"In every country where the Roman Catholic prevails, immense sums are levied in order to support against the Greek's equivocal pretensions to the precarious possession of a corner of the world reputed holy; and to preserve in the hands of the monks of the Latin communion the remains of an old stable at Bethlehem, where a chapel has been erected, and where on the doubtful authority of oral tradition, it is pretended that Christ was born; as also a tomb, which may be, and most probably may not be, what is called his sepulchre; for the precise situation of these two places is as little ascertained as that which contains the ashes of Cæsar." What renders the Greeks yet more contemptible in the eyes of the Turks is the miracle which they perform every year at Easter. The poor bishop of Jerusalem is inclosed in a small cave, which is passed off for the tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ, with packets of small wax tapers; he strikes fire, lights one of these little tapers, and comes out of his cave exclaiming: "The fire is come down from heaven, and the holy taper is lighted." All the Greeks immediately buy up these tapers, and the money is divided between the Turkish commander and the bishop. The deplorable state of this Church, under the dominion of the Turk, may be judged from this single trait. The Greek Church in Russia has of late assumed a much more respectable consistency, since the Empress Catherine II. has delivered it from its secular cares; she has taken from it four hundred thousand slaves, which it possessed. It is now paid out of the imperial treasury, entirely dependent on the government, and restricted by wise laws; it can effect nothing but good, and is every day becoming more learned and useful. It possesses a preacher of the name of Plato, who has composed sermons which the Plato of antiquity would not have disdained. CHURCH OF ENGLAND. England is the country of sects; "_multæ sunt mansiones in domo patris mei:_" an Englishman, like a free man, goes to heaven which way he pleases. However, although every one can serve God in his own way, the national religion--that in which fortunes are made--is the Episcopal, called the Church of England, or emphatically, "The Church." No one can have employment of any consequence, either in England or Ireland, without being members of the establishment. This reasoning, which is highly demonstrative, has converted so many nonconformists that at present there is not a twentieth part of the nation out of the bosom of the dominant church. [Illustration: Empress Catherine.] The English clergy have retained many Catholic ceremonies, and above all that of receiving tithes, with a very scrupulous attention. They also possess the pious ambition of ruling the people, for what village rector would not be a pope if he could?