y good choir. Although I
approve highly of the euphonious improvement, I feel sure that many of
my countrymen in the extreme north would rather see a picture
representing Satan in Abraham's bosom inside their kirk than any musical
instrument. Such is the force of habit and prejudice.

The extent to which the churches in America have increased is doubtless
most creditable to the community, when it is remembered that all the
various denominations are supported voluntarily. Nor is their number the
only point worthy of notice: the buildings themselves have all, some
ecclesiastical appearance, and many of them are fine specimens of
architecture. Besides which, they are always kept clean and in good
order; you will never find those unsightly barns, and still less the
dilapidation which is often met with in the mother land. I have myself
been in a church at home where the flooring was all worn away, and
gravel from the outside substituted, and where the seats were so rickety
that a fall might be anticipated at any moment. The parishioners were
poor Highlanders, it is true, but the owner of the soil was a man of
considerable wealth.

I have, since my return to England, been into a beautiful old parish
church in one of the midland counties; the building was in a most
deplorable state of dilapidation, and the communion-rail formed a
music-stand, while inside were placed an orchestra of two fiddles and a
bass-viol. The minister received, for the first three years he
officiated, the exorbitant remuneration of thirty pounds a year; since
which time he has taken the duties of parish schoolmaster, the salary of
which, increased by a small sum from Queen Anne's Bounty, enables him to
keep body and soul together. But of course the school engrossed all his
time, except what was necessary to prepare his discourses, and his
parishioners were unavoidably and totally neglected, till dissenting
ministers came to the rescue. As a natural consequence, they soon
followed the ministers who made them the objects of their care, and when
I attended this beautiful old parish church, the congregation,
independent of the orchestra and the parish school, consisted of eleven
souls, three of whom came from the minister's own house. You might seek
in vain to parallel such a case throughout the whole Republic.

I now propose to make a few observations about disbelief in the United
States. On this point I have no statistics to refer to, nor do I believe
s