German was startled at the emotion with which the peasant replied to the question, how he was pleased with America.

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Oh, we are poor," exclaimed he, and our prospects are very dark; but we are no longer unhappy. There is a feeling of joy in us which is inexpressible; and it seems as if the very air in this country were lighter than anywhere else. We feel so free!"

His countryman was about to express his sympathy with his companion, and to remind him, in a friendly spirit, that in his new relations, he ought not to be satisfied with this vague feeling of freedom and independence, but to endeavor to become a freeman, in the true sense of the word, when their attention was attracted by the tones of an organ, issuing forth from a large edifice at which they had then arrived. A hymn was played which, in America, seems to have become naturalized under the singular name of "Old Hundred," but which to a German is familiarly known as one of the best compositions of that man of God, Martin Luther. It produced a thrilling effect on our German friends, by the many associations which it excited, and without further parley, they followed the well known sounds.

It is but little known or felt what a powerful and beneficial influence a foreign religious service has upon the character of the emigrant. If you should

sometimes enter such places of worship," and see the thoughtful and serious countenances with which they listen to their preacher, now bending far over the gallery, that not a single word of the sermon may escape them, and now slowly rising in order to prevent the slightest wandering of their thoughts; if, on such occasions-unlike the custom of most of the American churches-you should hear the whole congregation joining in the singing of a German hymn, and by the heaven-ascending tones of their voices taking each of them a part in realizing the object for which they have come there, you would almost feel inclined to the opinion that there is a deeper spirit of devotion prevailing in these little foreign flocks, than is generally the case in your own churches; nor are you perhaps greatly mistaken. It is not only the consciousness that religion, "the home of the spirit," is now their only home, which serves to produce a deep and salutary influence on them; there are many peculiar circumstances combining, which serve to excite a deep, solemn feeling in their hearts. Sometimes it is the mere fact, that though in a foreign land, they are enjoying religious instruction in their own native tongue; or it is some simple, well known adage, peculiar to them, by which religious truth is brought home to their hearts with almost irresistible force; or some allegories and pictures borrowed from their native country; or some striking refer

ence to certain customs and habits, which, in a christian point of view, distinguish them favorably from other nations. It is by these and many other means, which he alone has at his command, that a faithful foreign divine may succeed in exciting peculiarly deep and lasting convictions, when addressing his countrymen on a foreign shore.

Our friends richly experienced the powerful effects of these spiritual blessings, and when they met again after the service, the old peasant said with deep feeling, that he could not realize the thought that he had actually entered a foreign land.

It is not, however, the German service in the Lutheran and Reformed churches alone, which in Philadelphia has produced a most favorable influence on the German emigrants, and has made them almost forget that they have left their father-land behind; there has, likewise, some attention been paid to their intellectual culture. The German school connected with the Lutheran church, kept by an experienced teacher, and carefully fostered by the Lutheran divines connected with that church, is in a flourishing condition; the German Charitable Society has procured a very select library of 5000 volumes, consisting of the standard works in English and German literature, which is every year more or less increased, and in the Foreign Library there is another small, though very

fine collection of German books. It is by such judicious steps, that the European emigrant gradually ceases to be a foreigner to the land of his adoption; it is by furnishing him with the necessary religious and intellectual instruction in his own native language, as long as he is yet incapable of understanding any other, while at the same time every effort is used to teach him the language, and with it the views and feelings of his American brethren,—it is by such means alone, that the emigrant will be truly naturalized. Suffer him to look back with a feeling of love and longing to the land of his birth, and fear not to foster that feeling by allowing him to serve the Lord in his own manner, but teach him likewise to implant the same principle in his children, who are united to this hemisphere by the same ties which bind him to the other; teach him that though he may not hand down the name of the country to which he once belonged to his posterity, he may leave them a name by which all nations shall finally know each other.

Though in a somewhat different manner, similar trains of thought had suggested themselves to the young stranger, whom we have introduced to the acquaintance of our readers, when, in the afternoon. of the Sabbath referred to, he had been desirous of attending the foreign service in the little Swedish church near the Delaware, the oldest house of

worship in the city of Philadelphia. The ancient and somewhat decayed appearance of the little brick building, when contrasted with the far more modern steeple, bore testimony to its antiquity, as far as that term can be applied to anything in America, and as a monument of the past, made a pleasing impression on the stranger. In one respect, however, he was disappointed. The descendants of the Swedes who originally built that church, had intermingled so entirely with the American population that even the Swedish language was unknown to them. The service was performed in English. In the interior of the building, the Swedish countenances of the winged cherubs opposite the pulpit, supporting a volume in which the Lord's prayer was inscribed in the Swedish language, seemed to be the only remains of the foreigner who once worshipped there; and but little more could our German friend discover on the cemetery which surrounded the church. was but with difficulty that he decyphered a few Swedish names on tomb-stones which were covered with the moss of a hundred years. "If such is the fate of the stranger in this land," said he mourning to himself, "it were better to relinquish all attempts at preserving our worship. We also shall dwindle away as the Swedes have before us, and our very children will feel as strangers towards us." It was, however, but a short time that he suf

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