for the same scene of labour, as the
Independent--the Free Churchman with the Baptist--the Methodist with
the Original Seceder--the Voluntary with the Establishment-man; and
they squat down together on contiguous lots, amid the solitude of the
forest. Were they all of one communion, there might be scarce any
break created in their old habits of church-going and religious
instruction. The community, considerable as a whole, though very
inconsiderable in its parts when broken up into denominational septs,
would have its minister of religion from its first settlement, or
almost so; and, from the rapid increase which takes place in all new
colonies in congenial countries and climates, the charge of such a
minister would be soon a very important one, and adequate to the full
development of the energies of a superior man.

But alas for the numerous denominational septs! Years must elapse, in
some instances many years, ere--few and scattered, and necessarily
deprived of every advantage of the territorial system--they can
procure for themselves religious teachers: they fall gradually, in the
interim, out of religious habits, or there rises among them a
generation in which these were never formed; and when at length a
sept does procure a teacher, generally, from the comparative
fewness of their numbers, the extent of district over which they
are spread, and the lukewarmness induced among them by their years
of deprivation--circumstances which make the charge of such a people
no very desirable one to a man who can procure aught better, and
which have some effect also in rendering their choice in such
matters not very discriminating--he is frequently of a character
little suited to profit them. They succeed too often in procuring not
missionaries, nor men such as the ministers of higher standing, that
divide the word to the congregations of the mother country, but the
country's mere remainder preachers, who, having failed in making their
way into a living at home, seek unwillingly a bit of bread in the
unbroken ground of the colonies. The circumstances of Popery as a
colonizing religion are in all respects immensely more favourable. For
every practical purpose, it is one and united: it is furnished
with an army of clergy admirably organized, and set peculiarly
loose for movement at the will of the general ecclesiastical body
by their law of celibacy. It possesses in prolific Ireland a vast
propelling heart, if we may so speak, e