ABSTRACT
I have talked to several farmers here about the tithes in England, and, they laugh. ey sometimes almost make me angry; for they seem, at last, not to believe what I say, when I tell them, that the English farmer gives, and is compelled to give, the Parson a tenth part of his whole crop, and of his fruit and milk and eggs and calves and lambs and pigs and wool and honey. ey cannot believe this. ey treat it as a sort of romance. […]
But, my Botley neighbours, you will exclaim, “No tithes! Why, then, there can be not Churches and no Parsons! e people must know nothing of God or Devil; and must all go to hell!” By no means, my friends. Here are plenty of Churches. No less than three Episcopal (or English) Churches; three Presbyterian Churches; three Lutheran Churches; one or two Quaker Meeting-houses; and two Methodist Places; all within six miles of the spot where I am sitting. And, these, mind, not poor shabby Churches; but each of them larger and better built and far handsomer than Botley Church, with the Church-yards all kept in the neatest order, with a head-stone to almost every grave. As to the Quaker Meeting-house, it would take Botley Church into its belly, if you were rst to knock o the steeple.
