MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. IOI 



a great number of them should consist of very 

 learned and good men with curacies or poor liv- 

 ings that do not afford them a much better income 

 than the wages of common mechanics ; and that, 

 however great their abilities may be, it is only by 

 patronage that they can be advanced, while enor- 

 mous stipends are lavished upon others, very 

 often for the most useless, or, perhaps, the most 

 corrupt purposes. I think it would be much 

 better if the incomes of the clergy could be 

 equalized ; for, so long as matters are managed 

 otherwise, so long will it be considered as a 

 system of revenue of which religion is only the 

 pretext. 



The Roman Catholic mode of faith is the oldest; 

 and they seem the most of any sect attached to 

 it and its old customs and its old creeds, which 

 they seem obstinately to value and persist in, 

 and this most likely will continue so long as they 

 give up their own reason and implicitly obey that 

 dictated to them by their priests. They are the 

 strictest of all disciplinarians in their-worship, and 

 are also generally good members of society. The 

 next and most numerous sect are the Methodists, 

 and I fear if they had the upper hand they would 

 soon shew a persecuting spirit, but which I hope 

 will never more be suffered to rear its head. This 

 sect took their rise under the able auspices of John 

 Wesley, and at that time he did a great deal of 

 good. In this neighbourhood it was soon made 

 to appear, for he greatly civilized a numerous host 

 of semi-barbarians, the pitmen and others em- 

 ployed in the pit works. There is another sect 

 growing into great importance as a religious 

 society, and that is the Quakers the "Friends'' 



