In dedicating to you this edition of a Work, the contents of which
originally appeared under your editorial sanction, I avail myself of one
of the few pleasures of authorship. Of the defects of this little Volume
none can be more sensible than myself: you will, however, receive it as a
trifling acknowledgment on my part of the generous friendship you have
ever exhibited for an occasional colleague and
Yours faithfully,
J. EWING RITCHIE.
FINCHLEY COMMON,
_Nov._ 7, 1857.
THE
RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS
OF LONDON.
'Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,' said Terence, and the
sentence has been a motto for man these many years. To the human what
deep interest attaches! A splendid landscape soon palls unless it has
its hero. We tire of the monotonous prairie till we learn that man, with
his hopes and fears, has been there; and the barrenest country becomes
dear to us if it come to us with the record of manly struggle and womanly
love. This is as it should be, for
'The proper study of mankind is man.'
In pursuance with this axiom, we have devoted some little time to the
study of one section of modern men deservedly worthy of serious regard.
There is no subject on which men feel more intensely than they do on the
subject of religion. There are no influences more permanent or powerful
in their effects on the national character than religious influences. We
propose, then, to consider the pulpit power of London. There are in our
midst, men devoted to a sacred calling--men who, though in the world, are
not of it--who profess more than others to realise the splendours and the
terrors of the world to come--to whom Deity has mysteriously made known
his will. Society accepts their pretensions, for, after all, man is a
religious animal, and, with Bacon, would rather believe all the fables in
the Koran than that this universe were without a God. For good or bad
these men have a tremendous power. The orator from the pulpit has always
an advantage over the orator who merely speaks from the public platform.
Glorious Queen Bess understood this, and accordingly 'tuned her pulpit,'
as she termed it, when she sought to win over the popular mind. We deem
ourselves on a level with the platform orator. He is but one of
us--flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. The preacher is in a
different category: he in his study, we in the rude bustle of the world;
he communing with the Invisible and Eternal, we flushed and fevered by
the passing tumult of the day; he on the mount, we in the valley, where
we stifle for want of purer air, crying in our agony,
'The world is too much with us; late or soon,
Getting or spending, we lay waste our powers.'
We feel the disparity--that there ought to be an advantage on the
preacher's side--that there must be fearful blame somewhere, if his life
be no better than that of other men.
Before we begin our subject, we will get hold of a few facts and figures.
According to the very valuable Report of Horace Mann on Religious
Worship, it appears that there are, in England and Wales, 10,398,013
persons able to be present at one time in buildings for religious
worship, and that, for the accommodation of such, 34,467 places of
worship have been erected, leaving an additional supply of 1,644,734
sittings necessary, if all who could attend places of worship were
disposed to do so, the actual accommodation being 8,753,279 sittings. In
reality, however, the supply more than keeps pace with the demand.
'Returning,' says Mr. Mann, 'to the total of England and Wales, and
comparing the number of actual attendants with the number of persons
_able_ to attend, we find that, of 10,398,013 (58 per cent. of the whole
population) who would be at liberty to worship at one period of the day,
there were actually worshipping but 4,647,482 in the morning, 3,184,135
in the afternoon, and 3,064,449 in the evening. So that, taking any one
service of the day, there were actually attending public worship less
than half the number who, as far as physical impediments prevented,
_might_ have been attending. In the _morning_ there were absent, without
physical hindrance, 5,750,531; in the _afternoon_, 7,213,878; in the
_evening_, 7,333,564. There exist no data for determining how many
persons attended twice, and how many three times, on the Sunday, nor,
consequently, for deciding how many attended altogether on _some_ service
of the day; but if we suppose that half of those attending service in the
afternoon had not been present in the morning, and that a third of those
attending service in the evening had not been present at either of the
previous services, we should obtain a total of 7,261,032 separate
persons, who attended service either once or oftener upon the Census
Sunday. But as the number who would be able to attend at _some_ time of
the day is more than 58 per cent. (which is the estimated number able to
be present _at one and the same time_), probably reaching 70 per
cent.--it is with this latter number (12,549,326) that this 7,261,032
must be compared; and the result of such comparisons would lead to the
conclusion that, upon the Census Sunday, 5,288,294 able to attend
religious worship once at least, neglected to do so.'
The non-attendance appears to be greater in towns than in our rural
populations; and in this respect London is not unlike other places. It
is difficult to classify its religious developments; but the principal
denominations may be stated as follows: