more fully do we comprehend him. In order, then, to know God, which is life eternal, we are not to seek in books or in sermons for definitions, nor in metaphysics for theorems and demonstrations; but to go forth and work, go forth and labor to be true, good, noble, disinterested, heroic. You need not seek to name the Unnameable, to define the Undefinable; you need not seek to construct theodicies, nor to torture language into hymns of fulsome praise; but let your own souls be your systems of theology, and your lives hymns. Be ye perfect, and your perfection shall be a revelation of God, your thoughts shall be praise, your emotions worship, your sentiments grateful incense rising in perennial fragrance to the Universal Spirit. Fear God, obey him, and you will know him, and your knowledge shall be his praise, and his glory.

ART. IV.
IV. Democracy in America. Part Second.
The Social Influence of Democracy. By ALEXIS DE
TOCQUEVILLE. New-York: J. & H. G. Langley.
1840.*

HUME, in his History, reign of Charles the Second, while endeaving to unravel the famous popish plot, thus remarks; "in one sense, there is a popish plot perpetually carrying on, against all states, Protestant, Pagan, and Mahometan." If to this we add its just counterpart, that a Protestant or sectarian plot is everywhere in a like state of indefinite progression, the proposition may be safely assented to even in this late and enlightened age of the world. The fell spirits of intolerance, bigotry, and proselytism, have never revelled more generally or more actively than of late. Even during the

The Editor of this Journal inserts this paper on Catholicism, from a highly esteemed friend, without endorsing it. It is, however, worthy of a careful study.

singular era of British puritanism, there was not a closer assumed relation between social interests and religion, than we may now perceive in the Propaganda of Rome, and the Missionary enterprises of the Protestant church. The jesuitical spirit is still, as for long ages past, a considerable element in ecclesiastical affairs; and because God and religion are unquestionable truths, nay more, are innate feelings or deep seated passions of the human soul, while individual men are desperately selfish, there is little hope of a speedy extinction of hypocrisy. The artfulness of a sinister few will too probably long continue to control the weak through the honest fanaticism of the many, and thus pervert the aggregate piety of the world to the basest purposes of power. At this day, and even now, in the United States, there exists much alarm respecting the encroachment of sectarian tyranny. Sermons, and more systematic treatises, by the devotees of specific forms of faith in abuse of others, stream from our pulpits, and public press. "Awful disclosures," from sources at least as questionable as were those of Titus Oates and Bledsoe, are devoutly obtruded upon the American public. The stigma of infidelity is bandied about with unscrupulous ceremony; and, indeed, attempted to be fixed upon an entire political party, comprising half the population of the Union. Church edifices of every species, are multiplying beyond all precedent; are extremely gaudy and expensive; and their erection seems. likely to become a peculiar trade, the profits of which are to arise from the sale of pews at extravagant prices. Clergymen of particularly persuasive or convincing powers, are greater men, and more liberally paid than ever before. In short, the general aspect of church matters is such, that we have but to believe in the sincerity and single purpose of their active champions, to hail the long desired arrival of the thousand millennial years. We admit, there is abundant occasion for all this noise and activity; not so much, however, to supply an extraordinary demand, as to conceal the self-developing weaknesses and defects of the system. For

certain it is, that a formal Catholic and a bigoted Protestant, or any two contrarious sectarians, are necessarily bound, as by an imperious law, to scowl at and quarrel with each other, thereby to prevent a mutual and fatal paroxysm of immoderate laughter.

But not to treat lightly of a subject, to which the long duration and intensity of its controversy, if nothing more, give serious importance, we will now proceed to investigate the nature of Catholicism, and endeavor to draw from thence its probable progress and final result.

The subject derives new interest from the bold, and, we think, superficial views advanced by De Tocqueville, in the second part of his work on American Democracy. He there unequivocally asserts, that the Catholic religion is rapidly advancing towards paramount ascendency in the United States, and plainly associates its spirit with the generalizing disposition of our people. He observes;

"America is the most democratic country in the world, and it is at the same time, (according to reports worthy of belief,) the country in which the Roman Catholic religion makes most progress. At first sight, this is surprising.

"Two things must here be accurately distinguished; equality inclines men to wish to form their own opinions; but, on the other hand, it imbues them with the taste and the idea of unity, simplicity, and impartiality in the power which governs society. Men living in democratic ages are, therefore, very prone to shake off all religious authority; but if they consent to subject themselves to any authority of this kind, they choose, at least, that it should be single and uniform. Religious powers not radiating from a common centre, are naturally repugnant to their minds; and they almost as readily conceive that there should be no religion, as that there should be several.

"At the present time, more than in any preceding one, Roman Catholics are seen to lapse into infidelity, and Protestants to be converted to Roman Catholicism. If the Roman Catholic faith be considered within the pale of the Church, it would seem to be losing ground; without that pale, to be gaining it. Nor is this circumstance difficult of explanation. The men of our days are naturally little disposed to believe; but, as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent propensity, which urges them unconsciously toward Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and the practices of the Romish Church astonish them; but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its great unity attracts them. If Catholicism could at length withdraw itself from the political ani

mosities, to which it has given rise, I have hardly any doubt but that the same spirit of the age, which appears to be so opposed to it, would become so favorable as to admit of its great and sudden ad

vancement.

"One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic. Thus, there have ever been, and will ever be, men who, after having submitted some portion of their religious belief to the principle of authority, will seek to exempt several other parts of their faith from its influence, and to keep their minds floating at random between liberty and obedience. But I am inclined to believe, that the number of these thinkers will be less in democratic than in other ages; and that our posterity will tend more and more to a single division into two parts, some relinquishing Christianity entirely, and others returning to the bosom of the Church of Rome." - Book I. Chap. vi.

An indistinct perception of the practical nature of our peculiar institutions, and, perhaps, a native prejudice in favor of the pomp and power, if not the principles of the Romish church, may sufficiently account for these opinions of De Tocqueville. His acute powers of observation convince him, that in the midst of the extreme "individualism," the isolated efforts at personal ascendency in society, there is at the same time an active tendency among us towards a general assimilation of character and belief. Limited in the more enlarged operations of mind by the excessive powers of his strong perceptive faculties, he believes, because he perceives the verging of extreme individual liberty towards a common sameness of conduct and opinion in the United States, and having long observed, and been familiar with but one specific form of fully developed Catholicism, he hastily assumes, that its characteristic features will become impressed upon the spontaneous unity of the American religion. His is evidently not a mind to discriminate accurately between appearances and reality. It does not seem to have ever occurred to him, that Roman Catholicism is but one form of ecclesiastical tyranny; a form derived from the contingent circumstances and events, which accompanied its progress to maturity. The character, too, of the people among whom it commenced its career, and the progressive action and reaction, as agent and reagent, of that

church and that people upon each other, has resulted in just such a church and just such a population as we find at this day in the various sections of Europe. The same original influence, if now acting anew on SO very different a popular material as these States present, would certainly result in a species of church having little apparent identity with the Romish, or any other known Catholicism. De Tocqueville's anticipations are, indeed, nearly as absurd as to suppose the possibility, that by spontaneous operations among ourselves, or by immigration of Mahometans, or the industry of any number of agents of the Mufti and Dervishes, the Koran would come to supersede the Bible, and the adoration of the Arab prophet obtain in this country. We are in very little more danger from the cowl than the turban, the crucifix than the crescent. If any Catholicism shall here become established, it must assume a form as peculiar as is the genius of the people, or at least be adapted to the general spirit of the age.

While mankind are regarded as a mere cluster of isolated selves, without any other communal element than obscure, and, of a sort, accidental similitude of bodies and minds, and, consequently, while artificial regulations and laws are deemed essential rather than simply convenient, it is certain that Catholicisms, more or less perfectly matured, will continue, and will be spurious, changeable, belligerent, and tyrannical. Before the Reformation, the Catholic religion of western Europe was Roman; of the eastern, Greek; and of western and southern Asia, Mahometan. Since that period, other Catholic religions have become established; particularly, one in England, and another in Scotland. Indeed, no civilized country can be said to be without its peculiar Catholicism. Even in the United States, theoretically free as is the opinion of the citizen, both by constitutions and laws, certain features of religious exclusiveness are plainly discernible; for example, the observance, in some places by law! of the first day of the week as a holy day, the customary use of formal prayer in connexion with our legislative proceedings,