AMERICAN JOURNEY. 



[Chap. V. 



Catholic worship, and his dislike of what he too often found 

 among Protestants. " I am no Puritan," he subsequently 

 wrote. " Symbolic worship is as much to me, often far more, 

 than that of words. When I saw the indescribable magnifi- 

 cence of autumn in the Canadian rivers, I thought that all 

 kinds of beauty had their place in Christian worship. . . . My 

 experience in this country has made me the more prize the kind 

 of religion I have been led to believe in and preach. Speak- 

 ing in general terms, Christianity as a transforming power over 

 men's lives seems almost dead here. Only in the Roman 

 Catholic Church does it seem to live, and in that but poorly. 

 Of course I can't believe the doctrines, and be a Catholic ; 

 still less can I work in one of the Protestant sects. I can find 

 what I want in the Catholic worship. For many years I have 

 said the same : and now that I have an opportunity of getting 

 what it has to give me, I see nothing more wrong in satis- 

 fying some of my wants at their altars, than in warming myself 

 at the fire when I am cold. But to introduce that among 

 Protestants is just as impossible as to believe the Catholic 

 doctrines myself. I believe with Dr. Bellows that the time 

 will come when there shall be such a Catholic Church; but 

 neither he nor I can begin it : we can only show the want. 

 To preach the Gospel still appears to me the highest work in 

 life." 



The enslavement of the soul is worse than the enslavement 

 of the body ; and those who believe Romanism to be spiritual 

 despotism may wonder that it should receive any countenance 

 from Philip, who had such a horror of slavery. It is evident 

 that he did not then look on it in that light : he had usually 

 seen Catholicism in its gentlest aspect. When, in after life, he 

 lived where it was the dominant religion, he showed that he 

 had not lost his Protestant love of religious freedom. 



From Buffalo he went to Wellsboro', in the north of Penn- 

 sylvania, to visit a numerous colony of his cousins, whose 

 father, Mr. William Bache (his mother's half-brother), had been 

 one of the first settlers there in 1812. He was struck with 

 the culture and prosperity he found in this pretty village in the 



