count of the various Catholic establishments, and a general view of the progress and present state of that religion in this country. The following description of their principal seminaries and religious houses is not without interest.

The fathers of the society of Jesus, besides their missions, have in Georgetown, near Washington, in a charming situation, a College for the education of youth, which was authorised by an act of the first of March, 1815, to confer academical degrees, as is done by other colleges and universities in this country. It is owing to a want of students that this order has not kept up the school they opened at New York, under the title of the Literary Institution, where they still own the building destined to that use. The priests of St Sulpice have a respectable college at Baltimore, on which the Legislature of Maryland has bestowed the privileges of an university. They have also a house of education at Emitzburg. The English Dominicans have a convent in Kentucky, with a school and church under the title of St Rosa di Lima, and in 1816 had four students in theology, besides a few probationers. Several gentlemen have lately arrived from Italy in the western states, from the mission of St Vincenzo di Paolo, and are only waiting the arrival of the bishop of New Orleans to commence an establishment. There are, besides these, several other religious communities in America, the most ancient of which is the nunnery of mendicant Carmelites, of the reform of St Teresa. Three nuns of this order had the courage to leave their English convent at Antwerp, and cross the great Atlantic to establish a nunnery here; in a few Their nunnery, years their numbers increased to twenty-six.

which is entirely of wood, is situated near Port Tobacco in Maryland. Archbishop Neal, full of zeal for the education of youth, has established in Georgetown a society of nuns of the visitation, who superintend the religious education of little girls. In a short time this society increased to the degree, that last summer it consisted of thirty-six nuns. Another establishment for the same object has been founded by the abbé Dubois in Emitzburg. Some of these sisters have gone from Emitzburg to Philadelphia, where they have the care of a foundling hospital, whose little inmates they lead on holy festivals in good order sometimes to one church, and sometimes to another, to the great delight and edification of the public, and with some advantage to the charity, which is supported by the alms of Catholics and several benevolent protestants. The truly zealous abbé Nerinx has founded a nunnery in Kentucky, which is called the "Sisterhood of Mary at the foot of the Cross." Lastly, the abbé Their, [Thayer?] who from a Calvinistic preacher became a

Catholic at Rome, and died lately in Ireland, has left a fund sufficient to establish in Boston, his native place, a convent of Ursulines for the education of young women.'

This relation will give some idea of the exertions the Catholics have been and are still making to diffuse their doctrines in this country. The return of his holiness to Rome, after his unhappy and atrocious exile, seemed a fit occasion to be signalized by a reform in the church, and an attempt to restore its tottering authority. One of the first steps towards the attainment of this object was the revival of the order of Jesuits, which had by its zeal, perseverance, and admirable discipline added greatly to the influence and grandeur of the church. The persecuted remnant of this once powerful order, which had survived their day of adversity, repaired to the holy see, and soon evinced by their ardor and industry, that they had not lost their distinguishing characteristics. The other orders and religious communities, which had been dispersed by the French, were reassembled, and the affairs of the church assumed a tone of spirit and animation to which they had been long unaccustomed. Nor was this excitement confined to the restoration of the establishment in Italy, or even in Europe. The effects of it have extended themselves to our own country, where the missionaries from Rome have been active and vigilant. Their efforts, as we have already seen, and the experience of every day convinces us, have not been without success. How far they may continue to be successful, we are unable to foresee, nor do we think it of much moment to inquire. Although we do not expect from their labors the golden harvest which father Grassi seems to promise himself, we are still far from regarding them with the apprehension and anxiety, which some of our fellow citizens appear to entertain. The assertion of father Grassi is certainly in a degree true, that there has heretofore existed in this country an unwarrantable prejudice against Catholics, which (we say it with shame) is not yet eradicated. That a dread

of papacy should at one period have been entertained is not surprising, but it is surely time to have done with it. The temporal supremacy of the pope, and the other bug-bears, which are regularly marshalled to fright the good protestants of England from consenting to Catholic emancipation, have no terrors for us. Are we reminded of the extravagance and

absurdity of some of their observances, and the impolicy of their institutions? In answer, we will merely ask, have they not all been outdone by the fanciful vagaries, the incredible inventions of modern protestants? It will hardly become any persuasion to object to the tenets of another, until we can say with certainty where the exuberant ingenuity of man will stop. For ourselves, we welcome Catholicism, or any other sect, so long as it shall be recommended, to use the words of our author, by that mild and persuasive charity, which marks the true ministers of Jesus Christ.' Good policy, as well as brotherhood, requires that the numerous emigrants who flock to us should be encouraged, rather than otherwise, in their national belief. We need not look beyond our own city for the good effects of a Catholic establishment, under the guidance of mild, enlightened, and exemplary pastors. We are not to ask ourselves whether we should prefer to make new comers Presbyterians, Lutherans, or Quakers, according to our belief, but whether we will have them Christians or not. The foreigner, who comes among us, and finds the faith in which he was educated unknown or despised, who looks around in vain for the worship he has been taught to revere ;-is it to be supposed that he will readily adopt any of the sects he finds about him, all of them perhaps equally revolting to his conscience? Every one finds an answer in his own breast. He will probably become indifferent to religion, and insensible to its sanctions; he may become an infidel-he will rarely become a convert. As friends of toleration, we never look with jealousy on the growth of a weak sect. The multiplication of creeds, which, according to our author, is viewed by many with alarm, as the germ of future discord, is regarded by us in a very different point of view. Despairing of unanimity in matters of faith, we look for the preservation of religious quiet in the infinite variety of belief. The maxim of the poet, that

'All nature's difference makes all nature's peace'

With

may with strict analogy be applied to the present case. these sentiments we consider every new sect as adding strength to the common barrier against religious tyranny. Weakness is always tolerant; but we shall think the death blow of religious freedom given, the moment that any one sect, be it which it may, is strong enough to dictate to the rest.

ART. XVH.-Account of an expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the years 1819 and 1820, by order of the honorable J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the command of Major Stephen H. Long; from the notes of Major Long, Mr T. Say, and other gentlemen of the exploring party. Compiled by Edwin James, botanist and geologist for the expedition. In two volumes, with an atlas. Philadelphia, Cary and Lea, 1823.

THE appearance of this work has been for some time anxiously expected; nor do we fear that the public expectation will be disappointed. An increasing interest pervades the community with regard to the vast region traversed by this enterprising party. They were in many respects much better qualified and fitted out for their expedition, than the company of their distinguished predecessors, Lewis and Clarke ; and the work before us, the record of their observations and discoveries, must be allowed not only to possess the interest inseparable from such a narrative, but to make highly important additions to our knowledge of the geography and natural history of the valley of the Mississippi and the Missouri. Of that important portion of the work before us, which relates to geology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, we shall seek an opportunity of speaking separately on another occasion. We propose, at present, to lay before our readers an historical account of this expedition, some general sketches of the country traversed, and of the tribes of native inhabitants visited by the party under Major Long. We cannot but feel that we are hardly doing justice to a work of this character, by the meagre abstract we shall be obliged to make; and we shall esteem ourselves happy, if our readers, dissatisfied with the imperfect reflection of this expedition from our pages, shall feel a desire to inform themselves more thoroughly from the work itself.

This expedition started from Pittsburgh, in the spring of 1819. It was projected by the Secretary at War, for the purpose of exploring the Mississippi, Missouri, and their navigable tributaries, as far as the Rocky Mountains. The chief command of the expedition was given to Major Long. Dr Baldwin was attached to it as a botanist, Mr Say as a zoologist, Mr Jessup as a geologist, Mr Peale as an assistant naturalist, and Mr Seymour as a draftsman. The gentlemen

named, with other officers and members of the party, appear to have cooperated with each other, toward promoting the common object, with singular harmony and zeal. The labors of Dr Baldwin, however, were unhappily brought to a close by consumption in the progress of the expedition; and the extracts from his botanical journal are sufficient proof of the loss, which the party suffered by this misfortune.

The expedition was embarked on board the Western Engineer, a steam boat, destined to be the first, which should proceed a considerable distance up the Missouri, and which accomplished the trip to the Council Bluff, the station of the military post of the United States in that quarter.

On the third of May, the expedition departed from Pittsburgh, and arrived the next day at Wheeling, where the great national road from Cumberland meets the road from Zanesville, Columbus, and Cincinnati. One hundred and

forty miles of this road from Cumberland to Wheeling cost the United States one million eight hundred thousand dollars, being an average of less than thirteen thousand dollars a mile. The Newburyport turnpike, built in a part of the country where we should have supposed work could be done as economically as in any portion of it, cost at the rate of at least thirteen thousand dollars a mile. In this estimation, however, is included the compensation made to the owners of the lands traversed by the turnpike, which we presume to have been much greater between Boston and Newburyport, than between Cumberland and Wheeling. The bridges and other works of masonry on the western portions of this great national road, are built of a compact argillaceous sandstone, of a light grey or yellowish white color, less durable than the stone used in the middle and eastern parts of the road, which is the blue metalliferous limestone, one of the most beautiful and imperishable materials for building, which our country affords.

On the eighth, the party passed, at the mouth of the Kenhawa, the little village of Mount Pleasant, situated on the spot, where in 1774 a battle was fought between the Indians on one side, and the Virginian troops on the other, in which Logan, the Mingo chief, avenged himself for the murder of his family. The eloquent speech, which he afterwards delivered, has owed perhaps as much to its reporter, as lord Chatham's did to the pen of Johnson.-Having arrived at Cincinnati, on the