and consists in a careless reading of publications of the day,
having the same utilitarian tendency with our own proceedings.
The infrequency of acquaintance with any of the great fathers
of English lore marks this state of things.

'New England is now old enough,--some there have leisure
enough,--to look at all this; and the consequence is a violent
reaction, in a small minority, against a mode of culture that
rears such fruits. They see that political freedom does not
necessarily produce liberality of mind, nor freedom in church
institutions--vital religion; and, seeing that these changes
cannot be wrought from without inwards, they are trying to
quicken the soul, that they may work from within outwards.
Disgusted with the vulgarity of a commercial aristocracy, they
become radicals; disgusted with the materialistic working of
"rational" religion, they become mystics. They quarrel with
all that is, because it is not spiritual enough. They would,
perhaps, be patient if they thought this the mere sensuality
of childhood in our nation, which it might outgrow; but they
think that they see the evil widening, deepening,--not only
debasing the life, but corrupting the thought, of our people,
and they feel that if they know not well what should be done,
yet that the duty of every good man is to utter a protest
against what is done amiss.

'Is this protest undiscriminating? are these opinions crude?
do these proceedings threaten to sap the bulwarks on which men
at present depend? I confess it all, yet I see in these men
promise of a better wisdom than in their opponents. Their hope
for man is grounded on his destiny as an immortal soul, and