The Baptists have had their annual meeting, and have reported
on their own progress,—which seems considerable, as they say that they now number 180,000 souls. They have, of course, put their spoke in the wheel of the Elementary Education Act, and added their voice to Mr. Miall's for the disestablishment of the Church. There was some little debate on the assertion made in one of the meeting's resolutions, that under the 25th clause of the Education Act the Government pay for religious education,—which is indeed a very disputable assertion,—but the vast majority of the meeting was on the side of the resolutions. The Dissenters, at least the orthodox Dis- senters, though many of them by no means friendly either to secular education or to Disestablishment, yet, like all other bodies, usually move altogether if they move at all, and it would be idle to expect that the reluctance of a minority will much dimi- nish the weight of the Dissenters' vote.
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