UNIVERSALISTS are a considerably numerous body. They are divided into two classes—Ultra, or those who reject altogether the idea of future punishments, and Restorationists, or those who believe in a punishment after death, but which is not eternal.
QUAKERS. Pennsylvania is the strong-hold of the Quakers, although there are considerable numbers in New Jersey, the city of New York, &c. There are two sects, the one orthodox, the other followers of Elias Hicks, or Hicksites. They dispute between themselves which has seceded from the original principles of the denomination. The Quakers of England sent forth an epistle in 1829, containing a confession of faith, which acknowledged the inspiration of the Scriptures, the divinity of the Savior, his atonement, &c. The Hicksites are generally considered the seceders.
The DUTCH REFORMED was the established church in New York until its surrender to England. Its first classes was formed in America in 1757. Its government is vested in consistories, classes, and synods. Members of the German Reformed church are found principally in Pennsylvania, and also in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and other states. There are more than five hundred congregations of them. The American Lutheran church has eight hundred congregations. The United Brethren, or Shakers, a singular, harmless, inoffensive and industrious race, are found in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, and other states. There may be about six thousand of them. The Swedenborgians also hold an annual convention.
INFIDELS. It is proper to mention under the head of religion, in order to give a correct view of the religious state of the country, a class of persons, divided into several subdivisions, and generally looked upon with pity by professing Christians of all denominations, and viewed with concern by all the rational friends of liberty. We speak of the Owenites, Fanny Wrightites, Harmonites, Deists, or, according to a very common form of parlance, Freethinkers, Infidels, or Atheists. All of them, we believe, affirm that a community of property, labor, and education, is necessary to the well-being of mankind, and hold that a belief in divine revelation is unnecessary and absurd. They hold, too, that the marriage covenant is binding only during the pleasure of the contracting parties. Rapp, who brought a colony of foreigners of this faith to the banks of the Ohio, acquired an almost unlimited authority over them. He forbade the intercourse of the sexes for a year or more, and was obeyed. He divided the lands among his followers, instituted regulations for manual labor, and the products of the common exertion was thrown into a common stock. Mr. Owen’s settlement, called Harmony, was conducted on nearly the same principles of equality. This gentleman possessed a large property in Scotland, which he abandoned to found a colony, and disseminate the doctrines of Voltaire and Paine, in America, in which he was very efficiently aided by the celebrated Miss Frances Wright. Both of them went about the country several years, lecturing against Christianity and revelation; but with no very great success. They finally showed that practice does not always conform to principle, by marrying one another. Mr. Owen’s settlement has long been abandoned, his followers not having attained that degree of moral and social perfection requisite for its success!
Such principles as those of Mr. Owen, striking, as they do, at the very root of society, will never, it is to be hoped,prevail to any great extent in any part of the world.[88] The Freethinkers are at present but a small body,without order or government as a party, and little respectable as individuals. They are probably not more than five or six thousand. They have newspapers and places of meeting, in New York, Boston, and elsewhere. Many of them are avowed atheists. Had they been persecuted, molested, or opposed in any degree, it is probable they would have multiplied much faster than they have.
PAPISTS or Roman Catholics. This sect is rapidly increasing in the United States;a fact which ought to alarm all the friends of liberty and true religion.[89]
In 1632, a priest of the order of the Jesuits accompanied the early settlers to Maryland, and since that time the Catholic population have been supplied with instructers of their own persuasion from England. A see was constituted, and a bishop consecrated, in 1790. In 1810, it became an archiepiscopal see, and four new suffragan dioceses were established, viz.: in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Bardstown, in Kentucky, to which some more have since been added, in New Orleans, Charleston, Richmond, and Cincinnati, &c. Regular missions are also established all over the country, and it would seem, from the zeal of the missionaries, as well as by the language of the pope, that very great importance is attached to the future religious faith of America by the court of Rome. Nor have the devoted exertions of the priests failed of much success, for it has been computed that half a million of the people of the United States are Roman Catholics, of which not less than ten thousand are in the city of Boston, being one sixth of its population. It is stated that bishop England, of Baltimore, is an officer of the Inquisition!
CHAPTER XIII.—MANNERS AND AMUSEMENTS.
THE dispositions and feelings of the inhabitants of the different portions of the United States have been modified by a great variety of circumstances. Difference of descent has operated with its usual power. The stern Puritan, the open-hearted and honest Dutchman, the light-hearted and easy Frenchman, the German, the Spaniard, the Catholic, the Huguenot, all have their representatives in various portions of the country. The distinctive national peculiarities have in some measure been worn off, and the varying elements have been amalgamated by constant intercourse, intermarriage, removals from one part to another, and the gradual effects of time. Still the national character is very distinct in distinct sections of the country, and in the following account of the various manners and customs, we have uniformly followed what we consider the best authority.