from these is but small. The Baptists prevail principally in Kentucky. Of these it is said there are 142 preachers, 263 churches, and 21,660 communicants. The greater part of these preachers sustain that character but partially, preaching or exhorting as circumstances or a disposition may afford opportunity, pursuing the work of the ministry, not as the business, but merely as an occasional duty of life. A considerable part of them do not preach steadily on the Sabbath, and the greater part do not sustain the ministerial character on any other day of the week. Their cir cerns of civil life. cuit preachers, which constitute the smaller part of their num ber, are generally laborious, and preach much. Those who are considered as connecting themselves with this denomination, are received into their classes, or societies. Many belong to the classes, who are not communicants in the churches. Of those who are said to be in society there are 14,000. Twice that number of people may be considered about the amount of their connexion. The other religious denominations are few. The number of preachers menIntioned, besides what have been noticed, are 43. It is also observed there are a considerable number of preachers of the denominations which have been noticed, in different parts of the country, whose numbers could not be ascertained. According to the inferences which have just been made, the number of Baptists in Kentucky, and the number of Methodists in Tennessee, including all the people belonging to those denominations, amount to 73,000. these and the other denominations which are mentioned, excepting the Presbyterian, in the countries taken into the account, The it may be concluded there are Methodists are the most numer- about as many more. About ous in Tennessee. Mr. Mills 146,000 people who may be said mentions that they have about to enjoy religious instruction. 80 ordained preachers, 125 li-Yet a great portion of those who centiates, 13,500 whites in society, and 500 blacks. The most of these preachers are termed "local preachers," and preach but little. They are generally engaged in mercantile, mechanical, or agricultural employments, and some of them in the con saying this, I mean no intimation concerning their moral or Christian character, but merely to show in what sense they are to be considered as teachers of religion. Their churches have 21,660 communicants. It is well known to be the practice of that denomination, particularly in the western country, to receive to their communion the greater part of those who are considered as belonging to their congregation, including many youths and children. In this number we cannot reasonably include more than seven or eight thousand families. Probably about 45,000 people. Of administer this instruction, without detracting at all from the purity of their intentions, must be very indifferently qualified for the sacred employment.But few have been educated with a view to the ministerial office, and the greater part are necessarily engaged in the ordinary employments of life. According to the census of 1810, the States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the territories of Indiana, Illinois, and Mississippi, contained 976, 152 inhabitants. At the time Mr. Mills collected his account, the number must have considerably increased, and after deducting New-Connecticut, probably exceed one million. (The countries of Orleans and Louisiana, we do not take into the account.) Of this population, by the result of the information procured by Messrs. Mills and Schermerhorn in their laborious researches, two hundred and twenty-four thousand may be said to be supplied with Christian instruction and the ordinances of the gospel. Yet this, as we have seen, is necessarily partial and imperfect. Of the remainder of this extensive population, including more than three-fourths of the whole, the greater part occasionally hear a sermon, by casually falling into a place of worship, by the means of a Missionary, an itinerant preacher, or at their sacramental occasions, which are commonly public, and at tended by a great concourse of people. Some of these have a Bible in their house, yet seldom does it have opportunity to present its heavenly truths to their view. But while this is the case with the better part of those who do not enjoy stated gospel ordinances, great numbers are, in all respects, without God in the world. After presenting this account of the religious character of the western parts of the U. States, it may be proper, previous to any particular remarks, to give a sketch of the external state of religion through our country.I know of no better criteria to determine the religious character of any people than the number of worshipping assemblies on the Sabbath, and the number of professed teachers of religion. According to an estimate which was made about a year ago, from a careful examination of the best lights that could be obtained on the subject, the number of religious congregations in the United States, exclusive of Louisiana, including all Christian denominations and Jews, was 3800. The number of professed preachers of the gospel was about 2850. The number of worshipping assemblies on the Sabbath, who meet to praise and pray, was estimated at 3036.— By the census of 1810, our population, without Louisiana, is 7,142,502. There is, therefore, one religious worshipping assem bly on the Lord's day to 2352 inhabitants. For though our population is regularly increasing, there is not an increase of the proportionate number of worshipping assemblies. In G. Britain and Ireland, the numher of assemblies for worship on the Sabbath, are as many as one to every eight or nine hundred inhabitants. In France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland, aside from the temporary suspensions of war, the number is supposed to be still greater. In Holland, Prussia, Denmark, and the states of Germany, the number is something less, perhaps one to 1100, or 1200 inhabitants. The proportion in the northern kingdoms, probably, is still less; but - served that the Church of Christ is a nation's bulwark.— Our statesmen may devise the wisest measures of human sa fare; the executive officers of the laws may use every effort to resist the torrent of corruption; but if there be not faithful servants of Emmanuel laboring to restore Zion's desolated walls; if there be not many penitent suppliants daily kneeling at the mercy-seat of a divine Saviour, our political watchmen will watch in vain, and our ruin will be remediless. cannnot be estimated lower than one religious assembly to 1400 or 1500 inhabitants. The events of war during the last year, unfolded a state of things in Rus-gacity for their country's welsia more favorable than had been generally believed to exist. Of many facts, I notice one only. The number of churches in Moscow was 1600. The population of that city could not be estimated higher than 160,000, or possibly 200,000.These facts are not stated to produce an unfavorable impression of our native country, which we all love; but that we may have a correct view of our In some things, the aspects of national religious character. our country are favorable, and We have been so long in the afford grounds of encouragement practice of eulogizing our own and hope for the friends of Zion. country, as distinguished in all The Missionary Societies, which excellencies, that we have im- have been formed within a few bibed a variety of mistakes.-years past, to supply the destiOur Christian standing is la-tute parts of our country with mentably low, such indeed as the blessings of the gospel, do provokes the holy frowns of a not discontinue, and, generally, righteous heaven, and such as it do not remit their exertions, to is, it ought not to be concealed. extend the knowledge of our common salvation. The Bible Societies, which are institutions of a more recent nature, have been multiplied, and are making vigorous and most useful exertions, for the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures. It may be safely calculated that the number of Bibles owned in the United States in 1815, will be double the number owned in 1810. These means, which God has appointed for the salvation of immortal beings, will never be wholly unattended with the di̟vine blessing. They will be made effectual, in some degree, of rescuing the slaves of sin from the bondage of iniquity, and bringing them to the enjoy ment of Christ. There is indeed a great difference in different parts of our country. In Massachusetts and Connecticut there are as many worshipping assemblies on the Lord's day,as there are thousands of people. But it is unnecessary to make comparisons.-The number of professed teachers of religion, in European countries, is generally greater than the number of worshipping assemblies on the Sabbath. In our country it is less. The religious state of our country demands the most attentive consideration of every friend of Zion, and every friend of the best interests of inan.To the readers of a Christian Magazine, it need not be ob The part of the State of Ohio, denominated New-Connecticut, is particularly noticed in Mr. Mills' letter. He observes, "that is, in my opinion, far the most desirable part of the state; cer tainly as respects the moral and religious habits of the people living there. They are far advanced above any country of equal extent and population, west of the mountains." This is believed to be a correct statement, and the reason of this favorable distinction is to be found in the systematic and persevering exertions of the Connecticut Missionary Society in supplying those settlements with Missionary labors. Missionaries were stationed there at a very early period of the settlement, and have continued without interruption to the present time. The difference in the state of society, in that and some other parts of the state, is not because of the number of New-England people. Other parts of the state have had as The exertions which have been made to convey the knowledge and the ordinances of the gospel to the western country, are deserving of the most honorable mention, and have been signally distinguished with the divine blessing. That those extensive settlements are not at this time wholly destitute of the blessings of salvation, is owing, under the divine favor, to the benevolent exertions of the friends of truth. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and the Synod of Pittsburgh, acting as Missionary Societies, have sent Missionaries over that extensive country, and though their own extensive limits could well employ all their exertions, they have ever been mindful of the infant settlements who were forming and extending our frontiers. The western Presbyteries also, as they have been organized from time to time, though composed of a few members, and these widely separated from each other, have paid a laborious attention to the fam-great a proportion of New-Engishing flocks in the wilderness, land settlers as that. There multiplying around them; and has been no time in which the though able to do but little, majority of the people of Newhave not withheld the crumbs Connecticut have been natives of the bread of life. Individual of New-England. The state of ministers, of whom many that are things to which we refer is pious and faithful, God has dis-owing, primarily, to the blessposed to sit down in most inhospitable stations, have labored through extensive regions, generally, without any compensation except a small pittance derived from the voluntary donation of the people. The work of God's good spiritwhich overspread that country in 1802 and 1803, raised up laborers for the vineyard, and disposed many to hunger and seek for the bread of life. ing of God on the labors and the influence of Missionaries. They knew the benefit of systematic regulations, of religious and literary establishments, and their exertions to put them in operation in those infant settlements, have been singularly successful. The judicious method which the Connecticut Missionary Society have adopted, of encouraging the small settlements to call and settle ministers for rendered effectual. Go ye, and teach all nations. Christ taught his disciples to carry the gospel to their fellow-sinners, to carry it to their eyes, their ears, their consciences, their hearts, not waiting for them to apply for it, and he would accompany it with a divine success. Our country needs the exer tions, and all the exertions of the friends of the gospel salvation, not merely in consideration of the needy state of the new settlements, but of the great destitution of gospel privileges in many of the older parts of the United States. In a paper lately addressed to the public by such a portion of time as they are able, and to employ them for the residue of their time in Missionary service, affords a most powerful encouragement to those who are disposed to make exertions, and defeats the efforts of such as would oppose all gospel ministrations. There are now in New-Connecticut ten or twelve respectable and laborious ministers of Christ, that are settled, whereas without the aids of Missionary exertions, it could hardly have been expected that there would have been any. These things show sufficiently the immensely beneficial effects which have been pro-"The Massachusetts Society duced by the Missionary efforts for promoting Christian Know which have been made by the ledge," it is stated that in the pious and liberal people of our counties of Rockingham and country for fifteen years past. Strafford, the two oldest and principal counties, in N. Hampshire, "coutaining according to the census of 1810, (exclusively of Portsmouth and Exeter,) 76 towns, and 83,047 inhabitants, 46 towns were, in December last, destitute of the public stated means of grace; and their inhabitants, 40,286 souls, not only precluded from the blessings of a regular ministra tion of the word and ordinances, but exposed to the errors of enthusiastic and false teachers by With all that is done at pres ent, or that has been yet done in the Missionary service, the calls of the western country and of the various parts of our land, immensely exceed the ability to supply them. If the annual resources of all the Missionary Societies in the United States were five times greater than they now are, they could be most profitably and effectively employed. What a vast population in the western country are destroyed for lack of know-whom the remaining friends of ledge. Their destitution is in the religion of their fathers are a great measure their own fault. counteracted, depressed and disBet it so. The carnal mind is couraged. Of these 46 towns, enmity against God. The hu- some have been destitute ten, man heart loves not the gospel some twenty, some thirty, some of salvation. Men will not seek forty years, and in several the for the knowledge of that truth gospel ministry has never been which teaches that they must statedly enjoyed.' The older deny ungodliness and follow counties in the Southern States Christ. But it must be carried are hardly less destitute of the to them, and left with God to be knowledge and ordinances of |