Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/161

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FORTY YEARS SINCE.
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ed, and expressing satisfaction that they had been preserved with so much attention. To Amariah she gave a New Testament, saying with kindness, that she had marked with a pencil some passages which she thought applicable to him, and doubted not that he would perceive that religion was confined to no particular sect, but was valued in the eye of the Almighty according to its effects upon the heart and life. Amid expressions of sincere gratitude and affection from all, she took her leave, with more heartfelt satisfaction than is found among the courtly pomp of a ceremonious party;

Such, forty years since, were most of the agriculturists, who tenanted the lands of others in the villages of Connecticut. Uncorrupt integrity, and reverence for religion were their distinguishing characteristics; and their families were nurtured in that industry, and subordination, which are the germs of the strength and peace of communities. By no profession might that beautiful passage of inspiration be with more justice assumed as a motto, "in simplicity, and godly sincerity we have our conversation in the world."

Since that period, those luxuries and refinements, which spread so rapidly in our cities, have pervaded, in some degree, the abodes of the tillers of the earth. They are becoming a more enlightened race than their fathers, and from their habitations have issued some of our most dis-