averaging nearly five pounds, or at least twenty dollars a head for each inhabitant of the British Isles; whereas, in the United States the whole public expenditure of the general government, twenty state governments, the poor laws, corporations, and counties, scarcely amount to fifty millions of dollars, or five dollars a head for each individual of ten millions of people who are rapidly increasing in number, and whose immense land resources are rising in value every hour.

In Ireland, the tithe system is still more oppressive than in England. Four-fifths of the population are papists. In many parishes all the people are papists, having no protestant minister, but the nominal parson resides either in England or France, or elsewhere, as suits him, and the tithe proctor grinds down the Irish farmer and peasant, and perpetuates their abject hopeless poverty.

Our different sects dispute here verbally, and by writing, pretty much as they do in Europe. But the liberal piety of the age, its philosophical spirit and genius, the circumstances of Christendom, the prevalence of Bible and Missionary Societies and Sunday Schools, all conspire to approximate the different religious persuasions towards each other in the labours of love, and in the beauty of harmony; to break down the partition wall of sectarianism, and to unite all denominations in their blessed efforts to spread the light of revealed truth over the remotest corners of the globe. It is in vain for any church to attempt to uphold its exclusive pretensions against the social institutions, feelings, and habits, of the country where it is placed; and still more vain to endeavour to revive now, in these United States, the intolerant bigotry, which disgraced Europe in the seventeenth century. Lord Clarendon, in his Life of himself, makes some very sagacious observations on the manner in which Archbishop Laud, by straining his ecclesiastical pretensions too far, and indulging an unbounded lust of clerical domination, brought his royal master to the block, and ruined that very church which he so zealously laboured to exalt.

The prevailing religious sects in the United States are, the Presbyterians, the Independents, the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists; of which last persuasion there are 2,600 settled, and 1,000 unsettled congregations. Pure Episcopacy is in fact an ecclesiastical monarchy, the bishop being the executive chief over all the clergy of his diocess. It is, however, in this country more adapted to the genius of our republican institutions than it ever was in England, even before the houses of convocation were abolished; for with us, the annual state convention consists of lay delegates as well as clergy, the bishop presiding; and the general convention, which meets once in three years, is composed of all the bishops in the Union, who form the upper house, and of lay delegates and clergy from all the different diocesses, who constitute the lower house. Indeed, every church must of necessity conform its government and discipline in some measure to the spirit and substance of the social institutions of the country where it is fixed. Yet, notwithstanding our republican polity and habits, the bishops exercise great authority over their diocesan clergy, and possess very considerable power in regulating and governing the church.

Presbyterianism, in its government, is a representative republic; its ecclesiastical tribunals throughout all their gradations of church sessions, presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies, are composed of an equal number of clergy and lay elders, whose votes have all equal efficacy, and who transact their business on their delibe rative floor, much in the same manner as do our Congress and state legislatures. In the Independent Congregational churches all is carried by universal suffrage in each separate congregation, there being no general ecclesiastical tribunal to which may be referred the graver matters of doctrine and discipline, but all being submitted, finally and without appeal, to the votes, male and female, of each single audience. In such a system it is almost impossible to prevent the departure from old, and the introduction of new doctrines; and, accordingly, both in old and New England, many of the Inde

pendent churches have passed gradually from Calvinism, through the intermediate stages of Arminianism, Arianism, and Semi-Arianism, into Socinianism, or Unitarianism, or, as Priestley calls it, Humanitarianism, because it denies the divinity of Jesus Christ, and considers him merely "as a frail, peccable, erring man."

The great body of the Congregationalists are to be found in New-England, and some of their churches are scattered through the middle and southern states, which are, however, chiefly occupied by the Presbyterians. Episcopacy prevails most in New-York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South-Carolina, and is supposed to be gaining ground in some parts of NewEngland. The Friends, or Quakers, are most numerous in the middle states; they are here, as in Europe, and every where else, peculiarly active in all works of benevolence. For example, in promoting peace, discouraging war, aiding the progress of Bible Societies and Sunday Schools, and the abolition of slavery. The Methodists occupy chiefly the interior of the southern states, although they have churches scattered over the greatest part of the Union. The Baptists abound most in the western states. The Papists are most numerous in Maryland, and in the large cities on our sea-board; their numbers are continually augmented by European importation; but they seldom make proselytes from other sects. The Dutch Reformed Church is principally confined to New-York and New-Jersey. Jews are scattered in small numbers all over the Union, excepting New-England, where a veritable Israelite is no more able to live than in Scotland.

The American clergy of all denominations are in general decorous in their exterior, and faithful in the discharge of their pulpit and parochial duties. There is, however, in some of our cities a custom, which diminishes their usefulness; namely, the collegiate system, which makes three or four churches common to as many or more clergymen. In New-York, the Presbyterians have wisely abandoned this scheme; the Episcopalians and Dutch still retain it. Instead of giving one regular

pastor to each separate congregation, the essence of the collegiate system is, not to suffer the same clergyman to preach twice successively in the same church; whence, there can be no regular exposition of the scriptures, without which no congregation can be built up in Christian instruction; mere single unconnected sermons, or sabbatical essays, never did, and never will, teach a people the scheme of Revelation. The collegiate system also does not admit of pastoral duty and parochial visitation, without which the real religion of a church can never be kept up or established. A minister of moderate talents and learning, if he be the stated pastor of a single church, will be able to do much more good by regular preaching and exposition of the scriptures, and parochial visitation, than a man of the first-rate capacity can possibly effect by occasional preaching in a church in common with talents and learning of every various gradation. No order of ability and information can compensate for a radical deficiency of system.

Notwithstanding so large a portion of our population is altogether without religious ordinances, yet, of late, religion has been, unquestionably, gaining ground in the United States; and that cold-blooded compound of irreligion, irony, selfishness, and sarcasm, which the French call persiflage, is not so rife now as formerly. Religion is becoming fashionable among us, which is a strong proof of the existence of a great mass of real piety in the country. Some of our soi-disant philosophers, however, profess to ridicule this fashion, and to deride the cant and hypocrisy of the present day, which they liken to the fanaticism of the puritans, who converted the English monarchy into a protectorate.

But the extent of hypocrisy must always be regulated by that of true religion. If religion be not generally spread over the community, there can be no effectual demand for extensive hypocrisy; which, in itself, is never any thing more than the homage of vice to virtue. If the great body of the people do not highly value religion, it can never be worth the while of leading statesmen to play the hypocrite, and affect to be

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pious, in order to become acceptable in the eyes of the nation. If the politicians of revolutionary France, and of our southern and western states, do not find it necessary to conceal their disregard for all seriousness and religion, but can afford to avow their impious tenets of speculative and practical infidelity, it only proves that there is too little religion in their respective communities, to compel them to wear the mask of hypocrisy, and assume the semblance of that piety which is generally diffused. It only proves, that the host of infidels are now become more numerous, and more daring in Christendom, than they were in some former ages. In Britain, religion is so pravalent among all sects and denominations, that her leading politicians dare not, whatever may be their private opinions, openly avow themselves to be infidels, whether Deists or Atheists.

The rapid spread of Sunday Schools, and of Missionary and Bible Societies, affords a most consolatory proof of the increase of religion in the United States. Two years have not yet elapsed, since their first institution in this country, and they have already considerably diminished the ignorance, poverty, and vice of our larger cities. Many of our most respectable families, both ladies and gentlemen, gratuitously engage in the labour of teaching the Sunday scholars, black and white, old and young. Their exertions have caused the Sabbath to be respected by the poor, the idle, and the proflgate; and have quickened the growth of piety, order, industry, and cleanliness amidst the habitations of filth, indolence, confusion, and iniquity. The reports of the various Sunday School Societies are peculiarly interesting, for their mass of important facts, their strain of manly religion and benevolence, the ability and eloquence of their composition.

The Missionary Societies are established for the purpose of converting those Indians who are not yet exterminated by the sword of American encroachment; and also to supply with religious instruction the millions of our own people, who are altogether destitude of religious ordinances. The labours of these societies have