36 TKANSACTIONS. 



physical evil, cursing the soil, but is playing the part of I'urk and 

 infidel, with our religious institutions. It is drawing away the life- 

 blood from our agricultural parishes, those strongholds of Puritan 

 faith and morals. It is only by keeping these parishes in vigorous, 

 healthful life; vigorous in all the elements of temporal prosperity, 

 that you can hand down the New England of to-day, and of the past, 

 to future generations. The seed-plot of that prolific stock, which 

 has so largely peopled the Union, and is now wielding the pick aad 

 the spade, so siiccessfuUy, on the placers of the Pacific, is the New 

 England farm. The work-shop, the counting-room, have not and 

 cannot nurse such vigor and enterprise into being. 



The farm is the best nursery for every other avocation. Who fill 

 the positions of wealth and influence, in our centers of commerce ? 

 Who are our millionaires? Who stand unrivalled for eloquence, at 

 the bar, and for statesmanship and diplomacy, in the high places of 

 power ? Who fill the pulpits of our land, or with the self-denial of 

 primitive Christianity, preach Christ in lands, Avhither Paul and Bar- 

 nabas never ventured ? All these look to the farm, more than to 

 any other one spot, as their birth-place, and the school of their early 

 discipline. If the farm, then, is the fountain-head of that moral in- 

 fluence, which controls the land, and does so much to impress our 

 institutions upon other tribes and nations, how important is it, that 

 the best religious influences should surround the farm ; that our rural 

 population should have that moral and religious training, which will 

 fit them for their future positions. This is clearly impossible, in the 

 present condition of ma.ny of these parishes. In some of them, gos- 

 pel institutions have died out, and, in others, they have but a sickly 

 and starving existence. In none of them, is the pulpit and the 

 school-room doing what they might do, with ampler means and scope, 

 for their exercise. We can but feel, that they might accomplish far 

 more for the characters that are moulding under their influence, if 

 they had better opportunities to do their legitimate work. The pros- 

 perity and thrift, which an improved and intelligent husbandry would 

 give, would supply the most pressing necessity of these parishes. 

 They are so numerous, and form so large a share of our New Eng- 

 land population, that the question is one of public importance, and 

 demands the attention of every philanthropist and Christian. The 

 remedy is not mere preaching or moral appliances, of any kind. 



The poor wise men, in our pulpits, though more largely the bene- 

 factors of the public, than any otherclass, will find an evil here, tha't 



