Founded before Church Schools. Dissenting Schools. Total.
1801 709 57 766
1811 350 60 410
1821 756 123 879
1831 897 124 1,021
1841 2,002 415 2,417
1855 3,448 1,156 4,604
Not stated 409 89 498
8,571 2,024 10,595
What, on the other hand, is the status of a majority of the 20,390
buildings returned to the Census office as “chapels” may be guessed from
the fact that the total number of professional dissenting ministers of
every description in 1851 was only 8,658.
A very tangible mode of settling the question which body has done most to
evangelise the people would be to inquire how much each has spent? The
“Society for the Liberation of Religion,” in a tract they have put forth,
grounded on the Census report, states that the achievements of
voluntaryism during the half century have been “astonishing.” On the
authority of Mr. Edward Baines, they assume that of the 16,689 dissenting
chapels opened since 1801, “only” 10,000 are separate buildings, and that
the cost of each has been “but” £1,500—in other words, that dissenters
have spent £15,000,000 on their meeting-houses during the last fifty
years! That would, indeed, be an “astonishing” result, but it is not
half so surprising as the perfervid imagination which dictated the
calculation. In point of fact, it is equivalent to saying that the
dissenters have provided three millions of permanent sittings, at the
rate of five pounds per sitting. The real truth, however, is that they
have not supplied more than two millions and three quarters of new
sittings of any kind; and when it is considered in how many cases opening
a new meeting-house means hiring a room or building, in the popular
phrase, “on tick”; when it is further borne in mind that the average cost
of churches is not above £5 or £6 per sitting, it will be admitted that
five or six millions sterling would be a remarkably liberal sum to put
down for the amount really raised by dissenters for the purpose of
self-extension during the half century. On the other hand, the sum which
must have been spent on churches cannot have been less than ten or twelve
millions—of which one-half has been raised during the ten years 1841–51.
The expenditure on church extension at the present moment is at least
five times as great as that of all the dissenters put together.
The votaries of _Iscariotism_, or the “cheap and nasty” in religion, will
perhaps turn this fact to account, and abuse Churchmen for lavishing such
large sums of money on a few buildings, while there is so much spiritual
destitution calling for relief. They will perhaps say, “Look what an
amount of spiritual agency the Dissenters bring to bear for half the sum
you expend; and, after all, the Dissenters ‘get more out of’ their
buildings than Churchmen.” At first sight, Mr. Mann’s tables appear to
justify this assertion; but here, as in every other respect, they only
mislead. According to Table 16 there were on the Census Sunday 190
services in every 100 dissenting places of worship; whereas, there were
only 171 in the same number of churches. But if this table be any
criterion, it would appear that the machinery of Dissent is, by
comparison, more efficient in the rural districts than in the towns; for
while the Non-conformists opened their town buildings on the average 2.10
times, and the Churchmen 2.06 times, they opened their country buildings
1.84 times and the Churchmen only 1.64 times. Yet it must be obvious
that the proportion of country congregations which possess a regular
ministry must be very small, the greater part of the 8,658 professional
Dissenting preachers being required for the towns. The fact is, the
majority of country meeting-houses are served by non-professional
persons. As soon as the morning service is over in the towns, a swarm of
“Spiritual Bashi-Bazooks,” issue forth, who, for the rest of the day,
play the more ambitious, if not more edifying, _rôle_ of preacher. The
sort of congregations to which they minister may be gathered from a
comparison of the number of meeting-houses and the number of sittings
open at the different periods of the day:—
Meeting Houses (open). Sittings (open).
Morning 11,875 3,645,875
Afternoon 11,338 2,506,116
Evening 15,619 3,983,725
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 any
results 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. Meeting Houses.
(per cent.) (per cent.)
Town districts 85 75
Rural ditto 62 43
Whole country 66 51
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 accommodation is 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 Furnished By dissent. Total.
(open) by the
required. Church.
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 5,240,342 2,293,300 2,068,732 4,362,032
increase
Total 10,398,013 4,852,645 3,645,875 8,498,520