"I fear we must give that point up, notwithstanding, for these Presbyterians have entirely outwitted the church people in that matter."
"And what is the point in which we have been so signally worsted?"
"Why, Miss, their new bell weighs quite a hundred more than that of New St. Paul's, and has altogether the best sound. I know very well that this advantage will not avail them any thing to boast of, in the last great account; but it makes a surprising difference in the state of probation. You see the yellowish looking building across the valley, with a heavy wall around it, and a belfry? That, in its regular character, is the county court-house, and gaol; but, in the way of religion, it is used pretty much miscellaneously."
"Do you mean, really, sir, that divine service is ever actually performed in it, or that persons of all denominations are occasionally tried there?"
"It would be truer to say that all denominations occasionally try the court-house," said Aristabulus, simpering; "for I believe it has been used in this way by every shade of religion short of the Jews. The Gothic tower in wood, is the building of the Universalists; and the Grecian edifice, that is not yet painted, the Baptists. The Quakers, I believe, worship chiefly at home, and the different shades of the Presbyterians meet, in different rooms, in private houses, about the place."
"Are there then shades of difference in the denominations, as well as all these denominations?" asked Eve, in unfeigned surprise; "and this, too, in a population so small?"
"This is a free county, Miss Eve, and freedom loves variety. 'Many men, many minds.'"
"Quite true, sir," said Paul; "but here are many minds among few men. Nor is this all; agreeably to your own account, some of these men do not exactly know their own minds. But, can you explain to us what essential points are involved in all these shades of opinion?"
"It would require a life, sir, to understand the half of them. Some say that excitement is religion, and others, that it is contentment. One set cries up practice, and another cries out against it. This man maintains that he will be saved if he does good, and that man affirms that if he only does good, he will be damned; a little evil is necessary to salvation, with one shade of opinion, while another thinks a man is never so near conversion as when he is deepest in sin."
"Subdivision is the order of the day," added John Effingham; "every county is to be subdivided that there may be more county towns, and county offices; every religion decimated, that there may be a greater variety and a better quality of saints."