260 METHODIST GOTHIC CHURCHES. 



most of the older New England towns, a manifest rivalry 

 appears among the richer congregations in the building 

 and ornamenting of their churches. The Presbyterians, 

 Methodists, and Congregationalists, (Independents,) equal 

 the Episcopalians in their attention to stuffed pews, easy 

 cushions, and carpeted aisles to organs, choirs, and the 

 engagement of professed singers to towers, steeples, 

 and sonorous bells and the old Dutch Reformed are as 

 attentive to comfort as the rest. All the churches are 

 well warmed ; and, even in this frosty weather, the ladies 

 are seen here and there in the pews busily plying their 

 fans ! 



John Wesley would scarcely believe his eyes were he 

 to wake up and see the fine Gothic church which the 

 Methodists have just finished at Newhaven in Connecti 

 cut. The old Presbyterian congregation here, in Albany, 

 have nearly completed an expensive and beautiful church, 

 with an ambitious tower, while their old one was still 

 large enough, sound enough, and sufficiently comfortable. 

 But the Romanists are outdoing them all, and probably 

 inciting all the other sects, by the magnificent cathedral 

 they are erecting on the highest part of the city. They 

 have here, I was told, complainingly, as in other coun 

 tries, the art of squeezing out of the hard earnings of 

 their humblest followers a liberal quota towards the good 

 work. 



The Independents or Congregationalists, so strong as 

 a body in New England, are only gaining a footing as 

 yet in the State of New York. The old church, about to 

 be abandoned by the Presbyterians, has been purchased 

 for the first congregation in Albany on the Independent 

 principle. 



I attended the Episcopal church of Dr Potter this 

 morning. The congregation was large, very respectable 

 in appearance, and apparently devout. The Doctor him 

 self, in his figure somewhat, but more in his voice and 



