what is and will be demanded of the foreigner, if he come among us. It is remarkable that the germ of this principle was found, perhaps even more prominently than in any other colony, in the Roman Catholic colony of Maryland. There, by the charter, every man, who professed to believe in Jesus. Christ, was to be tolerated in the enjoyment of his religious belief, with no molestation or interference at home, or from abroad; there it was not permitted to a foreign prince to tax the subjects without their consent; and there, by a solemn act of the legislature, it was ordained for a perpetual decree, when there was apprehension of foreign dictation by the Puritans, that no such dictation or interference could be consistent with the sacred rights of conscience.

These things go the whole length in principle with what we are now stating. They are in fact the assertion of one of the most sacred doctrines in the charter of our national freedom: and they who choose to come among us must be content to abide by them. They go to this extent, that no foreign power whatever has a right in any way to control the opinions of any man who chooses to become a citizen of this republic; to prescribe how he shall live, or act, or think, or vote; what he shall eat or shall not eat; and that no one who comes here is to subject himself to any such foreign dictation. If a subject of Austria, or Spain, or Russia, or Naples, or England, or Prussia, choose to come here, the power of dictating to such a man on the part of the sovereigns of those countries, has ceased as soon as he has touched our shores, and henceforward there is to be one law to him and to us. And as this principle extends to the right of any civil power thus to interfere, so it extends to any priestly or ghostly power. A foreign priest has no power whatever to prescribe to a citizen of this republic, how he shall cast his vote. The moment this is recognized by any man among us who claims to be a citizen, that moment there is treason to our institutions; the moment this is done, or is understood to be done, that moment the spirit which led to our independence will be roused anew, and an indignant public sentiment will warn the foreigner, that such an interference

will not be tolerated. Such an attempt cannot be successful. Such an attempt will bring the foreigner into collision with all the notions of liberty which prevail in our land; and in this fact is our safeguard and security. If it were otherwise; if such dictation could be tolerated or practised; if the public vigilance on this point could be made to slumber; if by sly and cunning acts such a foreign influence could be made to steal upon us, and fasten itself upon us, then farewell to our liberty, to all for which our fathers contended in the day of battle.

(3.) The foreigner who comes among us must and will accommodate himself to our institutions and our views; and will always ultimately do it, if we will treat him kindly and not vex or molest him; so that there shall be "one law and one manner to us and to him." It is of the nature of our institutions that from whatever country he comes, and whatever may be the peculiar views which prevail there, or which he may have cherished, if he become, and will continue to be a citizen of this republic, his views must soon be assimilated to our own. There are certain elementary views which he must adopt if he comes here, and which are destined to prevail in our land. There is to be religious liberty. Every man unmolested is to worship God as he pleases. There is to be no restraint on the rights of conscience. There is to be no Star Chamber, no Inquisition. The Bible is to be freely circulated and read. There is to be no persecution for religious opinions. There is to be no priestly dictation of what a man is to believe or not believe. If views different from these are held by foreigners who come among us, they are to be modified and abandoned, and the foreigner is to embrace, and act on, the principles which were laid at the foundation of the Republic. Two facts show this. One is the very case before us. colony of Maryland, though founded by Roman Catholics, soon adopted the same principles which prevailed on these subjects in other colonies, and became foremost in their defence, though so utterly at variance with the principles which have prevailed wherever Romanism has had the ascendency; so utterly at variance with what prevailed all over Europe in the dark ages,

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and with what still prevails in Spain and Italy, and in the undisturbed Roman Catholic countries around Mount Lebanon. Circumstances made it necessary that these principles should prevail in Maryland, and that that colony should sympathize in all the struggles which have existed in our country in behalf of civil and religious freedom. The other thing is, that the Roman Catholic system in our country always becomes modified, and will necessarily become so. There are features in this system as it has existed elsewhere, which never have been presented here, and which never can be. They would be so revolting to all our views of religion and liberty; they would so shock all the sensibilities of the people of this land, that they are not, they cannot be urged, and the system as it is presented here is quite a different thing, from what it has been as we read of it in history. There is a controlling Protestant sentiment in this land; a sentiment wholly at variance with what that system has been in other lands, which will not permit its more offensive features to be put forward, and which if they were put forward would kindle up such an opposition, as would make the friends of that system feel that they are in a land where men will be free.

(4.) If these views are correct, then there is no real cause of alarm in regard to the final prevalence of this system of religion in our country. That efforts are made for this, and will be made, there can be no doubt. But in regard to the success of these efforts, it becomes us to learn the lessons which are taught us by the history of our own country, and especially by the subject now before us. If the past give any light in regard to this matter, it is that the hope of subjecting this country to the dictation of any foreign religion, is one of the most baseless ever conceived by man. Maryland was the third permanent colony settled in this country. It was the strongest of the three. It had intrinsically more vigor by far than the colony at Jamestown; it had double the number of those who came over in the Mayflower; it had a degree of favor and of patronage at least quite equal to any colony that has been established in our land. Soon, as a Roman

Catholic colony, it dwindled into feebleness, and became eventually Protestant. It sent out no other colonies to the great West; it did nothing to plant these peculiar institutions there. Meantime, Protestant colonies sprung up all around it, on the north and south. The Pilgrims, the Quakers, the Huguenots, the Scotch, the Germans, spread all over the land and filled it with Protestant institutions. From Plymouth an influence went out that spread all over New England, New York, and the long tiers of States that now spread out in the West. From St. Mary's, in Maryland, no Roman Catholic influence ever went out beyond the bounds of the colony as assigned to George Calvert.

Again, time was, when, so far as human foresight could see, it was not in itself altogether improbable that the Roman Catholic would take possession of this land, as he intended to. A wiser scheme, as appeared to human view, was never laid. They had all Mexico, all Central America, and South America. Protestants had a few scattered and feeble colonies on the shores of the Atlantic. In these circumstances, the gigantic project was formed of encircling this land on the west; of anticipating the spread of the population there; of securing what was foreseen would be the richest portion of the land, and what would ultimately control it, by establishing a cordon of posts of religious influence, that should stretch from Quebec to New Orleans. With such an energy as the world never saw before since the days of the Apostles, Roman Catholic missionaries plunged into the forest, encountered innumerable hardships, found out the father of rivers, sailed down this mighty stream, and all along this vast circuit established themselves in what were regarded as the places which would be centres of influence and power. At Quebec, Montreal, Detroit, Fort Pitt, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Dubuque, St. Louis, and all along the western waters, there were establishments of Roman Catholics, designed to anticipate the time when the floods of emigration should roll over the mountains. And what was the result? Did the land become theirs? The waves of a Protestant population rolled on, and, long before they reached these posts, all these western lands

were under the control of a Protestant country, and then all were embraced in the great charter which made us free by the war of the Revolution. In which of these places has the Catholic religion now the ascendency? Where can it be now regained? The attention of the observant traveller at the West is arrested by the vision in numerous places of old and dilapidated towns -strange anomalies in a new country-such as Cahokia, Kaskaskia,―a place older than Philadelphia, once containing 7000 inhabitants, now perhaps 1000,-Gallipolis, St. Genevieve, and not a few other towns, mostly bearing French names; towns now without thrift or neatness or prosperity, standing in strange contrast with the smiling villages and flourishing cities that have sprung up in more eligible situations, such as Cincinnati, and Chicago, and Milwaukie, and Louisville, and Madison, and Alton. He asks, with surprise, What towns are these? How came they here? How were they transplanted, as they seem to have been, from the Old World? What has made the difference between them and others? He is told that they are old Jesuit towns; places founded by French Catholics; posts where, a century ago or more, they located themselves, as if in anticipation of what this land would be, and that they might take possession of it. He hastens to the conclusion, for he cannot help it, that they are instances of a gross want of judgment on the part of the people; memorials and monuments of mistaken. calculations and disappointed hopes in reference to this land. They are not the centres of influence, and the Jesuit has abandoned them to attempt an enterprise equally hopeless, in securing to himself now the towns and cities and real centres of power, which Protestant enterprise has planted.

Amidst our numberless causes of thanksgiving there is one suggested by this subject which it is proper for us to indulge, that this is a land where the Protestant religion, accompanied by its numberless blessings, prevails; that it is not now such a land as Mexico, or Peru, or Chili, or Brazil, as it would have been had it been colonized in the same manner. With no feelings of unkindness towards our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens; with no desire to abridge any of their liberties; with no wish