several Roman Catholicks,[37] Methodists,[38] and Anabaptists—who have as yet no established place of worship, but who occasionally meet to profit by the exhortations of some of their spiritual directors, who travel this way. On the whole, the religious sects appear to be more free here than in most places I have visited, from those illiberal and anti-christian prejudices, which render Christianity the scoff of even the ignorant Indians, whom we term savages.
But though difference of religious opinions does not cause any animosity here, politicks have reduced society to a most deplorable state. There are two parties, which style themselves Federal republicans, and Democratick republicans, but who speaking of each other, leave out the word republican, and call each other Federalists and Democrats. I have already described their opinions, which are argued with more warmth, and are productive of more rancour and violence in Pittsburgh than perhaps in any other part of America.[39] There are very few neutrals, {70} as it requires a bold independence of sentiment, to prevent a person from attaching himself to one or other party, and besides, to a man who has not resources for the employment of time within himself, the alternative of not being of one or other
