Monday, December 29, 2008

We attended divine service in the Lutheran church

On Sunday we attended divine service in the Lutheran church, for this is the prevalent religion here as in Sweden : the officiating minister, previous to his concluding prayer, read out to us with an audible voice a list of the births, deaths, and marriages of the preceding week, as we had observed elsewhere to be the usual custom. His succeeding catalogue somewhat surprised us : he recounted the sales of houses made, or about to be made, and then added the directions of the unclaimed letters now lying at the post-office, with some other notices of a similar description : it is a singular practice, but nevertheless one that is infinitely useful in such a country as Finland ; and I must add in compliment to the piety of the Fins, that certainly no other mode of publication would have given these matters an equal chance of notoriety.

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