I yesterday dined with the Rev. Mr. Schrader, son-in-law to Professor Foster of Halle.  He is chaplain to the German chapel at St. James’s; but besides himself he has a colleague or a reader, who is also in orders, but has only fifty pounds yearly salary.  Mr. Schrader also instructs the younger princes and princesses of the royal family in their religion.  At his house I saw the two chaplains, Mr. Lindeman and Mr. Kritter, who went with the Hanoverian troops to Minorca, and who were returned with the garrison.  They were exposed to every danger along with the troops.  The German clergy, as well as every other person in any public station immediately under Government, are obliged to pay a considerable tax out of their salaries.

The English clergy (and I fear those still more particularly who live in London) are noticeable, and lamentably conspicuous, by a very free, secular, and irregular way of life.  Since my residence in England, one has fought a duel in Hyde Park, and shot has antagonist.  He was tried for the offence, and it was evident the judge thought him guilty of murder; but the jury declared him guilty only of manslaughter; and on this verdict he was burnt in the hand, if that may be called burning which is done with a cold iron; this being a privilege which the nobility and clergy enjoy above other murderers.

Yesterday week, after I had preached for Mr. Wendeborne, we passed an English church in which, we understood the sermon was not yet quite finished.  On this we went in, and then I heard a young man preaching, with a tolerable good voice, and a proper delivery; but, like the English in general, his manner was unimpassioned, and his tone monotonous.  From the church we went to a coffee-house opposite to it, and there we dined.  We had not been long there before the same clergyman whom we had just heard preaching, also came in.  He called for pen and ink, and hastily wrote down a few pages on a long sheet of paper, which he put into his pocket; I suppose it was some rough sketch or memorandum that occurred to him at that moment, and which he thus reserved for some future sermon.  He too ordered some dinner, which he had no sooner ate, than he returned immediately to the same church.  We followed him, and he again mounted the pulpit, where he drew from his pocket a written paper, or book of notes, and delivered in all probability those very words which he had just before composed in our presence at the coffee-house.

In these coffee-houses, however, there generally prevails a very decorous stillness and silence.  Everyone speaks softly to those only who sit next him.  The greater part read the newspapers, and no one ever disturbs another.  The room is commonly on the ground floor, and you enter it immediately from the street; the seats are divided by wooden wainscot partitions.  Many letters and projects are here written and planned, and many of those that you find in the papers are dated from some of these coffee-houses.  There is, therefore, nothing incredible, nor very extraordinary, in a person’s composing a sermon here, excepting that one would imagine it might have been done better at home, and certainly should not have thus been put off to the last minute.