FOOTNOTES.

So that in the afternoon, with only 537 fewer places open, the number of sittings was 1,139,759 fewer than in the morning. In the evening (when, of course, all the more important buildings which were open in the morning were again accessible to the public) the exertions of 3,744 additional preachers, nearly a third more, only rendered available 337,850 additional sittings, or about one-eleventh more; and they attracted only 97,668 additional hearers, an increase of less than one in twenty-one! It may, perhaps, be allowable to doubt whether the labours of non-resident, non-professional preachers can be attended with anyresults worth speaking of; but, at all events, their irregular ministrations can have no real bearing on the question whether the regular meeting-houses are used more or less frequently than the churches. Obviously, the fairest way would be to inquire which class of buildings are opened the oftener throughout the whole week; and, in that case, there is no doubt that the comparison would show greatly in favour of the churches. If, however, we must confine ourselves to Sunday, the proper question to ask would be—in how many cases there is a service before, and another after, noon? The answer, according to Table 16, would be as follows:—

Churches.(per cent.)

Meeting Houses.(per cent.)

Town districts

Rural ditto

Whole country

If the investigation could be limited to the new accommodation, the result would strikingly show that the extra outlay on the churches had in no sense been thrown away.

After all, the number of sittings a religious body can open in the morning is the real test of its strength. Amongst persons of every denomination there is a strong feeling that they ought to frequent their own place of worship in the morning, but in the after part of the day many persons do not consider themselves called upon to attend again, or they feel themselves at liberty to visit other churches or meetings. In short, to speak technically, the morning service is looked upon by everybody as a service of “obligation,” while all the rest are regarded as mere services of “devotion.” Now, of the 5,317,915 sittings belonging to the Church, no fewer than 4,852,645 were actually available on the Census morning. The remaining 465,270 were almost exclusively in the country, where one clergyman has still often to serve more than one parish or chapelry. Cases of this kind have of late years been much diminished, owing to the operation of the Pluralities Act, and still more in consequence of the increased zeal, both of the clergy and the laity. The Bishop of Salisbury stated in his primary charge that the number of churches in that diocese having two sermons on Sunday had increased during the episcopate of Dr. Denison (16 years) from 143 to 426; and the number having monthly communions from 35 to 181. The increase in the number of church sittings during the past half century may be considered as nett, for there can be no doubt that nearly all the new buildings have the double service. At all events, if there are any that have not, they are more than compensated for by those ancient churches where there was formerly only one service on the Lord’s Day, but where there are now two. On the other hand, the Dissenters are not able to open quite three-fourths of their sittings on the Sunday morning; and as there is no reason whatever for supposing that their new accommodationis exempt from this deduction, we may subtract one-fourth from the gross number assigned in the tables to each period.

The following table, compiled on the assumption that 58 per cent. of the population might attend divine worship on any Sunday morning, will show at a glance the number of sittings really required at each decennial period, and the real provision made to supply the deficiency:—

Sittings (open) required.

Furnished by the Church.

By dissent.

Total.

1801

5,157,671

2,559,345

1,577,143

4,136,488

Increase decennially:—

1811

737,598

55,250

286,407

341,657

1821

1,064,869

96,900

532,998

629,898

1831

1,100,005

276,250

555,239

831,488

1841

1,170,064

667,250

389,323

1,056,573

1851

1,167,807

1,197,650

304,766

1,502,416

Total increase

5,240,342

2,293,300

2,068,732

4,362,032

Total

10,398,013

4,852,645

3,645,875

8,498,520

Or, exhibiting the same results in a somewhat different form:—

Sittings per 1,000 of population required.

Provided by Church.

By Dissent.

Total.

1801

580

287

177

464

1811

580

257

183

441

1821

580

225

199

424

1831

580

214

212

426

1841

580

229

209

438

1851

580

270

203

473

Church loss since 1801, 17; Dissenting gain, 26: total Church loss, 43.

Church gain since 1831, 56; Dissenting loss, 9; total Church gain, 65.

This, then, is really the rate at which each body “is advancing in the path of self extension;” and the best proof of its accuracy is, that it exactly tallies with what one would have expected beforehand. Mr. Mann’s tables, on the contrary, are absolutely incredible. We must never forget, that during the Great Rebellion, Puritanism was actually the dominant faction; and even at the Restoration it cannot be supposed that the Dissenters were a small or an uninfluential class. In 1662 no fewer than 2,000 ministers were ejected under the new Act of Uniformity; and as at the last census there were only 6405 professional Protestant Ministers, it will be seen that the ejected preachers alone formed a larger body, in comparison with the existing population, than the Protestant Dissenting Ministry does now. It cannot be doubted that every one of those men had a greater or less following; and it must be remembered that in the days of the Commonwealth there was always a rabble of sects who might even then be called Dissenters. It is true that, after the Restoration, Nonconformity was subjected to severe repressive laws, but those laws were not enforced with unvarying rigour. In 1672 there was the Indulgence, and in 1681 the House of Commons passed a strong resolution against the prosecution of Protestant Dissenters. Besides, after all, the Conventicle Acts only continued in force about 23 years—not much longer, in fact, than Episcopacy hadbeen proscribed by law. The natural result which would follow the famous proclamation of James II., and the subsequent passing of the Toleration Act, would be a great and sudden revival of Dissent. How small was the church-feeling of Parliament at the Revolution may be gathered from a curious fact mentioned in Mr. Macaulay’s third volume. It was proposed that the Commons should sit on Easter Monday. The Churchmen vigorously protested against the innovation; but they did not dare to divide, and the House did sit on the festival in question. Without at all straining the inference to be drawn from this incident, it would be difficult, indeed, to suppose that Churchmen had matters their own way. Even under the penal laws, the Dissenters must have been a large body; for James the Second’s scheme for forming a coalition of Roman Catholic and Protestant Dissenters against the Establishment would have been stark folly unless the two bodies, when combined, would have made up, at least, a powerful minority. From the Revolution to 1801 the Dissenters had more than a century to increase and multiply; and all the circumstances of the case were in their favour. Worn out by the political struggles of a century and a half, during which she had been made the tool of contending factions; deprived of her Legislative powers; silenced and frowned upon by the powers that were, the Church had sunk into that fatal lethargy from which the present generation has only just seen her awake. During that long and dreary period, all the prominent theologians, with a few bright exceptions, were either Dissenters or inclined to Dissent. The eighteenth century, too, was the golden age of popular Nonconformist preachers. Not to mention a host of smaller names, Wesley and Whitfield both rose, flourished, and died before its close. And yet, if we are to believe Mr. Mann, the Dissenters in 1801 were a much smaller body, compared with the whole population, than they were under the penal laws![25]On the other hand, all who remember the obloquy and contempt under which the Church continued until the passing of the Reform Act, will reject, without a moment’s hesitation, the notion that, in 1831, she actually possessed more accommodation, in proportion to the population, than at the present day. The change which has taken place in the popular sentiment towards her has not been caused by any document like this Census report, which suddenly appeared and disabused the public mind of its preconceived ideas. It has, on the contrary, been brought about by the silent influence of those spectacles of zeal and self-denying liberality which have been witnessedin every corner of the land. The Church has, in fact, lived down her traducers. A hundred proverbs bear witness to the vast amount of good deeds which are required to remove an evil reputation; and yet Mr. Mann calls upon us to believe that the Establishment has achieved this, although, with all her numbers and all her wealth, she has not, since 1831, done so much as the Wesleyan sects alone, towards supplying the people with the means of religious instruction and worship! One has no language to characterize such a daring attempt on the public credulity. The most charitable hypothesis will be to conclude that Mr. Mann, though an arithmetician by his office, knows nothing about arithmetic; and so remit him to the consideration of Mr. Roebuck and the Administrative Reform Society.[26]

Theinquiry through which the reader has been invited to travel will probably suggest several considerations; and first of all the importance of putting a stop to the statistical nuisance which has of late years flourished with so rank a growth. Surely it is time that members of both Houses of Parliament, who resent so jealously any attempt on the part of Government officials to exceed or fall short of the precise instructions given them, in making returns, should raise their voices against the system of publishing with official statistics the crude, and, as it has been seen, the nonsensical but pernicious theorizings of the persons entrusted with the task of compiling reports. Like Mr. Mantalini, the majority of persons never trouble themselves to examine a numerical process, but content themselves with simply asking what is the total; and it therefore becomes the duty of Parliament to see that the unsuspecting confidence of the public is not abused. The reader must not suppose that the Report on Religious Worship is the only recent one which is open to objection. The Census Report on Schools is just as full of fallacies; and it has certainly been one of the strangest phenomena ever witnessed in the history of public discussion, that the schemes of Lord John Russell and Sir John Pakington, assailed as they were onevery side, should have escaped what would, after all, have been the most effective blow that could have been aimed against them—the simple but conclusive fact, so easily deducible from the premises of the Report on Schools, that nearly as many children were under education as could be induced to attend unless they were driven to the class of the teacher by the policeman’s staff.[27]

Again, the inquiry will probably satisfy the reader that the anti-Church legislation of the day ought to proceed no further. It is easy to assign the cause which in the first instance gave it birth. Most statesmen, it may be presumed, will be ready to adopt, with regard to the multifarious sects of modern Christianity, the last clause, at least, of Gibbon’s famous dictum respecting the ancient religions of Pagan Rome—“to the people equally true, to the philosopher equally false, to the magistrate equally useful.” Persons who profess with sincerity almost any form of Christian doctrine are comparatively easy to govern; they throw but a light burden upon the poor-rate and they cost nothing at all in the shape of police. A statesman, then, might dislike Dissent, but what was he to say to a state of things like that revealed in the Census report? The Church, according to Mr. Mann’s tables, could not, by dint of the utmost exertions she is ever likely to put forth, find accommodation for half the souls who are year by year added to the population. On the other hand the Dissenters, who are far less wealthy, and have few endowments, provide without difficulty and without fuss more than twice the amount of new accommodation supplied by the Church. The irresistible inference in the mind of a mere statesman would be that Dissent ought to be aided and encouraged. But ifit turns out that the facts are precisely the reverse of what has been represented—if in reality Dissent is making no progress, while the Church is providing new accommodation sufficient for the whole of the new population—why should the Legislature go out of its path to foster mere religious discord, and to impede the spread of what the country has, after all, long since recognised as the “more excellent way.” Why, for instance, should Churchrates be abolished? If they were right in 1831, when there were more Dissenters and fewer Churchmen, why are they wrong now? If Parliament has conferred upon parishes,as a boon, the right to tax themselves (if a majority of the ratepayers think fit) for the purpose of building and maintaining public baths, museums, and libraries, why should parishes now be deprived of a right which they possessed before there was a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a budget—before the Norman set foot upon our shores, or there was a House of Commons worthy of the name—the right to tax themselves in order to maintain edifices which may be museums second in interest to none, and which may have been centres of enlightenment long before the days of Caxton and Guttenberg?

There is another view of the case which ought not to be overlooked by statesmen who regard a religious Establishment as a mere matter of police. Granting that Dissent teaches men to be neither drunkards nor thieves, is it calculated to make them as good citizens and as good neighbours as the Church? The answer must surely be a negative. The common consent of mankind has pronounced the famous descriptions of the old Puritans in “Hudibras” to be almost as applicable to modern Dissenters as to their ancient prototypes. Nor, indeed, would it be easy, if they were not, to account for the popularity of Butler’s oft-quoted lines; for even just satires, to say nothing of unjustifiable lampoons, rarely survive the persons against whom they are directed. Of course, men are often much better than the system to which they belong. There are hundreds—nay, thousands—of Dissenters whose Dissent is a mere accident of birth and education, and who are truly catholic at heart; but of Dissent in the abstract, no one who has either studied its history or is acquainted with its practical working will deny the applicability to it not only of Butler’s portraiture, but of another yet more famous description, qualified in the latter case, however, with the insertion or omission throughout of the important word—“not.” Dissent suffers not long, and is not kind—Dissent is envious—behaves itself unseemly—vaunts itself, and is puffed up—seeks every tittle of its “rights”—is easily provoked—thinks evil—gloats over every slip on the part of its opponents—attributes what is good in them to a wrong motive—will bear nothing of which it can rid itself by agitation or clamour—will put a good construction upon nothing when an evil oneis possible—hopes nothing—endures nothing. If this were not so, how would it be possible to account for its inveterate propensity to internal schism? The scriptural account of the Kingdom of Heaven is that it should grow as from a seed; but Dissent is propagated chiefly bycuttings. It is not yet two hundred years since the Kirk was established in Scotland, and yet there are no fewer than six sorts of Presbyterians. The case of Wesleyanism is still worse. Within sixty years after the death of its founder it had split into seven antagonistic sects. Whitfield himself quarrelled with Wesley, and his followers have, since his death, separated into two bodies. There are four sorts of Baptists. Of the Independents, Mr. Mann speaks with refreshing innocence as forming “a compact and undivided body.” It would be nearer the truth to say that they consist of nearly as many sects as there are meeting-houses. Nearly every congregation is of volcanic origin, and every one contains within it elements which might at any moment explode and shatter the whole concern.

That the writer may not be thought to be unsupported by facts, he will here summarize the history of Anabaptistic and Congregational Dissent in the first town to the annals of which he has ready access—Nottingham, his authority being Mr. Wylie’s local history, published in 1853. Nottingham, however, is a remarkably good example for the purpose. It has a manufacturing population of 57,000, having doubled itself since 1801. It is almost at the head of those places in which Dissent is most rampant, and the Church most depressed. It possessed, according to Mr. Mann’s table K, 35.2 Dissenting sittings to every hundred inhabitants, the only other places equal or superior to it in that respect being Merthyr Tydvil (52.4), Sunderland (35.2), Rochdale (36.5), and Swansea (42.8). It boasts of 74.1 per cent. of the whole religious accommodation within its boundaries, the only places having more being Merthyr (89.7), and Rochdale (78.7).

About the middle of the last century, then, the Presbyterian congregation on the High Pavement adopted Socinian tenets; and many families thereupon left it and joined a small congregation of Calvinistic Independents in Castle-gate. Their meeting-house was immediately enlarged, and it has ever since been considered the leading Dissenting place of worship. In 1761, a second secession from High Pavement, this time of Sabellians, built themselves a new meeting-house in Halifax-place. In 1801, they erected themselves a new building in St. Mary’s-gate, which has long since been closed. In 1798, a third swarm, again Calvinistic Independents, left High Pavement, and settled in the Halifax-place meeting-house, vacated by their Sabellian predecessors. In 1819, they built themselves a new meeting-house, called “Zion Chapel,” in Fletcher-gate, the old one being now a school. In 1822, a secession from Castle-gate built a new meeting-house in St. James’s-street; and six years later a secession from St. James’s-street built a meeting-house in Friar-lane. In 1804, a secession from Zion Chapel erected “Hephzibah Chapel,” which being in debt, was sold to the Universalists in 1808, and was soon afterwards converted into a National School. In 1828, another secession from “Zion Chapel” erected a meeting called “Bethesda Chapel.”The General Baptists at first met in a disused Wesleyan meeting-house, called “The Tabernacle,” which has long since been pulled down. In 1799 they built themselves a place in Stoney-street. In 1817 a quarrel arose between Mr. Smith, the senior pastor, and his junior, of whose pulpit talents he was said to be jealous. The congregation dismissed them both, and appointed a Mr. George. On Sunday, the 3rd of August, inthe same year, there was a personal conflict after the Donnybrook manner, between the partisans of Smith and George. The friends of Smith being beaten drew off, and built themselves a meeting-house in Broad-street. In 1850 there was another secession from Stoney-street, who built themselves a meeting-house on the Mansfield-road.The Particular Baptists originally occupied an ancient meeting-house in Park-street: but in 1815 they built themselves a larger place in George-street. In 1847 there was a secession of extra-Particulars. These met first in a room in Clinton-street, then in an old building which had been disused by the Quakers, and finally, in a splendid gothic edifice, which they built for themselves on Derby-road. The old meeting-house in Park-street fell into the hands of a congregation of the Scotch variety of the sect, whose peace has only been disturbed by the Bethesdians, who joined them in 1828, until they decided upon setting up for themselves.

The General Baptists at first met in a disused Wesleyan meeting-house, called “The Tabernacle,” which has long since been pulled down. In 1799 they built themselves a place in Stoney-street. In 1817 a quarrel arose between Mr. Smith, the senior pastor, and his junior, of whose pulpit talents he was said to be jealous. The congregation dismissed them both, and appointed a Mr. George. On Sunday, the 3rd of August, inthe same year, there was a personal conflict after the Donnybrook manner, between the partisans of Smith and George. The friends of Smith being beaten drew off, and built themselves a meeting-house in Broad-street. In 1850 there was another secession from Stoney-street, who built themselves a meeting-house on the Mansfield-road.

The Particular Baptists originally occupied an ancient meeting-house in Park-street: but in 1815 they built themselves a larger place in George-street. In 1847 there was a secession of extra-Particulars. These met first in a room in Clinton-street, then in an old building which had been disused by the Quakers, and finally, in a splendid gothic edifice, which they built for themselves on Derby-road. The old meeting-house in Park-street fell into the hands of a congregation of the Scotch variety of the sect, whose peace has only been disturbed by the Bethesdians, who joined them in 1828, until they decided upon setting up for themselves.

Thus it will be seen that of the nine new congregations enumerated above, not one was originated without a quarrel—a quarrel, too, of the worst kind, a personal one. Nobody can study the history of religious polemics without perceiving that the root of all that bitterness which has made theodium theologicuma proverb, is to be found in the tendency there is in men to transfer the indignation they might reasonably feel against error, from the error itself to those who hold it. If people would only consent to forget history and would conduct the argument upon purely abstract principles, even the Roman controversy might be made instructive and edifying; but somehow, before long, the debate wanders away from the truth or falsehood of the creed under discussion to that most irrelevant of all issues, the virtues or failings of those by whom it is professed. What shall we say, then, of a system which gives rise to controversies which, from their commencement to their close, are purely personal? Lest it should be supposed that the case of Nottingham is an isolated instance, here is an extract on which the writer stumbled the other day in a tract written in praise of Congregationalism, and stated on the title page to be “commended by J. Bennett, D.D.” It appears to be quoted from a work called “The Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge,” and the scene of the incident is stated to be “one of the principal cities of the United States:”—

A Baptist congregation, originally small, had increased so rapidly that an enlargement of the chapel became necessary. It was immediately effected. The congregation still continued to increase, and a second time it became necessary to enlarge. Everything still going on prosperously, a third enlargement, some time after, was proposed. The noble-minded pastor, however, thinking that he had already as much on his hands as any mere mortal could conscientiously discharge, with a generous contempt for his own interests, opposed this step, and suggested that they should exert themselves to raise a new interest, entirely independent of the old one. The people entered cheerfully into his design; nay, they made a nobler sacrifice than that of their money. For as soon as the new building was finished, one of the deacons, with a few of the most respectable members of the old church, voluntarily separated from it, and proceeded to form the infantcolonythat had branched off from the mother church. What is still more delightful, the two churches formed a common fund for the erection of a third chapel. This was soon accomplished. In a short time a large and flourishing church was the result; and, at the time our informant related this fact, all three churches were actually subscribing towards a fourth chapel. This is noble conduct. Who can tell how soon cities and towns might be evangelised, if this principle were sternly (!) acted upon? A somewhat similar fact has, we understand, been recently witnessed in a city of our own country, where some congregational churches have imitated their Baptist brethren of America. When will all ministers “go and do likewise?”

This is truly edifying and amusing. First of all, mark thehabitatof this Nonconformist phœnix, a congregation which has actually given birth to another without a preliminary quarrel. We must actually cross the Atlantic, and seek the phenomenon in the land where the penny-a-liner places his sea-serpents, and his other choicer wonders. To increase without envy, hatred, and uncharitableness is, it seems, to a Dissenter, something inexpressibly “noble”—and brotherly love is something that must be “sternly” acted upon! We may be quite certain that it is something the congregational sects very rarely see, or it would not throw them into such lamentable, and yet, in some sense, ludicrous contortions of surprise.

Perhaps some Dissenter will be whispering, after the manner of Mr. Roebuck, the three words, Gorham, Liddell, Denison; but thetu quoquewholly fails. In the first place, it is the surprising peculiarity of the present Church controversies that the noisiest, if not the weightiest, disputants are not Churchmen at all. In the next place, those who are Churchmen, and enter with any bitterness into the strife, are remarkable neither for their number nor their influence. The great party in the Church of England is, after all, the middle party; and however fierce the cannonade which the extreme left, and its allies outside the pale, may direct against the extreme right, their missiles fly harmlessly over the vast body which lies between. The truth is, the recent outburst of controversy, so far as the Church herself is responsible for it, is nothing but the natural recoil of that conservative sentiment which must always be a powerful feeling in a religious community, from doctrines and usages which had become unfamiliar. As the unfamiliarity passes away, the controversy will also gradually cease. Already the doctrines and usages in question have been unconsciously adopted by many of those who fancy themselves most opposed to them; and, indeed, if our doughtiest combatants would only take pains to understand what it is their antagonists really hold, they would often find that they are fighting against mere shadows. The recent suits in the ecclesiastical courts cannot but open the eyes of Churchmen to the extreme tenuity of the points in dispute. Take the S. Barnabas case. Everybody will remember the language which was applied to the “practices” revived by Mr. Bennett. “Popish,” “histrionic,” “mummery,” were the mildest terms in the repertory of that gentleman’s assailants. Those “practices” remain to this day—if anything, they have been elaborated rather than subjected to any mitigating process. Messrs. Westerton and Beal bring the matter before the proper tribunal; but what are the only issues they can find to raise? Such notable questions as whether the cross, which glitters on the crown, the orb, and sceptre of the Sovereign, which glows on the national banner, which crowns almost every churchgable in the land, with which every Churchman is marked at his baptism, which the very Socinians place upon their buildings, is, forsooth, a lawful ornament?—whether a table ceases to be a table by being made of stone?—whether the altar which has never been moved these two hundred years, and which nobody wants to move, must nevertheless be movable?—whether the altar vestments and the “fair linen cloths” used during Communion time, may have fringes, or must be plain-hemmed? Even if Dr. Lushington’s judgment should eventually be confirmed, if in this age of schools of design, Mr. Westerton’s crusade against art should prove successful, the alterations that would be made at S. Barnabas would be discernible by none out the keenest eyes—so little can there be found in matters ritual to fight about. Even in the Denison case the points of difference are almost as infinitesimal. It is true that under the revived act of Elizabeth—compared with which the laws of Draco seem a mild and considerate code—the Archdeacon has been sentenced to lose his preferments; but his doctrine on the Real Presence has, in sober fact, never been so much as challenged. His opponents, passing over all that was material in his propositions, have only attacked aquasicorollary which he has added to his main position, but which is, in reality, a completenon-sequitur. Whether Dr. Lushington is right or wrong, it is clear that a person holding the dogma of transubstantiation itself might, with perfect logical consistency, accept the ruling of the Court.

The differences between the highest and the lowest schools being so impalpable, it would seem absurd to suppose that the present controversies can have a much longer continuance. But whether that be so or not, there is a very important distinction (and one that is well worth the notice of statesmen) between the extension of the Church and the spread of Dissent. Church extension, as far as it goes, tends to compose differences. The consecration of a new church is almost invariably regarded as an occasion when party differences should be laid aside—the opening of a new meeting-house is too commonly the crowning act of an irreparable schism.

Another lesson which the report of Mr. Mann ought to teach Churchmen is the necessity there is for insisting upon the next religious census being made a complete and accurate one. The next religious census ought to include all such institutions as colleges, workhouses, hospitals, and the like—it ought to be enforced by the same penalties as the civil census; and it ought to be understood that all the returns would be printed in a blue book. With these precautions the Church need not fear the result. Even if the census of 1861 should prove no more trustworthy than that of 1851, it will remove a great deal of the misconceptions to which the latter has given rise. As far as one may judge, the work of church extension is progressing just as rapidly nowas it was ten years ago; the number of the clergy is just as rapidly augmenting;[33]and as all additional clergymen have now to be supported on the voluntary principle, we may presume that they follow the ordinary laws of supply and demand. We may, therefore, confidently expect that the number of church sittings open on the census morning in 1861 will not be fewer than six millions; and if there be an average attendance (which there was not on the last occasion) the number of persons present will be about three millions and a half. That the Dissenters will be able to open any more sittings than in 1851, is doubtful; for it must be remembered that since 1841 the Church has been annually absorbing a population equal to the entire yearly increase. But allowing them the same increase as has been assigned to them for the decade 1841–51, they will not be able to open more than four million sittings, and they will not have more than two millions and a half of attendants. This estimate is formed on the supposition that the next census will be made on the voluntary principle like the last. If a more complete and accurate account is taken, the result may be very different. It is quite within the bounds of possibility that the number of church attendants may turn out to be near four millions, while that of the Dissenters may not much exceed two.

Looking at all the facts of the case, there is every reason why the Church should take courage. Never since the Reformation has she had so much real power for good—never has she been so free from abuses. Each year sees thousands returning to the fold from which they or their parents had strayed; each year sees her enemies more and more “dwindle, peak, and pine.” Everything, too, points to a daily acceleration of the process. At the very time that Convocation is resuming its functions, the Non-conformist Union is compelled by internal dissentions to abandon their yearly meeting. What Mr. Miall calls “the dissidence of dissent”—that is to say, all in it that is pre-eminently narrow-minded, ignorant, and infected with bigotry—is concentrating itself, and is thus getting free the more respectable elements of modern non-conformity. Meanwhile the better class of Dissenters are doing all in their power to cut the ground from under their own feet. They are building “steeple-houses,” inventing liturgies, and adopting even choral services; in other words they are expressing in the most emphatic manner their opinion that the whole theory of dissent is wrong. For a short time a Brummagem ecclesiology may satisfy them; but in the end they will no doubt rank themselves amongst the best sons of the Church. The truth is, there is no other religious community at the present day which can bidso high for the reverent attachment of Englishmen. Whatever the claims of Rome—her antiquity, her catholicity, her apostolicity—they are equally the Church of England’s. Her succession of bishops is the same, her regard for the primitive church greater, her conception of Christendom far more grand. The glories of the ancient rituals belong equally to the Book of Common Prayer. It contains nothing material which was not in them, there was nothing material in them (save only certain invocations and legends of the saints) which is not in it. The Prayer Book is, in fact, nothing but a translation (magnificently done) of the older offices, a little compressed and simplified. The structure is the same—the mode of using it the same; and if it has lost somewhat of the multiplied ceremonies which were anciently observed, it has gained far more in the majesty and breadth which it has acquired from its thoroughly congregational character. Besides, it is throughout a reality, whereas the office books of the Latin Communion have, to some extent at least, become a sham. Thus the Breviary has long since been practically abolished as a public form of prayer, and even as a manual of private devotions for the clergy, that which forms its staple, the Book of Psalms, has been virtually reduced to a fourth its bulk. In nearly a thousand churches belonging to the Anglican communion the whole Psalter is publicly recited every month, and in twenty times that number it is said through twice every year.

If Protestant Dissenters boast of their enlightenment or of their reverence for Scripture, the Church may meet them on that ground likewise with the utmost confidence. The Prayer-book scarcely recognises a person to be a Churchman if he cannot read; and she directs some forty psalms and some thirty chapters of the Bible to be gone through every week. In a word, approach the Church of England from the most opposite points, and she will be found to possess exactly that attribute which a person might think is most admirable. The man who reverences antiquity—who has a taste for art—who has a passion for ritual—who would have everything “understanded of the people,”—he who insists upon ranks and orders—and he who stands up for popular rights, will equally find in the Church of this country the very quality which he deems important. Never was there any institution so “many-sided;” never one that became with so much success “all things to all men.” How she could ever have lost her hold on the affections of Englishmen is indeed wonderful; but, in truth, until lately, she has never had a chance of making herself understood.Now, for the first time, her theory is beginning to be appreciated; and the success which has attended her, wonderful as it has been, is probably but the foretaste of a future more brilliant than anything of which we can now form an idea.

[11]The above tables, it is right to say, have been obtained by subtracting Mr. Mann’s tables relating to the Church from the tables relating to places of worship in the aggregate.

[19]It is right to say that the decennial periods do not exactly agree. In Mr. Mann’s tables they are from 1801–11, &c.; in Mr. Bright’s return, from 1800–10, &c. It is not, however, apprehended that this circumstance would materially affect the calculation.

[25]Neale estimates the Nonconformists, in the time of Charles II., at a hundred and fifty thousand families, or three quarters of a million persons; in other words, at about a sixth of the population. If the Dissenters had in 1801 only 881,240 sittings, their number of morning attendants would be considerably less than 400,000; and, allowing each attendant to represent three persons, that would give a Dissenting population of about 1,100,000.

[26]The faculty of reasoning correctly in figures is not so ordinary an accomplishment as might have been supposed. Even so intelligent a writer as Mr. Henry Mayhew prints, at page 391 of his “Great World of London,” a table, of which the following is a specimen:—

1842.

Can neitherread norwrite (percent).

Can readonly (percent)

Convicted at assizes and sessions

39.79

27.21

Convicted—summarily

39.90

21.65

Average

39.84

24.43

—the average being found by adding together the two lines and dividing the sum by two. It need hardly, however, be pointed out that the result so arrived at could not be true unless the number of persons in each class was exactly the same. A man who had invested in the Great Western Railway £900 which yielded him two per cent., and £100 in the South Western which paid him six, might say, on Mr. Mayhew’s principle, that he had invested £1000 at 4 per cent; but he would soon find out that he would have to receive only £24 for his yearly dividend instead of £40—£2.8 percent. instead of £4.

[27]Mr. Mann calculates that without in the least interfering with juvenile labour, and without questioning the discretion of parents who kept children between the ages of 3 and 5 and 12 and 15 at home, there ought to have been more than three million children at school in 1851. It would be easy to show that this estimate is based upon nothing better than a series of blunders and bad guesses, but there is a much shorter mode of dealing with it. The children of the middle and upper classes do not remain under professional instructors at home or at school for a longer average period than six years. Now, the total number of children in 1851 between the ages of 4 and 10 was 2,484,866, or 13.8 per cent. of the entire population. The number actually on the school books was 2,200,000, or 12.2 per cent. So that either all the children in the country were at school, but the average time was one-eighth too short; or the average time was of the right length, but the number of scholars was one-eighth too few. The truth, of course, lay somewhere between these two alternatives. Since 1851 considerable progress has no doubt been made; but it unfortunately turns out that the effect of improved machinery is not to improve the general education, but merely to shorten the time allotted to schooling. It is found that if by better modes of tuition a child can be made sooner to acquire what its parents think sufficient for it to know, it is only so much the sooner taken away. It would therefore be vain to expect that the school per centage will ever be much higher than it was in 1851—at least, until the middle classes raise their own standard. Of the children on the schoolbooks in 1851, the per centage of actual daily attendants was 83—91 for the private, and 79 for the public scholar. In America, where the schools are wholly free, the per centage was still less. In Massachusetts, for example, it was only 75. In other words, the attendance in England and Wales in 1851 was 1,826,000 daily. If the 2,200,000 had all been private scholars, it would have been 2,002,000. On the other hand if there had been 2,400,000 free scholars, it would only have been 1,800,000. These figures will speak for themselves.

[33]The number of additional clergy ordained every year is stated to be 300. The number required to maintain the proportion of clergy to population which existed in 1851 would be under 200.

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