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therefore all its ramified details; and which tinctures every conversation on a religious topic which meets his ear? Although he were safe from the influence of the lectures, who will warrant him against the ridicule and the sophistry of his fellow students; by far the greater part of whom are of Unitarian families, and who have been accustomed from their infancy to laugh at every distinguishing principle of that belief to which they deny the character of rationality? Four years' exclusive intercourse with Socinians, spent in acquiring ideas upon every subject of speculative and experimental truth, is an ordeal to which no Christian parent ought to expose his son, however great his confidence in the correctness of his principles, and the vigour of his mind.

From Harvard University press issues the North American Review, beyond all comparison the first literary journal in the United States. The reputed editor is Professor Everett, and it evinces in him and his coadjutors talents and acquirements, liter

ary and philosophical, of a very superior order. Would that its theological opinions were from a purer source!-happily they are but seldom obtruded.

At Boston I visited another collection of anatomical preparations in wax, by a Dr. Williams. A full length figure, modelled from the body of a criminal, exhibits the exterior muscles; and various other models represent portions of the interior me

chanism of the human frame, and the different stages of some of its most important functions; they were beautifully executed, but I am not qualified to pronounce upon their anatomical accuracy. : Boston is rich in public libraries, and among these the Athenæum claims pre-eminence. This institution contains a library of about 20,000 volumes. The regulations prevent the books from being taken out of the rooms, but there are reading desks for the subscribers, and strangers introduced by them, at which in the most perfect silence they extract the mental nourishment which the volumes afford. A copy of Bowyers' edition of Hume's History of England was pointed out to me; I observed also many of the best editions of the ancient classics, and some splendid volumes of engravings, and works on natural history. The librarian informed me that to one London bookseller alone, they had paid for books upwards of twelve thousand dollars; £2700 sterling. In works on American history, the collection is said to be quite unrivalled. The Athenæum, although richest in the literary department, is intended to be also a depository for curious specimens of natural and artificial productions. It possesses a considerable number of Tassie's casts from antique gems, with a few busts, and a valuable collection of coins and medals.

The Athenæum was incorporated in 1807, and a stock subscribed in shares of 150 dollars, to the

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amount of about ten thousand pounds sterling. To attempt such an institution was highly honourable to Boston, and to succeed in it was still more so; it marks a greatly advanced state of society, in respect of taste and intellectual refinement, and is of itself a sufficient answer to much of the coarse abuse with which the American character has been assailed.4

Boston is by many reputed the most hospitable of all the large cities in the United States. It becomes not a wanderer who has experienced kindness and attention wherever he has gone to exalt one city at the expense of others, but I can with safety say, that I have met with nothing in Boston which is not perfectly in harmony with such a reputation. Let me however record an act of the citizens still more honourable than the ordinary deeds of hospitality. In the winter of 1816 a

The American newspapers have recently announced a splendid instance of individual liberality to this institution. A Mr. James Perkins of Boston, of the house of Messrs. J. & T. H. Perkins, has presented to the Athenæum, for the better accommodation of its treasures, a spacious building valued at 20,000 dollars; £4500 sterling. Amid all the patronage which has been bestowed on literature in our native country, I question whether we could point to an instance of equal generosity among our living commercial men. Some people become liberal in the distribution of their property when death is at hand and they can hold it no longer, but Mr. Perkins gives his townsmen the benefit of his commercial prosperity while he is still among them. Mr. Perkins, as might indeed be inferred from the character of his gift, is said to be a person of distinguished literary attainments. (1822.)

most destructive fire desolated a great part of the town of St. John's, in Newfoundland. When the tidings reached Boston, the sensations of sympathy and commiseration were instantaneous and powerful. They did not however exhaust themselves in unavailing expressions of regret; the townsmen determined that their kindly feelings should be felt as well as heard of. Forgetful that the year before the two countries had been enemies to each other, forgetful of every mercantile jealousy, and the contested right to fishing on the banks which America was eager to claim and Britain reluctant to concede-they recollected only, that hundreds of their fellow creatures had been burned out of their homes, amid the frosts, and fogs, and snows, of a Newfoundland winter, and that a great part of their winter provisions had perished in the flames. That very day a vessel was chartered, and a full cargo of flour, meat, and other provisions, industriously collected and put on board; I believe that even the porters and carmen on the wharfs laboured gratuitously; and on the third day the vessel left the harbour, to brave the hardships and the dangers of a winter passage to that inhospitable shore. He who prompted the act of humanity, watched over the means employed to accomplish it; the vessel reached Newfoundland in safety, entered the port, discharged her cargo, and returned, with the overflowing thanks and benedictions of many a grateful heart.

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The state of religion in the capital of New England is far from cheering. Whether the contagious influence spread from Harvard University to Boston, or from Boston to it, I know not, but though both were once distinguished for evangelical sentiments, both are now alike characterized by the lamentable predominance of Socinianism.

There are in the town about twenty-five churches, in more than a half of which these sentiments are avowedly or disguisedly promulgated; of these one is episcopalian in its ecclesiastical system, and uses a prayer book which has been altered in accommodation to these sentiments. It is distressing to think that the descendants of the Puritans, whose conscientious adherance to the most important religious truths drove them from their native land, should have departed so widely from adherance to those doctrines which are the only foundation of a sinner's hope.

The other churches in Boston are, three Episcopalian, four Baptist, one of which is entirely of blacks, two Congregational, two Methodist, two Universalist, and one Romish.

I have heard five discourses in Boston; two of them in a Congregational church, from men of very considerable talent and determined zeal for evangelical sentiments. One of them illustrated the answer to Pilate's question, "What is truth?" and combated with much earnestness and ability the