I 



OUR COUNTRY VILLAGES. 23*7 



combined, while the other presents us but too often the reverse ; 

 that is to say, the marriage of utility and deformity. 



Some of our readers may remind us that we have already 

 preached a sermon from this text. No matter ; we should be glad 

 to preach fifty ; yes, or even establish a sect, as that seems the only 

 way of making proselytes now, whose duty it should be to convert 

 people living in the country towns to the true faith ; we mean the 

 true rural faith, viz., that it is immoral and uncivilized to live in 

 mean and uncouth villages, where there is no poverty, or want of 

 intelligence in the inhabitants ; that there is nothing laudable in 

 having a piano-forte and mahogany chairs in the parlor, where the 

 streets outside are barren of shade trees, destitute of side-walks, and 

 populous with pigs and geese. 



We are bound to admit (with a little shame and humiliation, 

 being a native of New- York, the " Empire State"), that there is 

 one part of the Union where the millennium of country towns, and 

 good government, and rural taste has not only commenced, but is in 

 full domination. We mean, of course, Massachusetts. The travel- 

 ler may go from one end of that State to the other, and find flourish- 

 ing villages, with broad streets lined with maples and elms, behind 

 which are goodly rows of neat and substantial dwellings, full of evi- 

 dences of order, comfort and taste. Throughout the whole State, no 

 animals are allowed to run at large in the streets of towns and vil- 

 lages. Hence so much more cleanliness than elsewhere ; so much 

 more order and neatness ; so many more pretty rural lanes ; so many 

 inviting flower-gardens and orchards only separated from the passer- 

 by by a low railing or hedge, instead of a formidable board fence. 

 Now, if you cross the State line into New- York a State of far 

 greater wealth than Massachusetts, as long settled and nearly as pop- 

 ulous you feel directly that you are in the land of " pigs and poul- 

 try," in the least agreeable sense of the word. In passing through 

 villages and towns, the truth is still more striking, as you go to the 

 south and west ; and you feel little or nothing of that sense, of 

 " how pleasant it must be to live here," which the traveller through 

 Berkshire, or the Connecticut valley, or the pretty villages about 

 Boston, feels moving his heart within him. You are rather inclined 

 to wish there were two new commandments, viz. : thou shalt plant 



