this was the work of the right hand of the Most High God, for it was the cause of morality, and wonderful in our eyes. The kindness he had experienced in Glasgow since his arrival, and especially on that occasion, almost rendered him incapable of speaking to the beautiful address before him. He was a stranger among them. Only three days had elapsed since he arrived in this beautiful, highly cultivated, and picturesque land. His manners, his phraseology, his appearance, perhaps might seem strange to them, but it was unkind and uncandid in him to say he was a stranger, for he had forgotten he was a stranger. He had everywhere received the right hand of fellowship in this city, and during the two previous days he had almost forgotten that he was out of his own native Ireland. And it should be so; for he had of ten read, and was well nigh convinced, that they were the same people-the same blood flowed in their veins, and he had not seen any thing in Scotland to make him think that they were not natives of Ireland. At all events they were children of the same father-the same stock of blood flowed in their veins-they were redeemed by the same Saviour, and believers in the same gospel; and oh that the spirit of the Lord Jesus Chirit was diffused from pole to pole, and all mankind living together in peace and harmony, as the members of one family. The world would then be indeed a delightful habitation, in which we could sit down in peace under the blessings secured to us through faith in Christ Jesus, and the glory of the eternal world. Though naturally timid and desponding, he felt new vigour infused into his bosom by the splendid spectacle now before him. He saw many of his brethren before him of different religious professions-for it was not to be supposed that they could meet in the unity of the faith, though they could all meet in the unity of affection. He thought he heard some one saying, "Now Father Mathew, you are making fair speeches to delude and impose upon the good people of Glasgow; perhaps these are not your sentiments in your own native country." Now, he could reply to such friends, that his life was before the public, and if any one could say that the hungry had been sent from his door without food, or the naked without clothing, on account of difference of religion; that the tenant had been dismissed from his farm, or the servant from his place, through any influence of his, on account of difference of religion; he would allow them to point at him the finger of scorn, and say, "you are not a believer in the words you utter, and therefore you are not a true follower of the Saviour, who said, ' a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.' He ought, perhaps, to apologise for thus alluding to himself. He

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did so from no spirit of paltry egotism, but for the sake of the great and glorious cause in which they were all fellow labourers, and with which his humble name was intimately associated. After referring to the importance of the cause in which he was engaged to the unutterable woes which intemperance had brought upon Ireland, and to the great and beneficial change which teetotalism had produced in that country, emptying their jails, and relieving their workhouses, and changing the people, once the slaves of drunkenness, into the most temperate and industrious on the face of the earth-Mr Mathew went on to detail a variety of facts connected with the progress of teetotalism in Ireland. He stated that one balf of the Roman Catholic clergy, and many of the Episcopal and Presbyterian clergymen, were with them in the cause-that the higher classes also were with them, he having administered the pledge to five hundred ladies of the highest rank, at one time, in the Royal Exchange, Dublin. Having explained the progress of the movement from its infancy both in the South and in the North of Ireland, till the number of teetotallers had lately extended to five millions, he concluded as follows:-It has been always my hope that the cause of temperance would prove a bright and beauteous chain to unite all the people of this vast empire in the strictest bonds of eternal charity, social harmony, and brotherly love. I feel truly grateful for the flattering reception you have given to such an individual as myself. I should have been overwhelmed indeed did I not know that the honour was not given to me, but to that great and glorious cause of which I am the humble impersonation. I shall never forgo the remembrance of this day. I shall cherish it in the inmost recesses of my heart; and though I may have many difficulties to encounter-though darkness may cover my path in labouring to carry on this movement, yet my darkened path will be illuminated by rays reflected from this day's glory."

We were obliged to leave immediately on the close of Father Mathew's address, but we can never forget its beauty, power, and earnestness, nor cease to love the truly Christian spirit which breathed throughout it. It was evidently the heartfelt outpouring of a man devoted to a great and holy mission. The eulogy with which he introduced a quotation from Dr Channing was delightful; and the only regret we felt was, that more were not present to listen to the Christian sentiments of the speaker, and to do honour to themselves by becoming the advocates of temperance. We fear, however, Protestant bigotry stood in the way, of their paying respect to a Catholic. Notwithstanding, this gathering was a triumph of principle, and will induce many, we trust, to aid in the moral regeneration of society.

THE

CHRISTIAN PIONEER.

No. 196.

DECEMBER 1842.

VOL. XVI.

ON THE LITERARY ANTICIPATIONS OF AMERICA. BY WILLIAM MOUNTFORD.

DISAGREEABLE anticipations are over, now that Lord Ashburton has been such an English Minister Extraordinary as to have discussed dangerous matter with a foreigner, without exploding it by his violence. It is delightful, or else it would be politic, now to encourage such American sympathies, as should make impossible an American war. England was once delirious enough to attempt infanticide. But happily America was too strong for her mother. Perish all record of the crime with the age that attempted it! May the union of the countries henceforth be such as to persuade posterity into the falsehood of their wars! America has every possible claim on our sympathies; else its young hopes alone ought to interest us, and especially those expectations which are more than patriotic, being identified with human progress.

The Americans seem to cherish literary hopes warmly. Their greatest men often recur to them. Channing does so in two or three of his Sermons, as well as in his Essays. The writers in the Christian Examiner, and in the North American Review, frequently anticipate the glories of their national literature, and so do Edward Everett and Judge Story. And a wonderful harvest it will be, if their writings are to be read as first fruits. "We have no thought," says Dr Channing, "of speaking contemptuously of the literature of the old world. It is our daily nutriment. We feel our debt to be immense to the glorious company of pure and wise minds, which, in foreign lands, have bequeath

ed us in writing their choicest thoughts and holiest feelings. Still we feel that all existing literature has been produced under influences, which have necessarily mixed with it much error and corruption, and that the whole of it ought to pass, and must pass, under rigorous review. For example, we think that the history of the human race is to be re-written. Men imbued with the prejudices which thrive under aristocracies and state religions cannot understand it. * * * We want a reformation. We want a literature in which genius will pay supreme, if not undivided, homage to truth and virtue; in which the childish admiration of what has been called greatness, will give place to a wise moral judgment, which will breathe reverence for the mind, and elevating thoughts of God. The part which this country is to bear in this great intellectual reform, we presume not to predict. We feel, however, that, if true to itself, it will have the glory and happiness of giving new impulses to the human mind. This is our cherished hope." A similar hope Edward Everett expresses in one of his orations, delivered probably one 4th of July. "In ancient and modern history, there is no example before our own, of a purely elective and representative system. It is on an entirely novel plan, that, in this country, the whole direction and influence of affairs; all the trusts and honours of society; the power of making, abrogating, and administering the laws; the whole civil authority and sway, from the highest post in the government to the smallest village trust, are put directly into the market of merit. Whatsoever efficiency there is in high station and exalted honours to call out and exercise the powers, either by awakening the emulation of aspirants, or exciting the efforts of incumbents, is here directly exerted on the largest mass of men, with the smallest possible deductions. ** If, as no one will deny, our political system brings more minds into action on equal terms, if it provide a prompter circulation of thought throughout the community, if it give weight and emphasis to more voices, if it swell to tens of thousands and millions those sons of emulation who crowd the narrow strait where honour travels,' then it seems not too much to foretel some peculiarity at least,

"

if we may not call it improvement in that literature, which is but the voice and utterance of all this mental action."

America has great and unexampled advantages that must originate a new and unrivalled literature. In the flow of that knowledge that is hereafter to fill the earth, as the waters cover the sea, the force of the American is doubled by that of the English wave behind it. The Americans have greater intellectual help from England than any nation ever had from foreigners. They have an incalculable advantage in beginning a literary career with a literary language-a tongue to which English law and philosophy have given precision; which British science has enriched with its terms; and which Shakespeare and Milton have made musical with their

use.

Besides possessing a language tested by the wants, and improved for the purposes of twenty generations of the first people on the globe, the Americans inherit our poetry, philosophy, science, history, and criticism. English literature alone, is a greater advantage to the New, than the revival of the classics ever was to the Old World. Humanity could spare the Greek and Latin better than our British books. And besides this, the Americans profit by British help more easily than even the Italians did by Roman models. The future pioneer of American letters lisps at five years old, the qualification on which Boccacio and Petrarch had to spend years, working at the preliminary of a dead language.

Great minds necessarily kindle, but they also moderate enthusiasm. Their superiority both frowns and towers. In every country the golden is succeeded by a mediocre age. But this chilling effect does not result so much from ancient or distant, as it does from native authors. The Iliad and the Divine Comedy did not discourage Milton,-like his Paradise Lost," some mute inglorious Miltons" since. So that, in some respects, our literature may foster American more than even English mind. Be the literary anticipations of America ever so great, they can scarcely be unreasonable. We cannot predict, but we can already wonder at the