In its first half century the United States was visited by scores of curious European travellers who came to investigate the strange new world that was being created in the Western Hemisphere. In their accounts of the experience they praised, or condemned, the institutions and national characteristics spread out before them, seized avidly upon all differences from the European norm, and worried each peculiarity beyond recognition and beyond any just limit of its importance. Americans themselves, with the keen sensitiveness of the young and the boasting enthusiasm natural to vigorous creators of new ideas and institutions, examined the work of their hands and, believing it good, reassured themselves and answered their calumniators in a flood of aggressive replies. Every American interested in a reform movement, a new cult, or a Utopian scheme burst into print, adding another to the rapidly growing list of polemic books and pamphlets. From this variety of sources, it is possible to recapture something of the inward spirit that gave rise to the more familiar and more tangible events of America’s youth.

Excerpt from Lectures on Political Atheism and Kindred Subjects: Together With Six Lectures on Intemperance Most sincerely, and with deep interest and many prayers, I have written these Lectures, and now commend them to the providence of God. I have long been urgently requested by many to prepare my works for the press, with a concise his tory of my life and times. It has been for many years my desire to do this, and for urgent reasons. I am sensible that the fifty years of my active life have been years of unparalleled interest, and of rapid, terrible and glorious results, - the commence ment of the punishment of the antichristian powers, with reference to the predicted victories of the church in the evangelization of the world. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.