The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858.

mourer for peace with foreign nations, at the sa-
crifice of national influence and honour. He
would have war, war to the knife, amongst all
classes in these islands; and he seems to desire
external peace mainly that his countrymen at
home may be untnolested in carrying on an in-
testine strife. Assuredly he is the bitter enemy
of every established institution in this country,
and of every clam in it, not excepting the lowest,
for to that class, should his theories prevail, he
will prove a false friend; and mayhap, if he live
long enough, he may yet share the final fate of
poor Air. THomAs itrrwooo!

ENGLAND'S CHURCH 'AND ENGLAND'S
PEOPLE.
" IN England only one-third of the people have
" any connection whatever with the Established
1° Church." This statement Mr. Biticurr palmed
off upon his Birmingham audience, as an ascer-
tained fact which he considered was not as gene-
rally known as it deserved to be. Well might
the Honourable Gentleman observe that " pro-
" bably many persons in that meeting were not
" aware of this fact." Very few persons, any-
where, we imagine, are " aware " of it. We take
the liberty of doubting whether the Honourable
Member tbr Birmingham is " aware" of it him-
self. He does not, indeed, put it forth on his
own authority. He takes shelter under an offi-
cial statement ; " the statistics of the Registrar-
General '' are the warrant he alleges for an
assertion so little in accordance with what is
generally believed to be the fact.
It is rather unfortunate for Mr. BRIGHT'S ar-
gument that even the very questionable authority
of the Registrar-General's statistics does not bear
out his statement. The estimate of the compa-
rative strength of the various religious denomi-
nations, in the Report on Religious Worship
founded on the Census of 1851, proceeds, partly
on the amount of accommodation provided in
their respective places of worship, and partly on
the numbers returned as having been in atten-
dance on their respective services, on one parti-
cular Sunday in one particular year, the " Census
Sunday." Under the former head the Report
states that, out of every 100 sittings, the Church
of England provides in counties 51.9, or rather
more than one-half, in large towns 47.8, or rather
less than one-half--the remainder being made up
by the numberless " other churches," Popish and
Protestant, Christian and Jewish, all put together.
The report of attendance on the Census Sunday
gives, out of a population of 16,738,695 for Eng-
land—exclusive of Wales, to which Mr. BRIGHT'S
statement does not apply-5,732,719 worshippers
of all denominations, of whom 2,838,318, or
nearly one-half, are set down as attendants on
the services of the Church of England.
Now, allowing for argument's sake that the
data of the Registrar-General's Report on Reli-
gious Worship are to be relied on for ascertaining
the relative proportions of Churchmen and Dis-
senters of every kind, it is clear that Mr.
BRIGHT'S statement is not in accordance even
with those data. The very authority on which
he professes to found his statement convicts him
of the grossest exaggeration. As represented by
" the statistics of the Registrar-General," the
ground occupied by the Church of England, as
compared with every denomination of noncon-
formity, is not one-third, but one-half. But a
man who assumes, as Mr. BRIGHT did in his Bir-
mingham speech, to sketch out the true policy of
the British empire, ought not to have been igno-
rant of; or, if he was cognizant of it, he ought not
to have suppressed, the fact that the correctness
of the returns of the Census of 1851, on matters
connected with religious worship, as well as of
the calculations founded upon them, was at the
time publicly impugned, both in and out of Par-
liament, and that no satisfactory answer has ever
been given to the objections raised against those
so-called statistics; on the contrary, their un-
reliable character was as good as admitted by the
very Government under whose auspices that
famous piece of statistical legerdemain was per-
petrated.
We will not weary the patience of our readers
by a recapitulation of the arguments by which
Mr. lIORACE MANN'S estimate of the relative
strength of the Church and the Nonconformist
bodies was proved to be fallacious. Fortunately,
we have other data of a less doubtful character

by which that estimate, and Mr. BRIGHT' asser.
tion, may easily be corrected. From the official
return of marriages contracted in England and
Wales, it appears that not less than eighty-four
per cent. of the whole number are solemnized by
the clergy of the Church of England, eleven per
cent. by Popish, Protestant, and Jewish ministers
of religion, and five per cent. by the newly in.
vented machinery for legalising concubinage on
the secular principle, the Registrar's office. Con-
sidering the facilities afforded by recent legisla-
tion for the repudiation of all religion whatever,
in connection with the marriage tie,—considering,
moreover, the exertions made by Dissenting
Ministers to keep the marriages of their flocks
within the range of their own ministrations, and
the pride which strict Dissenters take in repu-
diating the offices of the Church,—the above
fact alone speaks volumes as to the hold which,
in spite of all the efforts made of late years to
depose her from her national position, the Church
of England still has upon the minds and hearts of
the great body of the people. To declare of a
Church to whose ministrations eighty-four per
cent. of the population have recourse on what is
to every man and woman the most important
event of' their lives, that " only one-third of the
" people have any connection whatever with her,"
is a stretch of assurance not very usual with those
who wish their words to have any weight with
the public.

The proportion of marriages solemnized by the
Church of England is not, however, the only test
which we possess for ascertaining the extent of
her influence over the population. Another and
a not less reliable teat is furnished by our educa-
tional statistics. In the last Charge delivered to
his Diocese by the late Bishop of LONDON, that
Prelate, commenting upon the unfairness of the
Report on Religious Worship founded on the
Census of 1851, quoted—from a Report recently
presented to Parliament by the same Mr. MANN,
of whose authority Mr. BRIGHT has, as we have
seen, made such unwarrantable use—the state-
ment that out of a total number of 10,595 schools
for the labouring classes in England and Wales,
8,571 were connected with the Established
Church, and only 2,024 with other religious
bodies ; and that out of a total number of
1,048,851 scholars only 247,344 belonged to the
latter class of schools, while 801,507 were re-
ceiving their education in Church schools,
towards the support of which upwards of a
million sterling per annum was contributed by
Churchmen. It thus appears that for the educa-
tion of the masses the Church provides 81 per
cent. of the schools, and trains 76 per cent. of
the scholars; a proportion which Mr. MANN
himself is of opinion would be yet more favour-
able to the Church, if mixed endowment and
subscription schools, as well as private schools.
were included, the proportion in the whole of
the schools being estimated by him at 83 per
cent. of the schools, and 78 per cent. of the
scholars connected with the Church.

Results of a precisely similar character are ob-
tained on referring to the Return made by the
Committee of Privy Council of schools built or
enlarged with aid from the Parliamentary grant
during the last nineteen years,—that is, from 1839
to 1857, both inclusive. During that period the
Committee of Council made grants for the erec-
tion or enlargement of 2,930 schoolhouses, afford-
ing accommodation to 536,710 additional scholars,
to the amount of 718,555/. Of the schools in
question 2,676, or 91 per cent., are Church
schools ; 254, or 9 per cent., schools belonging
to other religious communities; of the additional
accommodation, that for Church scholars amounts
to 468,395, or 87 per cent., that for scholars of
other denominations to 68,315, or 13 per cent.
Towards the erection of these schools the
promoters contributed 1,705,1431., of which
1,533,303/., or 90 per cent., was contributed for
Church schools, and 171,8401., or 10 per cent.,
for Nonconformist schools. Whether, then, We
looK to tne lower classes, for whose benefit, or to
the upper and middle classes, by whose voluntary
contributions, these schools were provided, evi !ten
find the Church ahead of all the other religious
bodies put together, in a proportion varymg
from 87 to 91 per cent. ; and that notwithstanding
the fostering care bestowed upon Nonconformist
efforts by the Committee of Council, whose anti-
church leanings are significantly evidenced. by
the fact that upon the 1,533,303/. subsc. nbed
for the promotion of Church education the

grants amount to 626,1011., or not quite
411 for every 1001. subscribed ; while
epo'n the 171,8401. contributed by promoters
ofNonconformist schools, the grants amount to
92,4531., or nearly 541. for every 100/. so contri-
buted. Nor do even these figures sufficiently
represent the extent of the share which the
Church takes in the education of the masses; for
it is notorious that, in consequence of the at-
tempts made by the Committee of Council to
break down the distinctive doctrinal teaching of
the Church, many Church schools have, during
the period specified, been erected or enlarged
without aid from the Parliamentary grant, of
which the different classes of Nonconformists
round little or no difficulty in availing themselves,
owing to the conciliatory spirit in which they
were met by the Committee of Council.
Looking at these unmistakeable indications of
the position which the Church holds in England
and Wales—for the educational statistics include
the latter,—it is difficult to describe, in " Parlia-
mentary language," the audacious misrepresenta-
tion that " in England only one-third—in Wales
" only one-fifth—of the people have any con-
nection whatever with the Established Church."
That a gentleman capable of giving utterance
to such a misrepresentation, in what pretends to
be a statesmanlike review of the position of the
country and of the principles on which it ought
to be governed, should, under the joint inspira-
tion of Radicalism and the ecclesiastical traditions
of GEORGE Fox, indulge in virulent invective
against the Chief Ministers of the Church, can sur-
prise no one. To describe the Bishops of the
Church as " creatures of monstrous, nay, of adul-
"terous birth," may serve to raise a laugh in a mixed
assembly such as that whose ear the Honourable
Member for Birmingham did his best to tickle
with that basest of appliances, vulgar and un-
measured abuse of men in place ; but it is un-
worthy of a man of Mr. BRIGHT'S pretensions,
and, we will add, of the position to which his
abilities and earnestness of purpose have raised
him in public estimation. Political delinquencies
of this kind bring, as the Honourable Gentleman
will find to his cost, their own punishment with
them ; to do more than call attention to them
would be a waste of words.

With this remark we might, if the Hon. Gentle-
man affected no other role than that of tribune of
the people, whose object it is to curry favour with
the multitude by a turbulent assertion of so-called
"popular rights," have taken our leave of him ;
but since he is bent upon playing the statesman,
and makes a parade of his wish "to abide almost
" religiously"—whatever that may mean—" by
" the ancient landmarks of our Constitution," he
must pardon us for the suggestion that speeches
like that on which we have commented, ill
become the lips of one who lays it down as an
axiom that " every man who writes an article in
" a newspaper, and every man who stands up on
" a platform to address his countrymen "—even as
he himself did at Birmingham,—" ought to do it
" under a solemn sense of responsibility." To
the moral of that axiom—which we are very far
indeed from disputing—the Hon. Gentleman has
been too sadly wanting in his recent speech, the
aims of which are as unfair as its assertions are
untrue; and he will do well to get rid of this
beam in his own eye, before he again offers to
meddle with the motes which he fancies he dis-
cerns in our Constitution in Church and State.

IRELAND'S TERRITORIAL

REVOLUTION.
ON this subject,—incidentally introduced by us
into a former article on the law of real property,—
we were favoured last week with a communica-
tion from a correspondent whose strictures, on
account of the high respect which his name justly
Commands, we cannot pass over in silence. At
the outset we think we have some reason to
.complain of a seeming—and, we feel quite sure,
unintentional—misrepresentation. The way in
which our correspondent has worded his reference
to our
remarks is calculated to convey the im-
pression that we represented the change made in
the Irish law of property, by the establishment
of the Encumbered Estates Court, simply as "a
change;, " he himself qualifying that " change„
414 'enormous," and adding, as if by way of' cor-
rection, in a parenthesis, " revolution is a more
varrect word." This is scarcely doing justice to