ysterious questions on the nature of God, of liberty and of the soul. A
hardy race multiplied along the _alluvion_ of the streams and subdued
the more rocky and less inviting fields. Its population for a century
doubled once in twenty years, though there was considerable emigration
from the valley. Religion united with the pursuits of agriculture gave
to the people the aspects of steady habits. The domestic wars were
discussions of knotty points in theology. The concerns of the parish and
the merits of the minister were the weightiest affairs, and a church
reproof the heaviest calamity. The strifes of the parent country, though
they sometimes occasioned a levy among the sons of the husbandmen,
never brought an enemy over their border. No fears of midnight ruffians
disturbed the sweetest slumber, and the best house required no fastening
but a latch, lifted by a string.

Happiness was enjoyed unconsciously. Beneath a rugged exterior, humanity
wore its sweetest smile. For a long time there was hardly a lawyer in
the land. The husbandman who held his own plough and fed his own cattle
was the greatest man of the age. No one was superior to the matron, who,
with her busy daughters, kept the hum of the wheel incessantly alive,
spinning and weaving every article of their dress. Fashion was confined
within narrow limits, and pride, which aimed at no grander equipage than
a pillion, could exult only in the common splendor of the blue and white
linen gown, with short sleeves, coming down to the waist, and in the
snow-white flaxen apron, which, primly starched and ironed, was worn on
public days. There was no revolution except from the time of sowing to
the time of reaping, from the plain dress of the week to the more trim
attire of Sunday. Every family was taught to look to the fountain of
all good.

Life was not all sombre. Frolic mingled with innocence. Sometimes
religion itself wore the garb of gayety, and the annual thanksgiving to
God was, from primitive times, as joyous as it was sincere. Nature
always asserts her rights, and Christianity means gladness.

The English colonies of the south after the restoration began to show
evidence of improvement. Mr. William Drummond, the sturdy Scotch
emigrant to Virginia, having been appointed governor of North Carolinia
brought that country into the favorable notice of the world. Clarendon
gained for Carolinia a charter which opened the way for religious
freedom. One clause held out t