Culture, and the harmonious perfection of our whole being, and what
we call totality, then become secondary matters; and the
institutions, which should develope these, take the same narrow and
partial view of humanity and its wants as the free religious
communities take. Just as the free churches of Mr. Beecher or
Brother Noyes, with their provincialism [xxxiv] and want of
centrality, make mere Hebraisers in religion, and not perfect men, so
the university of Mr. Ezra Cornell, a really noble monument of his
munificence, yet seems to rest on a provincial misconception of what
culture truly is, and to be calculated to produce miners, or
engineers, or architects, not sweetness and light.

And, therefore, when the Rev. Edward White asks the same kind of
question about America that he has asked about England, and wants to
know whether, without religious establishments, as much is not done
in America for the higher national life as is done for that life
here, we answer in the same way as we did before, that as much is not
done. Because to enable and stir up people to read their Bible and
the newspapers, and to get a practical knowledge of their business,
does not serve to the higher spiritual life of a nation so much as
culture, truly conceived, serves; and a true conception of culture
is, as Monsieur Renan's words show, just what America fails in.

To the many who think that culture, and sweetness, and light, are all
moonshine, this will not appear to matter much; but with us, who
value [xxxv] them, and who think that we have traced much of our
present discomfort to the want of them, it weighs a great deal. So
not only do we say that the Nonconformists have got provincialism and
lost totality by the want of a religious establishment, but we say