and circumstances, but upon God and an untiring industry and perseverance. Let him who would enjoy a quiet life rather remain at home. The American looks not upon enjoyment, but upon labor; not upon comfortable rest, but upon laborious restlessness as a proper life-problem of man upon the earth, and this is for him of unspeakable weight, and has the best practical influence upon the whole moral life of the nation. The merchant of New York becomes offended, if stopped upon the street for the purpose of asking a question, as by this means he will be made to lose a few moments of his precious time. The same zeal, the same economy of time. must the Preacher, the Missionary, the Colporteur and the Tract and Bible Societies use for a higher purpose. But the business man, who is somewhat piously disposed, looks upon the acquisition of money, simply as a means of doing good, as he is accustomed to express himself; and although one may not unjustly impute to the American covetousness and avarice. yet, on the other hand, they deserve the praise of an extensive liberality towards every possible benevolent enterprize. a liberality, which has not its like, except in the unexampled offerings of the Free Church of Scotland in the zeal of its first love.

As great as is the want of German preachers, especially in the western States of the Union, yet I would advise no one to emigrate who is not prepared to perform true missionary labor in the self-denying spirit of Christian love and meekness, and cheerfully to bear all kinds of hardships and adversities, yea, to labor and toil in the sweat of his brow for an unknown but great future; to offer himself up for a coming generation; that is the only enjoyment which I can promise a German preacher and a German scholar in America. He, whom this difficult but worthy undertaking invites, will truly find there a boundless field for activity.

In the face of this brief statement of the greatness and expansion of the United States, whose growth has positively been unexampled in all past history, of her inexhaustible resources for agriculture, trade and commerce of all kinds, for

culture and science, and all the peaceful arts, and in the face of this European emigration to the land of the West, can only stupidity itself remain indifferent, and pedantry deny to it a future.

Already upon the globe America presents itself as the central country. "The people of the United States, these Americans per eminentiam, have the control over the whole continent, and over two oceans, the one arm stretched out towards Europe, and the other towards Asia, and they possess ambition and energy enough to profit by the advantage of their position and circumstances." If a higher hand does not presently bring the wheel of history to a stand, they will have an immense problem to solve in the probable, though not certain event of a separation into four republics, a Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western, and no friend of humanity and of the Kingdom of God can look upon the further development. of this land of freedom, and of the future, with other than feelings of the deepest interest.

2. THE POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

In their political organization, the United States truly present a picture of a new world. In Europe, all State regulations rest more or less upon the feudal circumstances of the Middle Ages, as these again upon the patriarchal condition of Asia. The farther West, the more does the impulse towards individual and national freedom and independence make itself felt. Mostly is this the case with the Germanic stock, and farther again among these with the Anglo Saxons, who, favored by their insular separation, and under the influence of Christianity and Protestantism have carried out the farthest of all the nations of the earth, the principle of self-government and self-restraint, as the basis of national strength and greatness, and have presented the grand spectacle of an organized union of freedom and deep-rooted loyalty; of manly independence and attachment to antiquity, the old institutions; a well organized, not artificially drawn upon paper, constitutional monarchy of thoroughly natural growth and historical being,

has engrafted the impulse for constitutional freedom in Canada, Australia, East Indies, and in all her colonies, and has made them land and sea-bearing powers for the seeds of the Gospel and Christian culture.

In North America, except in the slavery of the southern States of the Union, the last remains of the feudal features of the Middle Ages are falling away. There is no king; no nobleman, no privileged class; no aristocrary, except the threefold aristocracy unavoidable in a republic, that of character, talent and wealth; no orders and titles, except those of profession resting upon self-acquisition; no land-ownership confined to families; no standing army; no State Church, but instead, a general civil and religious freedom and equality, an unrestrained freedom of speech and of the press; the rule of the sovereign people; election by majority for nearly all officers; eligibility to the most influential positions; even the presidential chair accessible to the poorest and the lowest among those whose personal fitness and qualification entitle them to it; and yet in the midst of all this apparent excess of freedom, a general regard for law and order; a deep reverence for Christianity; a conservative spirit; a well ordered government; a perfect security for person and property, and great self-reliance towards those without, as in the Mexican war, where fiery patriotism and national pride supplied the wants of a standing army in a few weeks; introduced bands of volunteer's into the heart of the enemy's country; achieved one victory after another over the terrified Spaniard, and planted the flag of the Union upon the halls of Montezuma.

This may seem very strange and wonderful to those who are bound by a particular political theory, and who apply the same measure of judgment to all lands and conditions of men, and who do not apprehend history as a living manifoldness, but as a dead sameness; and that to each nation is given its particular problem to solve. But this is nevertheless a fact, and with deeds and actual facts we have to do. Although a Swiss by birth, and an American by adoption, I have lived too long in monarchies, not to apprehend, at least to some ex

tent, their historical necessity and their high prerogatives. I have throughout no sympathy whatever with that pedantic and fanatical republicanism of so many Americans, who see salvation for Europe alone in the universal spread of republican institutions, and are therefore disposed to welcome-without looking at the matter more closely, for else they would judge far otherwise-even the worst kind of revolutions, born of the spirit of darkness. But, however unhistorical, foolish, yea even ridiculous an attempt to plant American institutions at once upon European soil might seem, yet on the other hand I can think of but one condition as wise and suitable for the United States, that of a republic. It has all traditions and sympathies in its favor; it is connected with all previous history, and with the present questions of the country; under this it has become great and strong; under this it feels itself fortunate and contented. One could scarcely tell where a King for America should come from. Certainly not from Europe, for the country is defended upon the East and West by the oceans against every successful invasion, as it is impregnable upon the North and South by its internal strength. A Monarch could only arise as a military Despot and Usurper, like Napoleon, from the blood of a civil war, and from such an one, it is to be hoped, that Christianity and civilization will defend us.

Although the American confederacy rests mainly upon a ground altogether different from the circumstances of European nations, and in so far presents something entirely new in the history of the world, yet it has come into being by no means in an abrupt and unmediated manner, but stands in the closest historical relation to England. The American revolution of 1776, out of which grew the great confederacy of free States, is in principle, character and tendency entirely different from the continental European revolution of 1789, and it is of the greatest importance, in order to understand properly, and to appreciate that country, and the prevailing conception of freedom there, always to keep this great difference before our eyes. It was no revolution at all in the sense of a sedition, and an

overturning of all the social circumstances, but simply a very powerful and historically necessary emancipation of the Colonies, which had now become of age, from the unnecessary and troublesome guardianship of the Mother country. Language, customs, religion, all the laws and regulations remained ostensibly the same, and were only formally, and so far altered, as the new condition of things rendered necessary. The English Common law, and the whole Court proceedings remain, and prevail now even as before. In the place of a hereditary Monarch there is a President, elected indeed by the people every four years, but with proportionally as much, and in some respects more power and influence, than is possessed by the Queen of England; in the place of Parliament there is a Congress with its two Houses, the Senate, which answers to the House of Lords, and in general represents the conservative principle, and the House of Representatives, which is a parallel to the English House of Commons, and whose prevailing tendency is yet more radical and progressive. The fathers and heads of the American revolution, with the exception of Tom Paine, the English Voltaire, who however soon lost all his influence, and was discarded by the entire decent part of American society, were any thing else than radical reformers and wild revolutionists, as the leaders of the French and German revolutions; but were men of sound practical tact, of a temperate, conservative and constitutionally liberal spirit, of the most praiseworthy moral, and in part also peculiarly religious character. For from the first settlement down, epecially among the Puritan New Englanders, great reverence for God, and pious customs have prevailed, which guarded, lest the national exaltation should assume a radical character, and lose itself in wild extravagances. George Washington, the noblest embodiment of the American revolution, or rather of the secession from England, the Father of his country, "the first in war, the first in peace, and the first in the hearts of his countrymen," who, from Maine to Florida, and from New York to Oregon, honor him as a sort of a national God, was a thoroughly disinterested patriot, a mild, noble-minded, plain