can leave little danger of
misapprehension to the observer. There are lanterns continually burning,
and consecrated water, sanctified to the cure of diseased eyes.--Such
places of worship tell a very plain tale; while there is not perhaps a
church on earth which does not convey one that is far from obscure.

The traveller must diligently visit the temples of nations; he must mark
their locality, whether placed among men's dwellings or apart from them;
their number, whether multiplied by diversity of theological opinion;
and their aspect, whether they are designed for the service of a ritual
or a spiritual religion. Thus he may, at the same time, ascertain the
character of the most prominent form of religion, and that of the
dissent from it; which must always illustrate each other.

* * * * *

Next to the Churches comes the consideration of the Clergy. The clergy
are usually the secondary potentates of a young country. In a young
country, physical force, and that which comes to represent it, is the
first great power; and knowledge is the next. The clergy are the first
learned men of every nation; and when the streams of knowledge are only
just issuing from the fountain, and the key is in the hands of the
clergy, they enjoy, rightly and unavoidably, a high degree of
consequence. Knowledge spreads abroad; and it is as impossible for man
to dam it up as for the fool to stop the Danube by filling the narrow
channel at its source with his great boots,--crying out the while, "How
the people will wonder when the Danube does not come!" As knowledge
becomes diffused, the consequence of the clergy declines. If that
consequence is to be preserved, it must be by their attaining the same
superiority in morals which they once held in intellect. Where the
clergy are now a cherished class, it is, in fact, on the supposition of
this moral superiority,--a claim for whose justification it would be
unreasonable to look, and for the forfeiture of which the clergy should
be less blamed than those who expect that, in virtue of a profession,
any class of men should be better than others. Moral excellence has no
regard to classes and professions; and religion, being not a pursuit but
a temper, cannot, in fact, be professionally cultivated with personal
advantage. It will be for the traveller to note whether this is more or
less understood where he travels; whether the clergy are viewed with
indifference as mere p