Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1876 — A BOOK WORTH HAVING [ARTICLE]

A BOOK WORTH HAVING

History of the United States from the Aboriginal Times to the Present Dny. By John Clark Ridpnth, A. U., Profcsaor or Hiatory and Bailee-Letters, Indian* Asbury University. 070 pp. Ruynl Octavo, Illustrated with Maps, Cherts, Portralu and Diagram*. Sold only by Subscription. Price SB.OO. Jonee Brothers I Co., Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Chicago. The whole broad sweep of our Colonial and National life, from the birth of Columbus to the admission of Colorado as the "Centennial State” is presented to the reader in a volums of convenient size, written in a style that maintains one's interest from first to last. And yet nothing is omitted, nothing is slurred over, nor is the record thrown loosely together as a mere dry annal of disconnected facta, without the informing spirit of the original historian, On the contrary, the author unites the style of the annalist and the philosopher, closing his account of eaoh subject with a masterly summary on character and motives which the reader at once recognizes as the fitting moral of the preceding narrative. We have never found in so small a oompass so fair, so just, so fitting a characterization of the Puritans as appears In this work. '‘The fathers of New England have been aeoused of bigotry. The charge is true : it la the background of the picture. In matters of religion they were intolerant and superstitious. Their religious faith was gloomy and forboding. Human life was deemed n sod and miserable journey. To be mistaken was to sin. To fail in trifling ceremonies was reckoned a grevious crime. In the shadow of such a belief the people became austere and melancholy. Escaping from the spleodid formality of the Episcopal Church, they set up a colder and severer form of worship; and the form was made like iron. Dissenters themselves, they could not tolerate the dissent of others. To restrain and punish error seemed right and necessary. Williams and Hutchinson were banished; the Quakers were persecuted snd the witches hanged. But Puritanism contained within itself the power to correct its own abuses. Within the austere and gloomy fabric dwelt the very soul and genius of Free 111 ought. Under tho ice-bound rigors of the faith flowed a current which no fatalism could congeal, no superstition poison. The heart of a mighty, tumultuous, libertyloving life throbbed within the cold stifF body of formalism. A powerful vitality, which no disaster could subdue, no persecution quench, warmed and onergixed and quickened. The tyranny of Phipps, the malice of Parris, and the bigotry of Matliei are fltr outweighed by the sacrifices of Winthrop, the beneficence of Harrard, and the virtues of Sir Henry Vane. The evils of the system may well be forgotten in the glory of its achievements.” This volume will supply a want long felt. It has often been a matter of regret that we have hitherto had no history of our great country at once comprehensive and popular. Between the brief and unsatisfactory school histories on the one hand and the balky volumes on the ether, there has been a great gap—a gap which is filled by this work. Here we have a delightful narrative in which every material fact is set down without those dry details of scholastic research which repel rather than attract the mass of readers.

While the history of each Colony is complete in itself, the chain of cotetnporary events is shown by a new and ingenious device in tbe form of historical Charts; finely drawn and colored Maps also show the political divisions of this oountry from time to time. It is rather startling to turn to the fine map on page 557, and see that more than four-fifths of this great country was once in the indisputed possession of the French! Again it appears that we have acquired from Spain and her Colonies an area thirteen times the size of Ohio. Concerning the masterly statesmanship that perfected these vast acquisitions of territory, Professor Ridpeth says r ■■■——— “The Union now embraced thirty-seven SUtesand eleven Territories. From the narrow limits of the thirteen original colonies, with their four hundred and twenty-one thousand square miles of territory, the national domain had spread to the* vast area of three million six hundred and four thousand square miles. Few things indeed have been more marvelous than the territorial growth of the United States. The purchase of Louisiana more than doubled the geographical area of the nation ; the several Mexican acquisitions were only second in importance; while the recent Russian cession alone was greater in extent than the original thirteen States." -- -;

But if our territorial growth has been wonderful, what are we to think of the amazing development of late years, as shown in tbe author’s brilliant summary: “Daring the year 1871, there were laid and pat into operation in the United States no less than seven thouand six hundred and seventy miles of railroad! There is perhaps no fiict in the history of the world which exhibits so marvelous a development of the physical resources of a nation. Ere the muttering* of the civil war, with ita untold destruction of life and treasure, had died away in the distance, the recuperative power, enterprise, and genius of the American people were" revealed, as never before, in establishing and extending the lines of travel and commerce. In 1830 there were but twenty-three miles of railway track in the New World. In 1840 the lines in the United States had been extended to two thousand eight hundred and eighteen miles. Ten years later there were nine thousand and twenty-one miles of track. According to the reports for 1860, the railroods of the counter had reached the enormous extent of thirty thousand six hundred and thirty-live miles; and in the next toe yean, embracing the period of the civil war, the amount was nearly doubled.

/such is the triumphant pews* of fire* iastitutions—the victory of fro# enterprise, free industry, free thought. Thorn stands (ho fact! Lot toe adhwrenU of tho Old World’s methods, the eulogists of the post, taka it and read it. Wherever the human race pants for a larger activity, a mors glorious exercise of its energies, lot tho story ho told how the United States, just emerged from the foresee of war, smarting with wounds, and burdened with oa enormous debt, built in a single year more than twice as many miles of railroad as Spain, ridden with her preoedonta of Kingcraft and priestcraft, has ever built in her whole career." Our space will not permit a more extended review, but our examination of the book justifies us in saying that it is altogether superior to any other History of the United States ever published. In addition to the excellence es its subject matter, its meohsnicsl appearance is superb. Beautifully printed and elegantly illustrated, it also possesses the additional requisite of cheapness. We have never seen* so valuable a work offered for so little money, snd we heartily recommend it to all. *#*