You are familiar with the whole topography of Rhode Island, and therefore I need say nothing of the interblending of rural scenery and retirement, with city embellishment and comfort, which so eminently distinguish not a few of the neat and elegant residences in Providence. There is one feature in the moral character of this city, which distinguishes it from most other New England towns. In almost all New England the great mass of mind is educated, and the people upon all subjects think for themselves. Generally, however, especially in the interior, the descendants of the Puritans, cleave in religious matters to the faith of their forefathers, and are opposed to all change. But in Rhode Island, there has always been a more liberal, and free-thinking spirit on the subject of religion than in any of the other New England states.--It was here that Roger Williams fled when his Puritan brethren would not tolerate him in the Bay state. It was through his influence that a more enlightened feeling in reference to religious toleration was made to pervade the community settling at Providence, than was found at that period in any other New England town. And probably there is no place in our country, where, at this time, a more kind and catholic spirit, or a greater freedom from the influence of narrow, sectarian feeling prevails, than here. This tolerant spirit, however, in some minds, manifests a strong tendency to latitudinarianism. Hence, perhaps, there is no community in the world where a new religious sect would so soon gather intelligent adherents as at Providence, and no where, where more sound and able, and fearless advocates would rise up to defend "the faith once delivered to the saints." I have been led into this train of reflection, from encountering a greater prevalence of the transcendental spirit, at Providence, than I have anywhere before met in our country. This offshoot of German neology, issuing from the same parent stock with Socinianism, finds a congenial soil in a Unitarian community. You are aware that the Rev. Mr. Emerson, formerly a Unitarian minister at Boston, has embraced transcendentalism in all its heights and depths. Whether he be actually deranged, as some suppose, or not, matters very little, since multitudes, and some who desire to be classed among the _elite_ of the land, are ready to gather around him and receive the law of their belief from his mouth. He has recently made a visit to Providence, and developed by means of lectures and conversations, his peculiar views. He is spoken of as a man of genius, and wonderfully attractive. He is a thorough pantheist. He believes that every thing in nature is a part of God--that good men are incarnations of Deity, and that it was in this sense alone, that God is said to be "_made flesh_" in the person of Jesus Christ. He places Socrates, and Zoroaster and Jesus in the same category, and considers that they differed from each other only in the degree of