“How are the Brahmun priests supported?” “Do they have a regular salary for their services?” &c.,--are the inquiries frequently made to me. So I think it worth while to answer these questions fully here, although they have been partially explained, and will be elsewhere. As the priesthood, the parish, the religious services in Christendom, are quite unlike those in India, it seems necessary to consider them briefly in order to give the Christian reader true ideas of them. In this country an energetic preacher can draw round him a large congregation. The people visit church after church in search of good, weighty, or sentimental sermons, and wherever they find what is agreeable to their taste they hire a pew, and become members of the same. Thus the father goes to the brick church, the mother to one of stone, the daughter to a wooden one, and the sons, not finding theology in either, spend the time at home. But in Hindoo countries everything is fixed, binding, and must be attended to. The priesthood is hereditary, gods the same, the theology is well protected, contrived, authoritative, and religious services uniform, mechanical, and pleasing. They do not and cannot seek after a change; wherever they go, they see the same god, worship in the same way, the lamps are lighted, flowers scattered over the altar, incense burning, &c. In order to be settled over a rich people, the Brahmun depends little upon his “pulpit eloquence” or spiritual career; let him have, so to speak, “Abraham for his father,” and plenty and comfort will be his. After the death of a Brahmun, his parish, containing any number of families living in the same village, or scattered around the country, will be equally divided among his sons like other property of the deceased. In case one of the sons proves unworthy of the charge, unable to attend to the religious ceremonies at the houses of his people, either being engaged in some other profession, as most of the Brahmuns are now, or owing to his ignorance of the services, his people cannot go away from him and settle another over them.