[Footnote 338: Boston was the capital of Massachusetts, and the center
of the most fervent Puritanism.

"Boston may be ranked as the seat of the Unitarians, as Baltimore is
that of the Roman Catholics, and Philadelphia that of the Quakers.... No
axiom is more applicable to the pensive, serious, scrutinizing
inhabitant of the New England States than this: 'What I do not
understand, I reject as worthless and false;' so said one of the most
learned men of Boston to me. 'Why occupy the mind with that which is
incomprehensible? Have we not enough of that which appears clear and
plain around us?' ... The greater part of the Bostonians, including
every one of wealth, talents, and learning, have adopted this
doctrine."--Arfwedson, vol. i., p. 179.

"In Boston all the leading men are Unitarians, a creed peculiarly
acceptable to the pride and self-sufficiency of our nature, asserting,
as it does, the independence and perfectibility of man, and denying the
necessity of atonement or sanctification by supernatural influences.

"Though every where in New England the greatest possible decency and
respect with regard to morals and religion is still observed, I have no
hesitation in saying that I do not think the New Englanders a
_religious_ people. The assertion, I know, is paradoxical, but it is
nevertheless true, that is, if a strong and earnest belief be a
necessary element in a religious character: to me it seems to be its
very essence and foundation. I am not now speaking of belief in _the
truth_, but belief in something or any thing which is removed from the
action of the senses.... I am not trusting to my own limited observation
in arriving at this conclusion; I find in M. de Tocqueville's work an
assertion of the same fact. He accounts for it, indeed, in a different
way.... What I complain of is, not the absence of nominal, but of real,
heartfelt, unearthly religion, such as led the Puritan Nonconformists to
sacrifice country and kindred, and brave the dangers of the ocean and
the wilderness for the sake of what they believed God's truth. In my
opinion, those men were prejudiced and mistaken, and committed great and
grievous faults; but there was, at least, a redeeming element in their
character--that of high conscientiousness. There was no compromise of
truth, no sacrifice to expediency about them; they believed in the
invisible, and they acted on that belief. Every where the tone of
religious feeling, since that time, has