140 Notes on Religion and Education. 
annual contribution made by the Government for the repairs of 
ecclesiastical edifices. The law fixes the rate of charges for 
burials and high masses, which are paid to a church-warden 
(Marguillier), who is a civil officer, and who expends it, under 
the direction of the Communal Council, for the use of the 
church — one part to the priest and his assistants, and the rest 
for vestures, and the other necessities of the Catholic service. 
The sums paid for baptisms, marriages, and petty .masses are 
the exclusive income of the priest. 
PROTESTANTISM. 
Protestantism was introduced into Hayti in 1816, by the 
Wesleyan Methodists of England, at the special invitation of 
President Petion; and to the number of their converts were 
added, in 1821, many of the emigrants under President Boyer. 
There are now about 1,400 Protestants in the Republic. The 
English Wesleyan Methodists support four stations; the Eng¬ 
lish Baptists one ; and the United States one. They are also 
two Haytian Protestant churches. The largest liberty is 
allowed to Protestants in every part of the Republic; and not 
only the exercise of their faith, but the fullest right to promul¬ 
gate it is guaranteed by the Government and Constitution of 
the country. 
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 
Religious toleration is a prominent characteristic of the Hay¬ 
tian people. Although they are Catholics they have never 
persecuted Protestants. No civilized nation in the world has 
so stainless a record on this point. The great principle of toler¬ 
ation has been embodied in every Constitution, and maintained 
under every form of Government that has prevailed in Hayti, 
from the dawn of its National Independence. 
Dessalines, who completed the extinction of the whites, first 
proclaimed the doctrine of religious toleration. 
In the Constitution of 1805 of the Empire of Hayti, the 
fifteenth article declares that the “laws admit of no governing 
religion; ” the fifty-first, that “ the liberty of worship is toler- 
