e also necessary to the
repose of individual minds. Robinson Crusoe could not have endured his
life for a month without rules to live by. A life without purpose is
uncomfortable enough; but a life without rules would be a wretchedness
which, happily, man is not constituted to bear. The rules by which men
live are chiefly drawn from the universal convictions about right and
wrong which I have mentioned as being formed everywhere, under strong
general influences. When sentiment is connected with these rules, they
become religion; and this religion is the animating spirit of all that
is said and done. If the stranger cannot sympathize in the sentiment, he
cannot understand the religion; and without understanding the religion,
he cannot appreciate the spirit of words and acts. A stranger who has
never felt any strong political interest, and cannot sympathize with
American sentiment about the majesty of social equality, and the beauty
of mutual government, can never understand the political religion of the
United States; and the sayings of the citizens by their own fire-sides,
the perorations of orators in town-halls, the installations of public
servants, and the process of election, will all be empty sound and
grimace to him. He will be tempted to laugh,--to call the world about
him mad,--like one who, without hearing the music, sees a room-full of
people begin to dance. The case is the same with certain Americans who
have no antiquarian sympathies, and who think our sovereigns mad for
riding to St. Stephen's in the royal state-coach, with eight horses
covered with trappings, and a tribe of grotesque footmen. I have found
it an effort of condescension to inform such observers that we should
not think of inventing such a coach and appurtenances at the present
day, any more than we should the dress of the Christ-Hospital boys. If
an unsympathizing stranger is so perplexed by a mere matter of external
arrangement,--a royal procession, or a popular election,--what can he be
expected to make of that which is far more important, more intricate,
more mysterious,--neighbourly and domestic life? If he knows and feels
nothing of the religion of these, he could learn but little about them,
even if the roofs of all the houses of a city were made transparent to
him, and he could watch all that is done in every parlour, kitchen, and
nursery in a circuit of five miles.

What strange scenes and transactions must such an one think that there