In some of the churches they’ve revived what they call the offertory. It’s this. At a certain part of the service, they send round a bag or a pocket at the end of a stick to all the people, to put money in. I have seen the same sort of thing used in the streets to reach to the first-floors, when the tumblers go about. Well, this money is gathered for a-many things; but John Bull doesn’t like it. They say the crocodile has his tender part somewhere about his belly--John’s vital part is his breeches-pocket. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that the Bishop of Exeter--for he’s very strong upon the offertory--has introduced it to make religion, what is so very much liked in England, select and respectable. You see the people who can’t afford to drop their Sunday shillings and sixpences, won’t have the face to go to worship at all--or they may turn Dissenters, and so the Established Church, like the Opera-house, will be made a place for what the _Standard_ (I can tell you _that_ is a religious paper, though you may never hear of it) calls the “better classes.” Poor people may turn Anabaptists, or anything of that sort that’s very cheap. Purple and fine linen a’n’t for everybody; no, isn’t there good stout sound cloth, and striped cotton? The Bishop of London has been in very hot water with the folks at Tottenham about the Sunday silver, which they won’t pay at all. Well, he says they needn’t pay it for a twelvemonth. So it seems that a truth isn’t a truth all at once, it takes a year to grow. According to the Bishop, it would seem that truth was born like a tadpole, that wanted time afore it came to be a perfect frog. Well, then, there’s another notion about. It’s said that the wants of the people are so many that it’s quite out of the power of the labouring clergy to attend to ’em. It would be worse than drayman’s work. And so it has been recommended that there should be a sort of Church militia raised in addition to the regulars. It was only last night that I drove down to Fulham a very chatty sort of man--I think the under-butler of the Bishop of London. Well, he talked a good deal about this militia; they’re to be called Deacons, I think, and are to be considered a sort of a parson; like young ravens not yet come to their full black.