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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