The Stipends Of Clergymen In The
American Towns Are Higher Than Those Paid In The Country.
The
opposite to this, I think, as a rule, is the case with us.
I have said that religion in the States is rowdy. By that I mean
to imply that it seems to me to be divested of that reverential
order and strictness of rule which, according to our ideas, should
be attached to matters of religion. One hardly knows where the
affairs of this world end, or where those of the next begin. When
the holy men were had in at the lecture, were they doing stage-work
or church-work? On hearing sermons, one is often driven to ask
one's self whether the discourse from the pulpit be in its nature
political or religious. I heard an Episcopalian Protestant
clergyman talk of the scoffing nations of Europe, because at that
moment he was angry with England and France about Slidell and
Mason. I have heard a chapter of the Bible read in Congress at the
desire of a member, and very badly read. After which the chapter
itself and the reading of it became a subject of debate, partly
jocose and partly acrimonious. It is a common thing for a
clergyman to change his profession and follow any other pursuit. I
know two or three gentlemen who were once in that line of life, but
have since gone into other trades. There is, I think, an
unexpressed determination on the part of the people to abandon all
reverence, and to regard religion from an altogether worldly point
of view.
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