Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States: First and Last Impressions of America.

“ [86] people in America were less troubled by attacks on the orthodox creed than the like people in England. They seemed to feel sure of their ground and they showed no alarm.” Public opinion requires public men to attend regularly some place of worship. The favorite denominations are those with which we are here familiar as the denominations of Protestant dissent; when Mr. Dale tells us of “the Baptists, not including the Free Will Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Six Principle Baptists, and some other minor sects,” one might fancy oneself reading the list of the sects in Whitaker's Almanack. But in America this type of religion is not, as it is here, a subordinate type, it is the predominant and accepted one. Our Dissenting ministers think themselves in paradise when they visit America. In that universally religious country, the religious denomination which has by much the largest number of adherents is that, I believe, of Methodism originating in John Wesley, and which we know in this country as having for its standard of doctrine Mr. Wesley's fifty-three sermons and notes on the New Testament. I have a sincere admiration for Wesley, and a sincere esteem for the Wesleyan Methodist body in this country; I have seen much of it, and for