Progress of the Church in London, 1837 - 1908. By the Bishop
of Dover. (S.P.C.K. Is. (3d.)—" I doubt," writes the Archbishop of Canterbury in the preface which he has furnished for this little book, "whether manual workers, artisan or labouring, in the great cities of modern Europe, have ever or anywhere been keen Churchgoers. What is, at all events, certain is that they were not Churchgoers in London either fifty or sixty or seventy or a hundred years ago." It is an unquestionable fact that many could not go because there were no churches to go to. In 1836 it was calculated that in thirty-four London parishes, with a population of 1,137,000, there was church-room only for 101,642: Anyhow, the means have been provided. In Chelsea (" Deanery" is understood) there were four churches, now there are ten ; in Ealing thirteen, now thirty-nine ; in Fulham three, now eighteen. (Mission chapels are not counted.) Four millions and a half have been spent on church-building in the last seventy years. "To what purpose," some one may say, "if the churches are empty ?" That is a big question. We do not know how far the statement is true. That the religious censuses on which it is founded are untrustworthy is quite certain.
Previous page
