s of the spirit, and Boston has
never found the quest of gold sufficient for its needs. The Pilgrim
Fathers, who first sought a refuge in New England, left their country
in the cause of what they thought intellectual freedom, and their
descendants have ever stood in need of the excitement which nothing
save pietism or culture can impart. For many years pietism held sway in
Boston. The persecution of the witches, conducted with a lofty eloquence
by Cotton Mather, was but the expression of an imperious demand, and the
conflict of warring sects, which for many years disturbed the peace
of the city, satisfied a craving not yet allayed. Then, after a long
interval, came Transcendentalism, a pleasant mixture of literature and
moral guidance, and to-day Boston is as earnest as ever in pursuit of
vague ideals and soothing doctrines.

But pietism has gradually yielded to the claim of culture. Though one
of the largest buildings which frown upon the wayfarer in Boston is
a temple raised to the honour of Christian Science and Mrs Eddy,
literature is clearly the most fashionable anodyne. It is at once easier
and less poignant than theology: while it imparts the same sense of
superiority, it suggests the same emancipation from mere world-liness.
It is by lectures that Boston attempts to slake its intellectual
thirst--lectures on everything and nothing. Science, literature,
theology--all is put to the purpose. The enterprise of the Lowell
Institute is seconded by a thousand private ventures. The patient
citizens are always ready to discuss Shakespeare, except when Tennyson
is the subject of the last discourse, and zoology remains attractive
until it be obscured by the newest sensation in chemistry. And the
appetite of Boston is unglutted and insatiable. Its folly is frankly
recognised by the wise among its own citizens. Here, for instance, is
the testimony of one whose sympathy with real learning is evident. "The
lecture system," says he, "in its best estate an admirable educational
instrument, has been subject to dreadful abuse. The unbounded appetite
of the New England communities for this form of intellectual nourishment
has tempted vast hordes of charlatans and pretenders to try their
fortune in this profitable field. 'The hungry sheep look up, and are not
fed.' The pay of the lecturer has grown more exorbitant in proportion to
the dilution of his mixture, until professional jokers have usurped the
places once graced by philosoph