As for the Romanists, they too
had their churches and their dioceses; but what untravelled American
had then ever seen a nun? From monks, Heaven be praised, we are yet
spared; and this is said without any prejudice against the
denomination to which they usually belong. He who has lived much in
a country where that sect prevails, if a man of a particle of
liberality, soon learns that piety and reverence for God, and a deep
sense of all the Christian obligations, can just as well, nay
better, exist in a state of society where a profound submission to
well-established dogmas is to be found, than in a state of society
where there is so much political freedom as to induce the veriest
pretenders to learning to imagine that each man is a church and a
hierarchy in his own person! All this is rapidly changing. Romanists
abound, and spots that half a century since, appeared to be the most
improbable place in the world to admit of the rites of the priests
of Rome, now hear the chants and prayers of the mass-books. All this
shows a tendency toward that great commingling of believers, which
is doubtless to precede the final fusion of sects, and the predicted
end.
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