376 



REVIEW. 



national blessings that surround, and the 

 danger of the national evils that threaten 

 him. 



Mr. Beecher's genius, appears to us to be 

 in the clearness and the breadth of his vi- 

 sion, as a man and a teacher. Looking at 

 humanity and the age, his glance is neither 

 disturbed by the cloud of ancient dogmas 

 that rises from the past and overshadows 

 our horizon, nor the bright and captivating 

 gleams of new light that irradiate and beck- 

 on us forward to the future. He is not on- 

 ly a profound thinker, and a most earnest 

 and zealous expounder of truth, but a man 

 of his time — who utters the thoughts, and 

 interprets the language, of the great strug- 

 gling heart of the nineteenth century ; and 

 especially of the Anglo-American race, 

 boldly and significantly; — and this, too, 

 while so many are fondly endeavouring to 

 maintain an appearance of life, in ideas 

 whose vitality has long since departed, or 

 to galvanize into a premature existence new 

 ones, for which neither our people or the 

 lime is ready. 



In the discourse before us, Mr. Beecher 

 discusses the blessings which flow from our 

 condition, our institutions, and our volun- 

 tary exertions as a people. It is neither our 

 purpose, nor the province of this Journal, 

 to pursue him in all the different divisions 

 of his subject, though we heartily commend 

 them to perusal. But one of these topics, 

 the value of our agricultural position, is so 

 admirably treated, and so pertinent to our 

 readers, that we are confident they will all 

 thank us for reprinting it in these pages : 



We do not enough reflect how much of 

 our prosperity arises from the possession 

 of such and so much Soil. 



It is difficult for the imagination to con- 

 ceive of its extent, its variety, and its ca- 

 pacity. Books may detail its bounds, and 

 travellers recite its wonders ; but it is not 

 until the eye has beheld, and the feet, 



through many a parallel, have traversed 

 woodland and prairie, hill-country and river- 

 vale, stretching for thousands of miles, that 

 one begins to feel the magnitude of our ter- 

 ritory. So far does it reach toward the pole 

 that summer smiles faintly and but briefly 

 upon its northern limit ; while its southern 

 limit, pushing toward the tropics, is seldom 

 cooled bj'' winter frosts. So far is the east re- 

 moved from the west, that they have neither 

 morning nor evening together ; and their 

 harbors look out upon different oceans, upon 

 opposite sides of the globe.* 



A pure religion and liberal civil institu- 

 tions, would have done much for us ; but 

 it has been the accident of an abundant soil 

 which has given them so fair a field. Men 

 have found room to move as religious liber- 

 ty inspired them, without lifting or fighting 

 a thousand superimposed customs. Reli- 

 gion and liberal influences, in Europe, have 

 been like winds upon ships embayed or 

 threading narrow channels ; which, though 

 they urged them forward, drove them at 

 every furlong toward shoals or rocks of old 

 customs and laws. But we have had the 

 broad ocean. Let us examine more in de- 

 tail the influence of ample soil upon na- 

 tional character and prosperity. 



There is no pursuit which more directly 



* If a million of people should annually pour in- 

 to the single State of Indiana, for fifteen j'eais, the 

 soil could sustain them. I shall be thought extra- 

 vagant by those on'y who have not reflected, when 

 I say, that, if not a Icernel of grain were raised in 

 any other Slate in the Union, Indiana, if put to its 

 full capacity, could easily supply every one. At 

 twenty bushels to the acre, Indiana might yield, if 

 wholly tilled, an annual crop of 500,000,000 bushels 

 of wheat. If Illinois were to yield only Indian 

 corn, at the rate of fifty bushels per acre, her an- 

 nual crop of Maize might become 1,920,000,000 

 bushels! These two States alftne might annually 

 supply twenty millions of people, respectively, 

 with twenty-live bushels of wheat per head, and 

 nearly one hundred bushels of corn. It is manifest, 

 that tliis supply is so greatly above the want, that 

 it might be reduced in favor of all other i)rodue'S, 

 needeil for the sustenance and comfort of men and 

 beasts. The absolute capacity of an acre of soil 

 has never yet been tested. The nearest approxi- 

 mation has been made under the allotment system 

 of Great Britain, the soil being cultivated entirely 

 by the spade. From some estimates founded upon 

 the results of that system, it is not wide of the truth 

 to say that Indiana, upon her 23,000,000 acres, could 

 sustain a population of 90,000,000! That it would be 

 desirable to crowd the soil so near to its extreme 

 capacity is far from being proved, except as the 

 less of two evils, as amidst the redundant popula- 

 tion of Europe. 



