of comfort in Baltimore, Phil
adelphia, and other places, South and West.
NOT ALL DUE TO THE ABUNDANCE OF LAND.—
THE SABBATH.
It will be said that all this is owing to the
unfilled-up condition of the country, and that
we cannot produce such a state of things
among us. I admit at once that the Ameri
cans have here an advantage over us. But
there'was a time when our country was in
a like waste and empty state, with no such
elevation of the people, because of the ab
sence of education. In South America there
is as much uncultivated land, with as fine a
climate but without the intelligence and
comfort of North America. It is the reli
gious training of the jieople which has ena
bled them to take advantage of the circum
stances in which they are placed, and which
will enable them to do so for ages to come.
Intimately connected with the elevation
of the people is their mode of observing the
Lord’s day. In some of the great cities, as
in Hew York, filled with the lowest of our
European population, or with Germans
trained to wrong views of the Divine obli
gation of the Sabbath, and accustomed to go
to beer-gardens, the day is kept very much
as it is in our English cities. In Chicago, I
heard of many thousands employed in labor
on the Lord’s-day, and the masters of these
people were excessively rejoiced when they
heard of a celebrated doctor in this country
proving that the Sabbath has no Scriptural
foundation. But in places not thus situated,
I found the Sabbath observed in a manner
which might make even Scotland blush. A
new England village of the better class is a
perfect picture of peace on the Lord’s day.
I saw no signs of harsh or self-righteous
Pharisaism. Ho doubt the States or munici
pal authorities do in many places'insist that
the railway and public street cars should
run only six days out of the seven; but that
“go-ahead” people feel that they cap do
quite’enough of work and travel on the six
days, and that they themselves, and their
railway officials, need the seventh as a day
of rest.
In the country places and villages the peo
ple, when not at the house of God, spend the
day quietly in their hoines, or around their
dwellings, and in pleasant family intercourse.
I found much the same state of things in the
larger cities, so far as they are not flooded
by strangers. Thus, in Baltimore, with
300,000 inhabitants, I found all public con
veyances stopped in the streets,
great body of the people enjoying a day of
rest and religions instruction. The longer I
live I am the more convinced that a quiet
Sabbath, affording leisure for reading and
for thought, is an essential element to the
elevation of a country, even in respect of in
telligence and liberty, and much more of re
ligiou. And hence the interest which I take
in the struggle at present going on in New
York. English travellers have given us a
picture of the state of things in that city, of
its disgraceful saloons with their female
waiters, and its drunkenness on the Lord’s
day. No steps were taken to suppress these
by the Municipal authorities, who owe their
election to Bomish Irish, and a degraded
population, the refuse of all countries. But
the State of New York, with its high-toned
country population, interposed, and passed
a law to stamp out these places of wicked
ness add temptation. During the two months
—May and June—of the execution of the
law, the arrests diminished from 1,078 to
501; that is, one-half. Some pettifogging
legal difficulties have been interposed to stay
for the present the execution of the law;
but these, it is confidently expected, will
speedily be removed. And then will come
the struggle to which all who wish to see
our great cities elevated will look with deep
anxiety, and with fervent prayers that the
effort may be crowned with success. I have
given this account, because I strongly sus
pect that the very writers who have cast
reproach upon New York, because of its dis
graceful saloons, will turn round and ridicule
the efforts made to suppress them..
THE AMERICAN CHURCHES.
As to the religious denominations, I found
them exhibiting everywhere the American
energy, and marching on with the popula
tion over their extensive country. I regret
ted, however, to find that the stipends paid to
the ministers had not risen with the wealth
and prosperity of the country, and in pro
portion to Jhe increased expense of living,
which has doubled since the war. The peo
ple who were giving their workmen, skilled
in manual labor, 1,000 dollars a-year,' were,
as a general rule, in the country districts,
giving their-pastors a like sum, or, more
commonly, a less sum. I was glad tc find
that some of the churches are becoming alive
to this evil; and very special inquiries were
made of me as to the mode of supporting the
ministry in the Free. Church of Scotland by
a general Sustentation Fund, bringing min
isters in the poorer districts somewhat
near those in large towns. I found, also, in-
conveniences arising from the multiplica
tion of churches and the rivalries of sects.
Thus, in one little town, of a few hundred
inhabitants, lying beyond the Mississippi, I
found a Methodist, a Congrcgationalist, a
Presbyterian, a Baptist, and a Campbelite in
terest already established, and preparations
made for adding a Free-will Baptist. The
evils thus arising, of course, very much dis
appear when the population increases, and
gives scope for all. The sects in America,
as a general rule, live on good terms with
each other. Ho sect is allowed to assume
a tone of superiority over others. The min
isters of all Evangelical Churches, including
Episcopalians, preach for one another, and
unite in joint prayer : meetings and philan
thropic efforts.
The churches, as a whole, so far as I could
judge, are becoming more orthodox. No
doubt the same questions are being stirred
in America as in this country; but the prac
tical people there are less troubled with
speculative difficulties, and they settle ques
tions in a more common-sense manner than
is done by the subtle critics of Germany, or
the refined scholars, of Oxford, who may
know all ancient learning, but are entirely
ignorant of the actual workings of human
nature', as exhibited in the hearts of men and
women round about them. Certain it is
that I found everywhere among the profes
sors and the students a growing attachment
to the doctrines which are visibly inscribed
on the Word of God, and which have been
held all along by the people of God. My in
tercourse was chiefly with the Presbyterians
of various sections —such as Old School, Hew
School, United Presbyterians, Reformed,
and Dutch Reformed, and with the Congre
gationalists; and I found them gathering
around them a large body of the intelligence
of the country, and their ministers preach
ing in an intellectual • style—perhaps, at
times, too intellectual a style for the com
mon people. But I mixed with all other
Evangelical communions. The Episcopal
Church has great and I believe growing in
fluence, and is not troubled there with Pu
seyism or with Rationalism,(it has no Bishop
Colenso,) and very effective steps'are taken
to keep down exclusive High Ghurehism
wherever it appears. The Methodists are
a very numerous body, and 1 found them
everywhere, North and South, East and
West, diligent in preaching the Gospel to the
poor and ignorant. I heard a coloured Meth
odist bishop preach a sermon of great fer
vour and feeling. At the time I was there,
the body was preparing to celebrate the
Centenary of their establishment in Ameri
ca with their accustomed zeal. The Bap
tists have an enormous following, and set
before them a high standard of zeal and ac
tivity. I visited with deepest interest their
admirable schools for coloured people in
Richmond, and addressed a congregation
there, which has no fewer than four thou
sand black people connected with it. I had
fewer opportunities than I could have wished
of meeting with Quakers; but from Levi
Coffin, and others,\l losfiStteid whatHfchey-have
done in time past, and what they are still
doing, for the negroes.
REVIVAL SPIRIT.
It would be wrong in me to conlude with
out a reference to the manifestations which
fell under my notice of the progress of spir
itual religion. I heard on all hands, that
the late war, though accompanied, like all
other wars, with much recklessness and pro
fanity, had had, as a whole, a religious ten
dency. It was pleasant to listen to the re
ports given every where of-the blessing
which had attended the work of the Chris
tian Commission s and the ministrations of
chaplains in the camp and in the hospitals.
At the close of the conflict a very solemn
feeling was left on the minds of all. Minis
ters in the South, whom I could trust, as
sured me that the dreadful calamities that
have come upon the people there have not
been without a sanctified blessing, and that
many were turning to the Lord in prayer.
In the North and West I saw in many pla
ces, and I heard in all places, of .a good work
of revival going on, silently, but surely. I
had the pleasure of listening to very inter
esting testimonies in behalf of such a work,
given by respected ministers of the two Gen
eral Assemblies at St. Louis. I heard of
such a work of grace in Illinois and over the
West. In some congregations all the young
men had given themselves simultaneously to
the Lord. In the East I had authentic ac
counts given me of an operation of God’s
Spirit, accompanied with fervent and fre
quent prayer, in several of the colleges. I
cannot forget that a general revival in Amer
ica in 1858 was followed by an awakening in
Ireland, and in parts of Britain in
1859. May the God of all grace grant that
the revival in America in 1866 may also be
followed in this country by a like time of
refreshing from before the presence of the
Lord!
DELIVEBING GOD’S MESSAGE.
“ There are two ways of regarding a ser
mon, either as a human composition or a di
vine message. If we look upon it as the
first, and require our clergymen to finish it
with their utmost care and learning, for our
better delight, whether of ear or intellect,
we shall be necessarily led to expect much
formality and stateliness in its delivery, and
to think all is not well if the pulpit have not
a golden fringe round it, and a goodly cush
ion in front of it, and if the sermon be not
fairly written in a black book, to be smoothed
upon the cushion in a majestic manner before
beginning; all this we shall duly come to
expect; but we shall at the same time con
sider the treatise thus prepared as something
to which it is our duty to listen without rest
lessness for half an hour or three-quarters,
but which, when this duty has been decor
ously performed, we may dismiss from our
minds in happy confidence of being provided
with another when next it shall be ne
cessary.
“But if once we begin to regard the
preacher, whatever his faults, as a man sent
with a message to ns, which it is a matter of
life or death whether we hear or refuse; if
we look at him as set in charge over many
spirits in danger of ruin, and having allowed
to him but an hour or two in the seven days
to speak to them; if we make some endea
vors to conceive how precious these hours
ought to be to him, a. small vantage on the
side of God after his flock has been exposed
for six days together to the full weight of
the world’s • temptation, and he has been
forced to watch the thorn and the thistle
springing in their hearts, and to see what
wheat had been scattered there, snatched
from the wayside by this wild bird and the
other, and at last, when breathless and weary
with the week’s labor, they give him this
interval of imperfect and languid hearing.
He has but thirty minutes to get at the sep
arate hearts of a thousand men, to convince
them of all their weaknesses; to shame them
for all their sins; to warn them of all their
dangers, to try, by this way and that, to
stir the hard fastenings of those doors where
the Master himself has stood and knocked;
yet none opened, and to call at the openings
of those dark streets, where Wisdom herself
hath stretched forth her hands, and no man
regarded—thirty minutes to raise the dead
in—let us but once understand and feel this,
and we shall look with changed eyes upon
that frippery of gay furniture about the
place from which the message of'judgment
must be delivered, which either breathes
upon the dry bones that they may live, or,
if ineffectual, remains recorded in condem
nation, perhaps against the utterer and lis
tener alike, but assuredly against one of
them. We shall not so easily bear with the
silk and the gold upon the seat of judgment',
nor with ornament of oratory in the mouth
of the messenger. We, shall wish that his
words may be simple, even when they are
Sweetest, and 1 the place from which he speaks
like a marble rock in the desert, about which
the people have gathered in their thirst.”—
Buskin.
CHRIST'S MISSION.
Jesus came; to seek, as well as to save the
lost. His was a personal ministration
among sufferers. He began at home;' he
went to the ignorant, the prejudiced, the de
spised. He sought the lost, and he will
prove the benefactor of all kindreds, nations
and tongues. Let us go, then, after the
manner of the Saviour, and seek, in order
that we may save lost men, women and
children; the ignorant, that we may instruct
them; the abandoned and neglected, that
we may receive them into educational
homes; the hungry, that we may give
them food; the thirsty, that we may supply
them with drink; the vicious, that we may
reform them; the aged, that we may be
their staff; the sinful, that we may win
them to God; the oppressed, that we may
stand by them in the vindication of their
rights; the dying, that we may soothe their
pillows, refresh their parched lips, sustain
their sinking hearts, and direct their
troubled minds to peace and immortal life.
True Christian love opens every door. The
coals of its fire melt the most obdurate
hegrt. Its benevolent eye, its friendly out
stretched hand, its genial liquid tones, none
venture twice to resist.
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