servation, to obtain any knowledge respecting it.Hence, many who have been transiently resident among them, have very confidently pronounced, that they have no religion; an assertion, which subsequent and more accurate travellers, have shown to be entirely unfounded.

Those, also, on whom we rely for information, have either been too little informed to know what to observe, or they have been influenced by peculiar modes of thinking, which have given a tinge to all they have said on the subject.

The various speculations, for example, on the question, whence America was peopled, led to many misrepresentations of the religious rites of its inhabitants; and affinities were discovered which existed no where but in the fancy of the inventor. Gomara, Lerius, and Lescarbot, inferred from some resemblances of this kind, that America was peopled by the Canaanites when they were expelled by Joshua; and the celebrated Grotius, adopting the sentiment of Martyr, imagined that Yucatan was first peopled by Ethiopians, and that those Ethiopians were Christians!

The human mind derives pleasure from paradox, for the same reason that it delights in wit. Both produce new and surprising combinations of thought; and the judgment, being overpowered by the fervour of imagination, becomes for a time insensible to their extravagance.

It is well known, that among the philosophers of Europe, the opinion has very generally prevailed, that the natives of America were, both as to physical and mental powers, a feeble race; and, impressed with this belief, they hardly considered the religion of the Indians as worthy of minute attention. The celebrated historian of America, has unconsciously fallen into this error, at the very moment in which he was censuring others, for suffering their relation of facts to be perverted, by an attachment to preconceived theo

ries.*

* See Robertson's America, book iv. § vii.

Volney, in opposition to the sentiments of Rousseau, has endeavoured to sink the character of the savage, in the same proportion as that eccentric author sought to raise it. On the subject of the Indian religion especially, no one should be read with greater caution. He who could imagine that Christianity was only an astronomical allegory, and that the birth of our Saviour meant no more than that the sun had entered the constellation Virgo, can hardly be considered as perfectly sane, even when he treats on the religion of hea→ thens.* We need not be surprised, therefore, at the assertion that the Indians have no regular system of religion; that each one employs the liberty allowed him of making a religion for himself; and that all the worship they knew is offered to the authors of evil.† Never was there an assertion more unfounded; but it enabled him to quote that maxim of the Epicurean poet, which is so frequently in the mouths of unbelievers, that all religion originated in fear:

Primos in orde Deos fecit timor.

On the other hand, an hypothesis has somewhat extensively prevailed, which exalts the religion of the Indians as much above its proper level, as Volney has debased it below; I mean that, which supposes them to be the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel. This theory so possessed the mind of Adair, that although he had the greatest opportunities of obtaining know

*See Les Ruines, ou Meditations sur les Revolutions des Empires, par M. Volney Nouvelle edition corrigée, Paris, 1792, 8vo. chap. 22. p. 185. 221-4. In this work, Volney had the hardihood to maintain, not only that our Saviour was an allegorical personage, but that all religions, Heathen, Mahometan, and Jewish, as well as Christian, are in substance the same; that all have arisen from a literal interpretation of the figurative language of astronomers; and that the very idea of a God, sprung from a personification of the elements, and of the physical powers of the universe. At the sight of this monstrous creation of a disordered fancy, one cannot help exclaiming with Stillingfleet, "Oh what will not Atheists believe, rather than a Deity and Providence."

Volney's View of the United States, ut supr. trans. by Brown, p. 416.

We

ledge, his book is, comparatively, of little use. are constantly led to suspect the fidelity of his statements, because his judgment had lost its equipoise, and he saw every thing through a discoloured medium. I feel myself bound to notice this hypothesis the more, because it has lately been revived and brought before the public, by a venerable member of this society, whose exalted character renders every opinion he may defend a subject of respectful attention.*

To the mind of every religious man, the history of the Hebrews is a subject of peculiar interest; and it is impossible to read of the extermination of the kingdom of Israel, without a feeling of compassion for the captives, who were thus torn from the land of their prerogative. The impenetrable darkness which hangs over their subsequent history, combines with this sentiment of pity, the powerful excitement of curiosity. It is not, then, to be wondered at, that when the disquisitions arose respecting the peopling of America, the idea of tracing to these western shores the longlost tribes of Israel, should also have arisen before the eye of imagination with captivating splendour; that the thought should have been seized with avidity by men who were pious, and ardent, and contemplative; and that, in the establishment of a theory which every one could wish to be true, facts should be strained from their natural bent, and resemblances imagined, which have no existence in reality.

The most unequivocal method of tracing the origin of the aborigines of America, as Charlevoix has sensibly remarked, is to ascertain the character of their languages, and to compare them with the primitive languages of the eastern hemisphere.†

* See Dr. Boudinot's Star in the West, or a humble attempt to discov er the long-lost ten tribes of Israel, preparatory to their return to their beloved city Jerusalem. Trenton, (N. J.) 1816, 8vo.

+ Charlevoix's Dissertation sur l'origine des Amériquains, prefixed to his Journal d'un voyage dans l'Amer. Septent. Hist. de la nouvelle France, tom. iii. p. 36.

But this test will, I conceive, be found very fatal to the theory in question. The best informed writers agree, that there are, exclusive of the Karalit or Esquimaux, three radical languages spoken by the Indians of North America. Mr. Heckewelder denominates them the Iroquois, the Lenapé, and the Floridian. The Iroquois is spoken by the six nations, the Wyandots or Hurons, the Naudowessies, the Assiniboils, and other tribes beyond the St. Lawrence. The Lenapé, which is the most widely extended language on this side of the Mississippi, was spoken by the tribes, now extinct, who formerly inhabited Nova-Scotia and the present state of Maine, the Abenakis, Micmacs, Canibas, Openangos, Soccokis, Etchemins, and Sour quois; dialects of it are now spoken by the Miamis, the Potawotamies, Missisangoes, and Kickapoos; the Conestogos, Nanticokes, Sirawanese, and Mohicans; the Algonquins, Knisteneaux, and Chippeways. The Floridian includes the languages of the Creeks or Muskohgees, Chickesaws, Choctaws, Pascagoulas, Cherokees, Seminolese, and several others in the southern states and Florida. These three languages are primitive, that is to say, are so distinct as to have no perceivable affinity. All, therefore, cannot be derived from the Hebrew; for it is a contradiction in terms, to speak of three languages radically different, as derived from a common source. Which then, we may well ask, is to be selected as the posterity of the Israelites: the Iroquois, the Lenapé, or the southern Indians?

*

Besides, there is one striking peculiarity in the construction of American languages, which has no counterpart in the Hebrew. Instead of the ordinary division of genders, they divide into the animate and inani

Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge. Vol. i. Philad. 1819, 8vo. No. I. An account of the history, manners, and customs, of the Indian nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania, and the neighbouring states. By the Rev. John Heckewelder, of Bethlehem. Chap. ix. p. 104.

It will be readily seen, however, that this proof is of ast importance. If the religion of the Indians exhibAts traces of that primeval religion which was of divine appointment; if the debasement of it was owing, as among all other nations, to the concurrent operation of human ignorance, weakness, and corruption; and if its rites, and even its superstitious observances, bear that analogy to those of the old world, which must exist where all have flowed from one source: then all that is really useful in the question respecting the origin of the inhabitants of this continent will be fully obtained. There will be no anomaly in the history of human nature; and the assertion of Voltaire will be found to be as false as it is flippant, that the Americans are a race entirely different from other men, and that they have sprung into existence like plants and insects,*

"Il n'est permis qu'à un aveugle de douter que les Blancs, les Né gres, les Albinos, les Hottentots, les Lapons, les Chinois, les Américans soient des races entièrement différentes." Voltaire Œuvres, vol. 16. p. 8.

"Au reste si l'on demande d'où sont venus les Américains, il faut aussi demander d'où sont venus les habitants des terres Australes; et l'on a déjà répondu que la providence qui a mis des hommes dans le Norvège, en a planté aussi en Amérique et sous le cercle polaire meridional, comme elle y a planté des arbres et fait croître de l'herbe." Ibid. p. 10.

"Se peut-il qu'on demande encore d'où sont venus les hommes qui ont peuplé l'Amérique? On doit assurément faire la même question sur les nations des Terres Australes. Elles sont beaucoup plus éloignées du port dont partit Christophe Colomb, que ne le sont les les Antilles. On a trouvé des hommes et des animaux partout où la terre est habitable; qui les y a mis? On a déjà dit; C'est celui qui fait croître l'herbe des champs: et on ne devait pas être plus surpris de trouver en Améri que des hommes que des mouches.” Ib. p. 37.

How much pains did this extraordinary man take to degrade that nature of which he was at once the ornament and the shame! No one can read the writings of Voltaire, without a feeling of admiration at the wonderful versatility of his talents. No one can help being amused, and having his mind drawn along, by the powers of his excursive fancy. But with all this, there is, to every serious and sensitive mind, a feeling of disgust and shrinking abhorrence. By associating ludicrous images with subjects which have been hallowed by the veneration of ages, he has the address to impart to them that ridicule which properly belongs only to the company in which he has placed them. Hence, bis writings have done more injury to truth, and to human happiness, than those of any other modern-perhaps I may add, of any other being. The thought