to the ledgers of his
calling, but he opens the book of Holy Scripture; there he meets with
sublime or affecting descriptions of the greatness and goodness of the
Creator, of the infinite magnificence of the handiwork of God, of the
lofty destinies of man, of his duties, and of his immortal privileges.
Thus it is that the American at times steals an hour from himself; and
laying aside for a while the petty passions which agitate his life,
and the ephemeral interests which engross it, he strays at once into an
ideal world, where all is great, eternal, and pure.

I have endeavored to point out in another part of this work the causes
to which the maintenance of the political institutions of the Americans
is attributable; and religion appeared to be one of the most prominent
amongst them. I am now treating of the Americans in an individual
capacity, and I again observe that religion is not less useful to each
citizen than to the whole State. The Americans show, by their practice,
that they feel the high necessity of imparting morality to democratic
communities by means of religion. What they think of themselves in
this respect is a truth of which every democratic nation ought to be
thoroughly persuaded.

I do not doubt that the social and political constitution of a people
predisposes them to adopt a certain belief and certain tastes, which
afterwards flourish without difficulty amongst them; whilst the same
causes may divert a people from certain opinions and propensities,
without any voluntary effort, and, as it were, without any distinct
consciousness, on their part. The whole art of the legislator
is correctly to discern beforehand these natural inclinations of
communities of men, in order to know whether they should be assisted, or
whether it may not be necessary to check them. For the duties incumbent
on the legislator differ at different times; the goal towards which the
human race ought ever to be tending is alone stationary; the means of
reaching it are perpetually to be varied.

If I had been born in an aristocratic age, in the midst of a nation
where the hereditary wealth of some, and the irremediable penury of
others, should equally divert men from the idea of bettering their
condition, and hold the soul as it were in a state of torpor fixed on
the contemplation of another world, I should then wish that it were
possible for me to rouse that people to a sense of their wants; I should
seek to discover more rap