RELIGIOUS CHART OF ENGLAND.
THOSE members of the Peerage who objected to the collection of religious statistics under the Census Act will find their refutation in the masterly volume which Mr. Horace Mann has presented to the public under the instructions of the Registrar-General. It is difficult to understand that accurate information could do harm in any case ; but perhaps on no subject has information been at once more desirable and more vague than on the state and distribution of religious sects in this country : and while through the present volume we may be said for the first time to know ourselves in our actual condition, so far as material indications show it, the general tendency of the report is at once to stimulate exertion and to afford cheering prospects for the issue of that exertion. The idea of col- lecting religious statistics appears to have originated with Major Graham, the Registrar-General; and notwithstanding the muti- lation of the act, the census-collectors were instructed to request information from the ministers of religions bodies. Although this request could not be legally enforced, it appears to have been complied with in the great majority of cases; and there are many tests which corebine to show that the general results are not very far from strict accuracy. The volume is a striking testimony to the utility of a public department in collecting information and condensing it to an available shape.
The number of creeds in England is a proverbial subject of re- mark ; but the reader who turns over the tables in this book will receive new ideas as to the surprising subdivision—a subdivision which prevents any one sect from being other than a minority. We cannot even except the National Church. Bat, independently of the minuter subdivisions of recognizable sects, such as the "Trinitarian Predestinarians," the "Free Gospel Christians," or the " Supralapsarian Calvinists," Mr. Mann reckons thirty-six religious communities or sects,—twenty-seven native and indige- nous, nine foreign ; besides a number of sects so small and uncon- solidated that they cannot be included in the list, and separate congregations, of which there are many. Not a few of the last eschew sectarian distinctions. There are," for example, ninety-six which simply call themselves Christians. The proportion of the distribution is in some degree indicated by the number of build- ings. Out of 34,467 places of public worship of all denomina- tions, there are belonging to the Church of England 14,077 churches, with more than 10,000 clergy, and an aggregate property estimated at more than 5,000,0001. Although not a majority of the whole people, the Church of England greatly exceeds any other section of the population in numbers. In one place, Mr. Mann calculates that the total number of persons attending divine worship in the churches of the Establishment is greater than in all the rest put together.
At page 156, there is a table showing the proportion per cent of attendance at sittings; which is remarkable in many respects. The highest in the list does not show a proportion of more than 45 per cent of actual attendance to the total number of sittings provided in places of public worship belonging to one sect ; the lowest on the list shows that in one sect the proportion is only 8 per cent. The highest figures apply to the Wesleyan Reformers ; the next sect who distinguish their zeal by the assiduity of attendance are the Particular Baptists ; the original Wesleyans stand much lower; the Church of England is sixteenth in the list, and only exhibits a proportion of 33 per cent; the lowest but one in the list are the Jews, who like the Unitarians show a proportion of 24 per cent; the lowest of all is the Society of Friends. The Dissenters appear to attend oftener and to bestow longer time on religious worship than members of the Established Church. In the unendowed sects, therefore, more use appears to be made of the places for public worship than in the Establishment. Mr. Mann carefully distin- guishes those who might attend, from those who would be prevented by infancy, sickness, or engagement with inevitable duties ; and he calculates that the total number of the population able to attend church is 10,398,000, or 58 per cent on the entire population of England. Of those, however, who might attend, by every test of age, of personal freedom, and of access to sittings, but stop away altogether, it is calculated that the number is 5,288,294. This last is a great fact, and it is the subject of earnest inquiry. One reason for non-attendance is the defective distribution of church-accommodation. In 34,467 churches, 10,212,563 sittings are provided—nearly the total wanted ; but ill-apportioned distri- bution reduces the total number available to 8,753,279 ; and a number of these are again rendered unavailable by being in churches which are closed at some portion of the day when services are usually held. The large town districts are particularly deficient in church-accommodation compared to the growth of the population ; and Mr. Mann calculates that 2000 more churches and chapels would be required—the size in towns to be larger than the average. Recently, however, there has been an increase ; by no means, indeed, sufficient to meet the want, but still tending to improvement : while the people have multiplied by 29 per cent since 1831, the sittings have increased by 56 per cent; the num- ber of sittings have increased from 50 per hundred persons in 1831 to 57 per hundred persons in 1851. The five millions, however, consist of persons who are free to attend, who could have access to sittings, but who choose to stay away. The reasons appear to be partly the maintenance in church of those social distinctions which offend the humbler classes ; also misconception, Mr. Mann thinks, as to the motives of religious ministers, who are erroneously supposed to be intent too much upon their own personal interests; and the want of aggressive means for carrying church-accommodation and religious preaching to the poor. It is probable that new chapels would be attended in towns where the old churches never will increase the numbers of their congre- gations ; but it is to be feared that there are also causes which do not come properly within the scope of Mr. Mann's inquiry. Besides want of sufficient zeal for the comfort of the poor, with which he charges the leaders of religious movements, there must also be a want of power in the clergy—perhaps a want of zeal, or a want of that sympathy with the human heart which would enable them to compel not only attendance but attention. If the inquiry were carried into the churches amongst the actual attendants, how much light might be thrown upon this part of the question, by taking the statistics of the wandering eyes, of the trivial conduct; or, on the other hand, if the inquiry were pushed into the pulpit, how many a mechanical sermon in the upper class of churches, how many a low and vulgar tirade of superstitious denunciation amongst the lower Dissenting chapels, alienates rather than attaches the con- gregation ! There is a repulsion both in the turgid vulgarity and in the apathy of the pulpit, which casts indifference over many a heart that duty brings to a place of worship, while the same revulsion keeps out considerable numbers. The working classes have all the simplicity of women ; they judge doctrinal questions by very instinctive standards ; and it is not only ignorance, or class prejudice, or bad clothing, which prevents many of them from entering a place of worship. There is one consolatory fact involved in this survey, which is complete not only in its extent but in its retrospective research. The volume grasps in one view a history of religion in England, from the early days of Druidism to the invasion of Paganism, Roman and Saxon ; the introduction of Christianity, the establish- ment of a national church under Henry the Eighth, down to the branching of the Protestant Reformation into the innumerable sects that exist around us. The reporter tells us not only what are the sects, but how each arose, and what is its tendency. But by the standards of faith,—from the Articles of the Church of Eng- land, which are included in the volume, to the declaration of the Congregational churches and other principal Dissenting bodies, down to the new " Catholic and Apostolic Church,"—Mr. Mann shows that the differences consist far more in ideas of church con- stitution or discipline than in the essentials of Christianity. The subdivision appears to be accompanied by another tendency, which has advanced us by rapid stages towards a social and spiritual har- mony between sects severed by constitution and discipline. This result Mr. Mann attributes partly to the perfect freedom in this country which admits the full development of religious ideas. The explanation is quite philosophical; for religion must essentially be one in origin, and there is but little structural variety throughout every sect, in its true tabernacle, the human heart. The balance of opportunity—place, power, and prescription—lies with the Church of England ; the balance of zeal, at present, speaking generally, is with the unendowed bodies. But while this report shows how much remains to be done, even by the communities possessing that zeal, and by the Establishment possessing that opportunity, it also shows that the apparent antagonisms do not penetrate to essentials so deeply as we supposed, and that there is a dawning tendency in the English mind towards the more modest and candid cultivation of a common Christianity.
Previous page
