68 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



one German Reformed church two Roman Catho- 

 lic chapels, the one directed by a former Jesuit from 

 Ireland and the other by a German priest, the two par- 

 ishes numbering probably more than 1000 souls there 

 is a Swedish church at Wikakoa near the city there 

 is a synagogue and there are other meeting-houses 

 belonging to the Anabaptists, Methodists, Moravian 

 Brethren, &c. 



In the German Lutheran congregation there are bap- 

 tized yearly some 400 children, and perhaps half as 

 many burials are made. This difference is due to the 

 fact that people living at a distance from Philadelphia 

 bring in their children to be baptized, on occasions of 

 market or other business ; but with the dead the case is 

 that they are buried quietly in the country, behind the 

 houses they have lived in for many landowners in 

 America have a family burying-ground in their gardens. 

 The priesthood gains nothing by the dead, unless their 

 services are desired at burials. You may (if the father 

 in the case consents) be born for nothing, and you may 

 die gratis as you like ; only while you live must taxes 

 be paid. 



Among the churches, Christ Church in Second-street 

 has the best appearance and the finest steeple. The 

 east side is well-embellished, the building, however, 

 stands too near the street. Christ Church has a beauti- 

 ful chime of bells, which makes a complete octave and 

 is heard especially on evenings before the weekly mar- 

 kets and at times of other glad public events. The bells 

 are so played that the eight single notes of the octave 

 are several times struck, descending, rapidly one after 

 the other, and then the accord follows in tercet and 

 quint, ascending; and so repeated. On certain solemn 



