Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/192

186 The ability to discriminate between that which is true and that which is false, is one of the last attainments of the human mind. It is the result, commonly, of a long and extensive intercourse with mankind, But one may pass an entire life, in a half-settled and half-civilized portion of the world, and not gain as much acquaintance with general things, as is obtained by boys who dwell in regions more populous. The average proportion between numbers and surface in America, is about twelve to the square mile, whereas, it approaches three hundred, in the older countries of Europe! On this single fact depends much more, in a variety of ways, than is commonly believed.

ON RELIGION.

As reason and revelation both tell us that this state of being is but a preparation for another of a still higher and more spiritual order, all the interests of life are of comparatively little importance, when put in the balance against the future. It is in this grand fact that we are to seek for the explanations of whatever may strike us as unjust, partial, or unkind in the dispensations of Providence, as these dispensations affect our temporal condition. If there is no pure and abstract liberty, no equality of condition, no equal participation in the things of the world that we are accustomed to fancy good, on remembering the speck of time passed in the present state, the possibility that what to us may seem a curse, may in truth be a blessing, the certainty that prosperity is more corrupting