Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/255

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tract of country. It procures its foreign goods, principally, from Philadelphia and Baltimore; which goods are brought in waggons across the Alleghany mountains. The distance from these places to Pittsburgh is about three hundred miles; and the price of conveying the goods thither by the usual route, is from five to six dollars per one hundred weight. This place also transacts some little business with the City of New-York, by the way of the Hudson and Mohawk, Lakes Ontario and Erie, and the river Alleghany. Provisions in Pittsburgh are, generally, cheap. Foreign goods, however, are necessarily high.

This place is celebrated for its manufactories, and will become the Birmingham of America. Here, one may see the surprising progress, which the people of this country are making in mechanics of almost every kind, both as it respects invention and workmanship. Indeed it is evident, that in the United States the elements of the body politic are all in the most healthful action, and that we are rapidly approaching to a glorious manhood. We have only, in our progress, to guard against two evils:—an undue attachment to money, and too little regard for sound morals and solid learning. The extraordinary attention, which has of late been paid to the {146} moral and religious education of children, promises to furnish for the future service of our country, men of true wisdom;—"men who will fear God and hate covetousness."

Speaking merely as a politician, I may say, that a due regard to this part of education is the great desideratum in civil government. But in relation to a future state the subject is of infinitely greater consequence. Our sabbath schools, in which children are taught to commit to memory the Sacred Oracles, have been attended with such wonderful success, that they appear to be forming a new epoch in the progress of the Christian Religion. This is a field