the _New Englander_, a respectable _Quarterly_, to which I have before
referred. "It will, doubtless, be thought strange to say that the
systems of public common-school education now existing, and sought to
be established throughout our country, may yet, while Christians sleep,
become one of the greatest, if not _the_ greatest, antagonism in the
land to all evangelical instruction and piety. But how long before they
will be so,--when they shall have become the mere creatures of the
State, and, under the plea of no sectarianism, mere naturalism shall be
the substance of all the religious, and the basis of all the secular
teaching which they shall give? And let it not be forgotten that strong
currents of influence, in all parts of the country, acting in no chance
concert, are doing their utmost to bring about just this result."

4. I admire their _temperance_.

I confess that I felt humbled and ashamed for my own country, when, so
soon as I trod on British ground, or British _planks_, the old absurd
drinking usages again saluted my eye. In all the States I met with
nothing more truly ludicrous than some of these. For instance, when
A.B.'s mouth happens to be well replenished with, "flesh, fish, or
fowl," potatoes, pudding, or pastry, at one table, C.D., from another
table far away across the room, at the top of his voice, calls out,
"Mr. A.B., allow me the pleasure to take a glass of wine with you."
A.B. makes a very polite bow, fills his glass in a great hurry, holds
it up with his right hand, C.D. doing the same thing with his; and
then A.B. and C.D., making another polite bow to each other,
simultaneously swallow their glasses of wine! Were we not _accustomed_
to the sight, it would appear as laughable as anything travellers tell
us of the manners and customs of the least enlightened nations. Surely,
if this childish practice is still a rule in polite society, it is one