and zeal for His glory. And may He diffuse amongst all the people, a spirit of penitence, of obedience, of candour, of charity, of concord; that iniquity and dissension be not our ruin, but that the national blessings so graciously imparted and so wonderfully preserved to us, being thankfully acknowledged and faithfully improved, may be perpetuated to all generations. Amen.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A. page 45.

THE inadequacy of the voluntary church system to supply the place of a state establishment, as a means of providing religious instruction for the great body of a people, is nowhere so amply proved as in the United States of America; and the melancholy details of observers on the spot, persons of calm and inquiring habits, and who on other questions are appealed to as high authorities by the opponents of establishments, cannot be too generally known or attentively weighed, as a counterpoise to the vague declamation which is so constantly directing us across the Atlantic for examples of wise legislation.'

Dr. Dwight, in his Travels in New England and New York, contrasting the spiritual condition of Connecticut, in which a state provision for religious instruction existed, with that of the states south of New England, in which there was none, shews that in the former, the number of Presbyterian ministers, was in the proportion

1 The reader desirous of information on this subject may also consult with advantage a tract on the Religious Statistics of America, circulated by the Glasgow Association in defence of the Church of Scotland, in which the misstatements of the Voluntary Church Society are ably exposed.

of about one to every thirteen hundred inhabitants, in the latter but as one to every nineteen thousand three hundred inhabitants; and this he supposes to be no unfair estimate of the relative proportion between the teachers of other religious denominations and their flocks. "In Connecticut," therefore, he concludes, "every inhabitant, who is not precluded by disease or want of inclination, may hear the gospel, and celebrate the public worship of God, every Sabbath. In the states specified, it is not improbable, that a number of people several times as great as the census of Connecticut, have scarcely heard a sermon or a prayer in their lives."

"In conformity to this estimate has been the prevalence of religion in these states." As to the former, "It is doubted whether there is a collection of ministers in the world, whose labours have been more prosperous, or under whose preaching a greater proportion of those who heard them have become the subjects of real piety." "In their good order, the regular distribution of justice, the universal existence of schools, the universal enjoyment of the education which they communicate, and the extension of superior education, it will be difficult for a sober man not to perceive, that the smiles of heaven have regularly accompanied this system from its commencement to the present time. I need not, however, have gone further for the illustration of this subject than to a comparison of the states of Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The former, independently of Providence, Newport, and two or three other small towns, is in all these important particulars a mere contrast to the latter. Yet these states were planted by colonies from the same nation, lie in the same climate, and are separated merely by a meridional line."

Such was the happy contrast to its neighbours exhibited by the state of Connecticut in 1798, and which Dr. Dwight extends to Massachusetts, where also a re

ligious establishment was maintained. Unhappily we have evidence of equal respectability as to the effects of a reform in this important particular, introduced into both these states at a subsequent period. It is from a sermon before the Auxiliary Education Society of the Young Men of Boston, by S. F. Jarvis, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's Church, Boston. 1822.

"When our independence was achieved it became necessary as a measure of sound policy, for the constitution of our national government only to tolerate, and not to support Christianity. It became necessary, in order to blend together the heterogeneous mass, to prevent the collisions of religious parties from having any sway over the public councils by excluding religion itself. It became necessary to banish that subject, which of all others ought to be most interesting to men in every station of life, because the corruptions of the human heart and the errors of the human understanding, here rent asunder the body of Christ. This single measure has altered the whole aspect of affairs. The constitution of the general government immediately became a model for the constitution of the several states. Thus a force was created which sapped the foundations of all establishments; and though the religious institutions of Massachusetts and Connecticut have been seated deep in the habits and affections of the people, yet the constantly accumulating power of this formidable lever has at length heaved them from their base. It is now left to men as individuals, to associate for the purpose of supporting public worship, as they would associate for the promotion of any object merely of private and worldly interest. In our cities and other large and populous places this may be done. Enough may be found already united in sentiment to unite in the formation of a Christian congregation. But when you look beyond them, and contemplate the small villages and hamlets, the population of which is thinly