goes on to say-" Funerals cost nothing; prayers for the living or the dead are gratuitous; the same is the case for baptisms and marriages. Any priest who should refuse to perform any of these duties without payment, would run a great risk of losing his living. It is the custom to make an offering to the priest who has performed the marriage ceremony, but it is quite voluntary. And a small number of wealthy people make presents also on the occurrence of a christening or baptism; but the greater number of Americans regard donations on such occasions with a religious horror. They consider it as an attempt to corrupt Heaven. In town, gloves and scarfs are given to the priests, as well as to the physicians and the bearers, by a few families, at funeral ceremonies; but we are so far from thinking it necessary to pay an ecclesiastic for a funeral, that for my own part, although accustomed to the habits of other countries, I retain for this practice a feeling of profound aversion. In a word, a priest

in America is considered as a minister of God. He is paid that he may exist; but no one is of opinion that those who do not pay him have less right to his ministry than those who do *"

* I regret that I cannot give Mr. Cooper's own words, as it is only from the French published translation of that gentleman's Letter that the above citation is made, and it is very probable

It will be seen from the foregoing extract from Mr. Cooper's Letter, that he estimates the ecclesiastical expenses at about one fifth lower than I have reckoned them (1,100,0007.); but even allowing the higher valuation, there is a difference of nearly two millions sterling in the amount, as given by the Quarterly. The Reviewer's valuation of the amount of the ecclesiastical revenue in England has nothing to do with the present object, which is not to institute a comparison between the English and American church revenue. But it must be evident that, judging by the returns for the county of Lancaster, which have been published, it seems inconceivably below the -real amount. The amount of church property in the hands of churchmen in that county alone greatly exceeding the whole sum allowed by him for the cathedral property of all England.

The gross amount of the property for the county

of Lancaster is upwards of three millions per annum; and it is perhaps not one of the least objections to the church system in England, that a great part of the large sums nominally paid for its support, are, in fact, nothing more than a species of lay property, often passing from hand to hand, and -unconnected with any benefit to the ministry of religion, except

that justice is not done to the style of that author in my retranslation.

ing that the onus (and it may be added odium, with at least the unreflecting and uninformed* part of the community) of levying and realizing the sums, falls to the share of the church.

From what has been shown, then, it will be clear that we rather overrate the account of church revenues in the United States by estimating them at £1,100,000; while, if we take the whole income of the established church of Great Britain and Ireland, the support of the clergy in Scotland, and that of the Roman catholics, and of all the various sects of dissenters throughout the United Kingdom, 12 millions will be a very low valuation.

This is the only fair mode of comparing the ecclesiastical expenditure of the two countriest.

There can be no greater proof of the difficulty of obtaining a true estimate of the income of the clergy of the church of England than the valuations to be found in the Quarterly itself. Let us take but two instances. In the article " Progress of Misgovernment," No. 92, we find the church revenues calculated at about £200 per annum for each clergyman, and an aggregate, with cathedral property, of £2,673,500. But, referring to No. 58 (Vol. XXIX. p. 556, et seq.), we find the total revenue of the established church £3,872,138! and that of the parochial clergy £3,447,138, or, for each clergyman, £303 annually. While in the church of Scotland each living is valued at £275, and the aggregate £263,340.

+ Much has been said lately about a "free trade in religion." If this phrase have any meaning as applied to the United States, I am at a loss to discover it. There are few countries where

there is less of trade or pecuniary considerations in connexion with the ministers of religion than America. Livings can neither be bought nor sold, nor money received on account of the church, but by individuals performing certain duties, for which, in the opinion of those who benefit by their ministry, they are supposed most eligible. It would be a great mistake to suppose that even the mere external demonstrations of deep respect for religious ordinances are not observable in most parts of the United States. In a great many States there is annually a fast day proclaimed by the governor of the State, and its observance neither meets with the animadversion, nor the opposition that similar proclamations have been met with in this country. The general respect for the ordinances of the sabbath is also at least as great, (except, I am informed, in the southern extremity of the Union,) as in any country with which I am acquainted.

CHAPTER XVI.

Expenses of administration of justice. Of state judiciaries.Some account of public lands, and future intentions with regard to them.

WITH respect to the expenses of the administration of justice, called in the United States "the judiciary," the Quarterly speaks only in general terms, but asserts that to the country at large it is probably more costly than "to any other in the world!" Acknowledging, however, that he knows of no data sufficiently accurate from which to state the proportions which the expenses of this department bear to each other in the two countries respectively; at least not with the "same precision" as in the cases of the civil and ecclesiastical department.

In the Appendix will be found a table which may assist in forming an estimate of the amount of the expenses of the state "judiciaries," in which are included the salaries of chief justice, judges, attorneys and solicitors-general, reporters, municipal-courts, police-courts, &c. as complete as it has been in my power to make it at present, by which it appears that the average annual expense to the country for the state judiciary is about 395,866 dollars. If we