from the outset the intense struggle for
an inward peace and joy, with tears and groanings,--the victory sometimes
found, sometimes missed. There was a resolute facing of what was held as
truth. The ministers and laymen battled with the problems of the
infinite. The issue after two centuries was an open break from Calvinism
in Channing, and the glad vision of Emerson.

A feature in the story is the New Englander's relation with Nature as he
found her,--first like a terrible power of destruction, by cold and
hunger; this he conquers by endurance. Then for generations he wrings a
hard livelihood out of her. Then by his wits he makes her serve him more
completely. At last her beauty is disclosed to him,--a beauty which has
its roots in the very struggles he has had, and the contrasts they
afford,--no child of the tropics loves Nature as he does.

So of the sea: first he dares it as explorer and voyager; then he makes
it his feeding-ground--catches the cod and chases the whale; in his ships
he does battle against pirate and public foe; he makes the deep the
highway of his commerce; and at last he feels its grandeur, into which
enters the reminiscence of all his combats.

Elements which Puritanism had renounced came in later from other sources.
The fresh contact with truth and reality was given by Franklin. The free
joy of religion, its aggressive love, came in Methodism. Beautiful
ritual returned in Episcopacy. The frank enjoyment of life developed in
the South, transmitted from the country life of the English squire and
mellowed on American soil.

At the outset of the story of America stands the Puritan, his heart set
on subduing the infernal element and winning the celestial; regarding
this life as a stern warfare, but the possible pathway to an infinite
happiness beyond; fierce to beat down the emissaries of evil,--heretic,
witch, or devil; yet tender at inmost heart, and valiant for the truth as
he sees it. After a century, behold the Yankee,--the shrewd, toilful,
thrifty occupant of the homely earth; one side of his brain speculating
on the eternities, and the other side devising wealth, comfort, personal
and social good. And to-day, successor of Puritan and Yankee, Cavalier
and Quaker, stands the American, composite of a thousand elements, with a
destiny which seems to hover between heights and abysses, but amid all
whose vicissitudes and faults we still see faith and courage and manly
purpose working t