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CHAPTER XII.
CAUSES OF FANATICAL ENTHUSIASM IN SOME AMERICANS.
Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world
is the prevailing passion of the American people, certain momentary
outbreaks occur, when their souls seem suddenly to burst the
bonds of matter by which they are restrained, and to soar impetuously
toward Heaven.
In all the States of the Union, but especially in the half-peopled country of the far West, wandering preachers may be met with who hawk about the word of God from place to place. Whole families—old men, women, and children, cross rough passes and untrodden wilds, coming from a great distance to join a camp-meeting, where they totally forget for several days and nights, in listening to these discourses, the cares of business and even the most urgent wants of the body.
Here and there, in the midst of American society, you meet with men, full of a fanatical and almost wild enthusiasm, which hardly exists in Europe. From time to time strange sects arise, which endeavour to strike out extraordinary paths to eternal happiness. Religious insanity is very common in the United States.
Nor ought these facts to surprise us. It was not man who implanted in himself the taste for what is infinite, and the love of what is immortal: these lofty instincts are not the offspring of his capricious will; their steadfast foundation is fixed in human nature, and they exist in spite of his efforts. He may cross and distort them—destroy them he cannot.
The soul has wants which must be satisfied; and whatever pains be taken to divert it from itself, it soon grows weary, restless, and disquieted amid the enjoyments of sense. If ever the faculties of the great majority of mankind were exclusively bent upon the pursuit of material objects, it might be anticipated that an ama-
